IAA CMO Talk 2026: AI as an operating model

Moderated by Silvana Imperiali (Managing Director DACH & CZ, Biggie), Fredrik Borestrom (Director International Agency Development, LinkedIn), Tiziana D'Onofrio (Marketing Director, Groupe Mutuel) and Borja Marin (Head of Marketing, Holcim Switzerlan) discussed how new technologies are shaking up marketing as part of the IAA Swiss Chapter, chaired by Chantal Landis. And by the end of the talk, you think you understand why the basic craft of all things could contribute the most to survival: Brand management as orientation, creative impact platforms as difference, workflows as a performance engine.

There was something pleasantly unromantic about the talk. No tool show, no "everything will be easy". Rather, a realism that is at home in the CMO's everyday life: those who only see AI as a productivity aid may gain minutes. Those who think of AI as an operating model will gain room for maneuver. And those who miss out on this will not lose out to "the AI", but to marketers who learn faster, make better decisions and build impact into the system more consistently.

From SEO to GEO: Visibility is being renegotiated

Tiziana D'Onofrio brought a term to the table early on that seems like a new compulsory subject: GEO, Generative Engine Optimization. The logic behind it is brutally simple: when AI systems become the first port of call for research, comparison and decision preparation, brand and content expertise must be findable and clearly "readable" there. Not just for humans, but for machines that sort, condense and display content.

The point is more than an SEO upgrade. It's about the new form of relevance. Anything that isn't structured, well documented and consistently narrated disappears from perception faster than a search engine algorithm change ever could in the past. GEO is therefore not just a discipline, but an imposition: content must once again deliver more substance, because AI fog is noticed more quickly.

AI with responsibility: human oversight as a standard, not a fig leaf

D'Onofrio linked the technology issue to something that is often misunderstood as a brake in the marketing hustle and bustle: Responsibility. At Groupe Mutuel, AI is "not an option", but a clear mandate "from the very top". At the same time, it is equally clear that AI never acts alone. Validation, legal checks, data expertise, strict process steps. Not as a fear reflex, but as professionalization.

The decisive factor here was the focus on the people in the team. Acceptance does not come from PowerPoints, but from skills. Further training is not an HR side-issue here, but an operational requirement: AI is not just a technology topic, but a usage and mindset topic. "AI first" as a slogan is ultimately of no interest to anyone. What remains relevant is who makes better decisions, communicates more clearly and learns faster with AI.

The breakthrough: AI is not a productivity tool, but a different operating model

The most concrete example of this was a lead generation campaign for new customers in Switzerland, which Groupe Mutuel designed for the first time "with AI at its core". A small, interdisciplinary team combined digital marketing, brand, customer experience and other competencies. AI was not only used for asset creation, but across the entire workflow.

The remarkable finding: the real gain was not primarily in "better" results, but in a new way of working. Instead of building a campaign and rolling it out widely, the team was able to test and adapt messages faster, tailor content to profiles and languages more quickly and invest more time in decision-making rather than execution. The hard part was not the technology, but the relearning: moving away from the desire to perfect everything manually to the ability to train AI agents to deliver repeatably.

The sentence that remained in the room was a mindset shift with an announcement: initially "Why should we use AI?", later "What part of marketing should actually still be done without AI?". And this is exactly where AI shifts from "tool" to "operating model": once workflows are established, they become reusable, scalable and suddenly a strategic weapon under time and budget pressure.

Holcim: Transformation needs new target group logic, not just new claims

Borja Marin brought in a B2B perspective that tends to get lost in the AI frenzy: in industries where products and promises are physically tangible and regulated, credibility is not a stylistic device, but a duty. Holcim has been in a transformative phase with a new vision since the previous year. The core business remains solid, while the portfolio is being strengthened with ECO solutions that address measurable CO₂ reduction.

The strategic shift was particularly exciting: away from pure materials and towards complete building solutions, with the aim of achieving a 50:50 sales mix of materials and solutions by 2030. Marketing therefore not only means "more content", but also entering the value chain earlier and more broadly: Architects, urban planners, developers, investors, engineers, cities. These players buy performance, compliance, decarbonization and long-term investment value. And they demand different narratives, different evidence, different documentation.

Marin provided an image that sticks in the mind: Every week, somewhere in the world, the equivalent of a city the size of Madrid is being built. That makes the scale clear. And it puts pressure on marketing to translate sustainability in such a way that it functions as a benefit, proof and basis for decision-making.

Sustainability: Data first, references as evidence

When asked how Holcim translates sustainability values into marketing, the answer was disarmingly pragmatic: "In the construction industry, everything has to be backed up by data. Percentage CO₂ reductions, EPDs, proof of circularity. "Credibility is everything."

Marin described reference projects as particularly effective: Not generic campaigns that talk about products, but icons that show what decarbonization looks like in reality. References thus become a marketing tool because they also provide evidence. And because they make it clear that "new from old" is more than just a nice phrase.

LinkedIn perspective: Purpose must not be a sticker

Fredrik Borestrom picked up on a classic when talking about sustainability, but made it sharp: consumers and customers quickly see through it when purpose is simply "stuck on" at the end. Sustainability must be integrated into activities, production and the supply chain. Not just in communication.

He then turned the spotlight on his own industry. Advertising and marketing have a considerable carbon footprint, which is surprisingly rarely talked about. The consequence of this is that media supply chains need to be examined; efficiency is not just a question of costs, but also of emissions. Borestrom referred to Ad Net Zero and the idea of common framework conditions and measurement methods.

The mental knot came about through creativity: the better the creation, the greater the impact, the fewer playouts are needed. A good idea instead of constant fire. This is not just beautiful idealism, but hard logic when impressions and emissions are considered together.

Learn-it-all instead of know-it-all: the mindset that will decide 2026

When asked about skills and mindsets for marketing executives, Borestrom came up with a formula that could be used as a CMO mantra: The only thing that is constant is change. As an example, he cited Satya Nadella's cultural shift at Microsoft from "know-it-all" to "learn-it-all". Continuous learning does not become self-optimization folklore, but competitiveness.

In addition, there was very specific AI fluency: anyone who doesn't use tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini or Perplexity will be left behind. Not because tools are magical, but because someone who works fluently with AI delivers faster and better. Borestrom put it bluntly: AI won't take your job, but someone who masters AI might.

And then came a point that many marketing teams have treated like a foreign word for too long: Financial literacy. Marketing has to justify investments, build business cases and exert influence at C-level. If you want to have a say there, you have to speak the language of quarterly figures, investor logic and risk-benefit considerations. Brand awareness alone is not a boardroom language, even if it remains important.

He placed mental health as the fourth axis. In a macroeconomically and geopolitically charged environment, team health is not a soft topic, but a prerequisite for performance. If you cut teams to the bone or break them down, you lose impact, no matter how modern the tech stack is.

Holcim Plus and AI champions: When transformation becomes operational

Marin made it clear that AI and digitalization are not a marketing playground at Holcim, but part of the company's transformation. The approach of not only prescribing best practices top-down but also driving them in the markets was interesting. To this end, Holcim uses AI champions in teams to provide guidance where the flood of tools would otherwise block.

With "Holcim Plus", Marin outlined an AI-supported, standardized customer platform as a one-stop store: managing quotes, triggering orders, tracking deliveries in real time, retrieving documentation. On the data side, this involves real-time order data, delivery performance analysis, anticipation of demand patterns, improved delivery accuracy, cross-selling and proactive customer support. Marketing, sales and operations are moving closer together here. And this is also a form of brand management: trust is created when processes stick.

Q&A: "AI takes time" - yes. And that's exactly why you need a plan.

The question that is bubbling under the surface in almost every marketing team came from the audience: Where does AI have a productive effect, while in reality it eats up time with no business impact?

The answers were surprisingly consistent. Yes, implementation takes time. Yes, you often don't know where to start at first. And that's exactly why you need learning structures, champions, concrete use cases and a clear separation between low-value and high-impact tasks.

D'Onofrio argued that AI shifts the focus in the long term: away from operational minutiae and towards creativity and strategy. Not as a staff reduction tool, but as a change of working model. Marin saw the leverage in efficiency gains in coordination, presentations and internal loops. Borestrom focused on automating administration and basic analyses to free up time for valuable tasks. NotebookLM emerged as a practical everyday insight: Processing knowledge faster, making content usable as audio, saving time slots that would otherwise crumble between calls.

Borestrom's advice to procrastinators was correspondingly clear: These technologies are not going away. You have to test them in a safe, controlled environment, establish human oversight and critically scrutinize tasks: What takes time away from the team without delivering impact? What can be automated without losing quality and responsibility?

D'Onofrio formulated the entry lever pragmatically: take a specific topic, a real challenge, and start there. In content marketing in particular, AI quickly brings benefits if you learn to prompt correctly and check properly.

Final round: Curiosity, anticipation, daily micro-progress

Finally, it became personal without becoming arbitrary. Marin remained curious and close to the field: close to customers, close to stakeholders, so that the transformation in the Swiss market also takes effect commercially. D'Onofrio set an ambitious goal: to move marketing from "persuasion" towards "anticipation", i.e. to better serve customers with data before they even ask. Borestrom rejected the big New Year's resolution and focused on "marginal gains", small daily improvements that add up to real development over the course of a year. His guiding principle as a professional and personal ambition: leave people better than you found them.

Classification: The real danger is not AI - but standstill

The IAA CMO Talk 2026 showed how marketing is currently divided into two camps. Some are collecting tools and hoping that speed will emerge. The others are rebuilding workflows, decision-making logic and governance in such a way that speed becomes possible. AI is the accelerator, but not the engine. The engine is craftsmanship plus system: brand management, creative impact, clean document management, financial reasoning skills and teams that learn as a routine.

2026 does not reward panic. But it punishes inertia. If you want to stay up to date, you don't just need new technology, but a new combination of experience, creativity, intelligence and a dose of carefreeness. It was precisely this mix that was noticeable throughout the talk, even if it sounds different in very different sectors.