Share
ON_Discourse
The Modern Marketing Playbook
Season 1, Ep. 34
•
We are broadcasting Toby’s panel at Web Summit in Lisbon, featuring Dan and Don McGuire, CMO of Qualcomm. Don and Dan think the future of marketing is "human-led, technology-powered.” Behind that concept is a new org-chart, workflow, and a concept called PTSB - permission to sh*t the bed. It sounds a lot different than automation…
Details in the show:
- The problem with the traditional compartmentalization of marketing into separate 'brand' and 'performance' silos
- Why the "nerve center" of marketing organizations should shift to creativity, away from product and communications
- How "context is the new creativity" and why many brands fail to apply it
- A disagreement about what upskilling means
- Why the concept of "The internet is closing" means marketers must figure out new methods to "own your customer"
About ON_Discourse
ON_Discourse is a private community of C-suite leaders, investors, and innovators who come together to challenge assumptions, sharpen ideas, and drive transformation through discourse.
As an experiment in modern discourse, the show’s hosts co-founders, Toby Daniels, Dan Gardner, and Head of Discourse, Matt Chmiel, explore how emerging technologies, such as AI are reshaping business, creativity, and culture, grounded in the real-world experiences that emerge from our community’s private Group Chats.
Learn more about becoming part of the community: ondiscourse.com
More episodes
View all episodes
35. 2026 Provocations, Not Predictions
27:48||Season 1, Ep. 35Dan, Toby, and Chmiel break down their 3rd annual Provocations Not Predictions event, where ON_Discourse members submit their most challenging questions for the year ahead. In this episode, they debate whether AI will actually deliver transformative change in 2026 or if we're stuck automating yesterday's workflows with tomorrow's tools.Details in the show:Why provocations force harder thinking than predictionsThe difference between automating old processes and fundamentally changing how we workWhether new hardware (glasses, wristbands, connected ecosystems) will actually ship in 2026Why we might already have everything we're going to getWhat it means when three years after ChatGPT, the only real change is tactical efficiency
33. The Collaboration Revolution
47:21||Season 1, Ep. 33Dan, Toby, and Matthew announce the launch of new company and product called (domain) - a collaboration platform that connects your work to your network. It is built on the thesis that the future of work isn't about AI giving you answers, it's about AI helping humans collaborate better. In this episode they break down why they think we're on the edge of a collaboration revolution.Details in the show:The problem with AI flattening all outputs to "good enough"Why collaboration skills will be what separates people in the future of workHow we turned lessons in discourse into a modern collaboration platformJoin the (domain) waitlist here: https://ondomain.ai Enter code PODCAST
32. The Customer Experience Gap: Why AI Transformation Isn't Delivering
23:29||Season 1, Ep. 32Everyone agrees customer experience matters. Everyone agrees AI will transform business. So why is almost nobody actually doing anything about it? Dan and Matthew dig into new research showing that 93% of C-suite leaders say their digital CX needs improvement - even though they know it drives revenue. The problem isn't technology as much as it is imagination. While companies chase efficiency gains they can put in a spreadsheet, they're missing the bigger opportunity to fundamentally reimagine how they serve customers.Details in the Show:* Why 76% of enterprises feel behind on AI transformation* The difference between efficiency gains and relationship innovation* How ChatGPT's retro campaigns signal something deeper about consumer AI* How autonomous lawn mowers help us think about CX
31. The Consumerization of AI
35:01||Season 1, Ep. 31ChatGPT and Claude are going direct to consumers with nostalgic commercials and friendly interfaces, but underneath the marketing is a fundamental shift in how we interact with technology. Dan, Toby, and Matthew dig into what happens when AI systems become the primary interface for everything - and whether these platforms will be truly open or just feel open while quietly controlling distribution, data, and dollars.Details in the Show:* Why ChatGPT's retro marketing makes us want to watch Stranger Things* The difference between open protocols and closed ecosystems* How agentic systems change the attention economy (and who controls it)* Why platform dependency always ends the same way* What Amazon's playbook tells us about AI's future
30. Knowledge vs Judgement and AI forecasting
53:23||Season 1, Ep. 30AI is making predictions cheaper, faster, and easier at scale. But forecasting is still guessing, and NYU Stern Professor Jamyn Edis argues that what AI can't replace is human judgment. In this conversation, we dig into why defining "intelligence" matters, how business actually works versus how we pretend it works, and what happens when we confuse prediction with decision-making.Details in the Show:* Why judgment and intelligence aren't the same thing* The difference between prediction and decision-making in business* How AI changes what we measure, not whether we should trust the measurement* Academic vs. business discourse (and why one is afraid of being wrong)* Putting tomatoes in fruit salad
29. When the Internet Starts Lying to Itself
22:17||Season 1, Ep. 29ChatGPT just released Sora 2, a tool that lets you create videos starring your own digital avatar. Add that to last week's Pulse, and suddenly we're not just consuming content, we're becoming it. But who actually asked for this? And what happens when synthetic content floods the same feeds we're already exhausted by?Details in the Show:* The cameo feature and personalized synthetic content* Whether people want algorithmically generated entertainment* How OpenAI is closing the web by moving from tool to ecosystem
28. When AI Reads Your Mind
27:49||Season 1, Ep. 28ChatGPT recently launched Pulse, a feature that reads everything you do, repackages your work back to you, as if you are the subject of a daily newsroom. It's like taking notes that talk back, or having someone present your own thoughts better than you could. Is this useful or just another feed we'll forget about in three weeks.Details in the Show:* Behavior-driven media vs algorithmic targeting* The difference between relatability and utility in AI-generated content* How context plus specificity changes your relationship with information* Whether this is the start of something bigger or just yesterday's weather report
27. Not Everything Needs to be a Conversation
36:40||Season 1, Ep. 27The AI revolution promised to transform everything. Instead, we got chatbots that sound smart but deliver work that looks like a duck, walks like a duck, but turns out to be a goose. This episode digs into why the agentic AI hype hasn't delivered transformative experiences, and what's really holding back the next phase of human-computer interaction.Details in the Show:Why "not everything needs to be a conversation" is the key insight missing from AI designHow the volume knob reveals the flaw in invisible interface thinkingWhy better thinking doesn't equal better doing in the agentic worldThe difference between multi-step reasoning and true agencyHow the internet became static again, and where the UX designers wentWhy AI tools still require you to do your actual workLearn more at ON_Discourse.com