Every CMO is being told to replace people with AI agents as fast as possible. Keri McGhee, CMO at Attentive, is doing some of that — and deliberately refusing to do other parts of it. The line she's drawn between the two is the most useful rubric we've heard in months.
Attentive runs SMS, email, push, and RCS for thousands of consumer brands — a category where the temptation to automate everything is maximum. But Keri's strongest customer-loyalty moment last year wasn't an AI agent. It was a single text from a real human after a graduation dress arrived without its matching belt. 'I will buy a million more things from them.'
This episode is the rubric: where AI is unlocking near-100% revenue lifts, where iOS 26 just quietly killed 80% of your text marketing, and the customer moment no agent count can replace.
What you'll learn
• Why brands using AI hands-off-the-wheel are seeing near 100% revenue lift — and the two customers proving it
• How iOS 26 broke text marketing for 80%+ of devices, and the 2Tap opt-in fix most brands don't know about
• The personalization rubric that gets 91% of consumers to say yes
• The metric CFOs are asking marketing leaders about right now instead of CAC
• The one customer moment that no AI agent can replicate — and why it's the only outcome that matters
Connect
Chapters
0:00 Stop Selling AI, Start Proving Outcomes
1:16 What Changed in AI Marketing This Year
2:03 Why 90% of CMOs Experiment, But Few Scale
5:29 Why Attentive Doesn’t Lead With “AI” Anymore
6:32 Channel Affinity: Fewer Messages, Better Revenue
8:06 100% Revenue Lift
10:55 Identity AI and the Send-Time Unlock
12:34 The Best Practice Killing Your Deliverability
14:16 iOS 26 and the New Rules for Text Marketing
15:26 Why 2Tap Matters for SMS Consent
17:41 LLM Discovery, GEO, and the New Search Funnel
21:23 Why Consumers Distrust AI But Use It to Shop
24:22 The Tuckernuck Story: When AI Still Feels Personal
28:27 Why CMOs Have to Get Their Hands Dirty
32:14 The KPI Replacing CAC
34:21 Why Martech Is Consolidating Again
36:31 How to Spot Real AI vs. Rebranded AI
38:00 Stop Counting Agents. Measure the Experience.
43:10 The Skill AI Can Quietly Take From You
44:24 How Brands Should Prep for BFCM
46:38 Lightning Round: Trends, Skills, and Frameworks