New skills, new mindset: Leading marketing in an AI future
MARKET VIEW
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Produced by:
Julien Harazi
Marketing Leader at Keyloop
about
Julien Harazi
Julien Harazi is a marketing leader at Keyloop, a technology company serving the automotive industry. With extensive experience in B2B marketing and digital transformation, Julien has successfully transitioned his team from AI experimentation to full production implementation. He is recognised for driving measurable business value through technology adoption while developing team capabilities in an evolving marketing landscape.
How have you moved your marketing organisation from AI experimentation to embedded adoption, and what advice would you offer leaders beginning this journey?
We've transitioned from experimentation to production relatively quickly. AI is now embedded within our way of working—it's no longer optional, it's essential. We're using Copilot in Office 365, Jasper AI for content creation, and various other tools integrated throughout our workflows. As a marketing organisation, we should position ourselves at the forefront of this transformation. It's also important that we link the use of AI with clear business outcomes—for content production, we can demonstrate gains in productivity and speed of delivery.
With any significant change, you typically find three groups: natural adopters, those who need encouragement, and those who are more resistant. Our approach has been to identify and empower champions—team members who are enthusiastic and willing to share their experiences. Our creative team has been particularly receptive, demonstrating tangible benefits to colleagues who were initially uncertain. When people see real examples from their peers, it helps them understand how AI can enhance their own work.
My advice to leaders would be to frame AI as an opportunity rather than a disruption. Those who develop these skills now will be significantly more capable than peers who delay adoption. The key is communicating benefits clearly and fostering an environment where people feel confident to experiment. This is a rare opportunity that may only come once in a career—similar to the rise of the internet twenty-five years ago.
As AI handles more routine tasks, how are you identifying where marketing adds the greatest value, and how has the marketer's role evolved?
Generative AI excels when tasks are repeatable and follow recognisable patterns. The first step I took with my team was to have them identify repetitive aspects of their roles that consume time without requiring strategic input. This frees people to focus on what truly differentiates us: analysis, decision-making, and creative problem-solving.
For example, team members were previously spending considerable time updating spreadsheets rather than analysing the data within them. The real value lies in analysis because it informs better decisions. We now use AI to compile and prepare data, allowing our people to focus on extracting meaningful insights. Tasks like summarising meetings, which were time-consuming and often inconsistent, are now handled efficiently through automation.
The fundamental shift is that execution, previously the primary focus, can now be supported by tools. This enables us to invest more time in strategic briefing and priority-setting. Even at operational levels, marketers are becoming more strategic because they have capacity that simply didn't exist before. Another benefit is that AI puts capabilities within the hands of non-developers. We've begun using tools like Lovable for prompt-based design work, even building web pages. Previously, we were very dependent on developers for such tasks.
How is AI transforming the relationship between marketing and sales, particularly in lead qualification?
AI is having a meaningful impact on marketing and sales alignment. It enables us to identify subtle buying signals, detect leads more effectively, and score them with greater accuracy. This reduces friction between the effort requested of sales teams and the actual revenue potential of leads.
Lead qualification is increasingly being supported by AI in forward-thinking organisations, which makes sense given the systematic nature of the process. Core qualification tasks—determining whether leads match your ideal customer profile, assessing company size, revenue, market fit, role seniority, and budget authority—are well-suited to automation. These checks don't necessarily require human judgement and can be performed consistently at scale.
However, humans remain essential for building genuine connections and providing personal engagement. I envision qualification teams spending more time on meaningful conversations while AI handles administrative groundwork. The combination of human relationship-building and AI efficiency creates a more effective process overall. Additionally, AI can work far more quickly than manual methods, and speed of response is often linked to likelihood of conversion.
What will distinguish marketing leaders who navigate this transformation successfully from those who find it challenging?
The defining characteristic will be adaptability—embracing change rather than resisting it. Equally important is maintaining focus on tangible results: return on investment, productivity gains, and measurable improvements. If programme budgets decrease, that capacity might shift toward technology investment. Quantifying impact is essential for demonstrating value and securing continued investment.
For any tool we consider adding to our technology stack, we first develop a business case to assess its potential value. There's a risk of treating AI as simply the latest trend. What matters is actual value: productivity improvements, quality enhancements, and cost efficiencies. It's easy to become distracted by constantly evaluating new tools without implementing them effectively, and that approach doesn't serve the business.
Marketing leaders who succeed won't necessarily be the most proficient AI users themselves. Rather, they'll be those who inspire and enable their teams. Success is collective—while some team members may be more hesitant, the goal is progressing together. Leaders who foster collaboration and create opportunities for shared learning will achieve better outcomes than those attempting to drive change alone.
about
Keyloop
Keyloop is a leading provider of automotive retail solutions, with more than 40 years of industry expertise and over 14 billion digital interactions captured to date. Its cutting-edge solutions cater for every stage of the automotive retail ecosystem, connecting retailers, OEMs, financiers, and fleet suppliers with their consumers via innovative Experience-First software.
Spanning supply, demand, operations and ownership, Keyloop’s dynamic Automotive Retail Platform optimises the vehicle sales process for customers and consumers alike, increasing both vehicle and customer lifetime value through seamless automation and personalisation. Its technology serves more than 20,000 retailers, more than 80 OEMs, 80% of the top 10 UK leasing companies, and 60% of brands within Europe’s financier space.
About 6sense
6sense is on a mission to revolutionise the way B2B organisations create revenue by predicting customers most likely to buy and recommending the best course of action to engage anonymous buying teams. 6sense Revenue AI is the only sales and marketing platform to unlock the ability to create, manage and convert high-quality pipeline to revenue. Customers report 2X increases in average contract value, 4X increases in win rate and 20-40% reduction in time to close deals. Know everything, do anything, with 6sense.