Al Moore (VP of Marketing, Fluency) argues the marketers getting the most out of AI aren't the early adopters—they're the ones who went back to first principles before picking up the tools.
The most common AI mistake in marketing isn't choosing the wrong tool. It's skipping the foundational work that makes any tool effective.
Al Moore, VP of Marketing at Fluency—a platform built to deploy advertising at scale through AI-powered automation—has watched this play out from both sides: as a vendor and as a practitioner running his own team. His argument: AI accelerates whatever's already there, which means authentic storytelling, audience clarity, and cross-functional alignment matter more now, not less.
He joins Sara to break down what it looks like to move from scattered AI experimentation to a governed, org-wide operating model—and why the HR mindset, not the tech mindset, is what separates teams that scale from teams that stall.
3 Takeaways:
➞ AI amplifies your fundamentals—which means weak ones get louder.
➞ The path from experimentation to scale runs through cross-functional governance.
➞ Treat AI like a new team member, not a new tool.
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Chapters:
[00:48] AI and changing behavior
[01:55] Principles for AI in Marketing
[03:01] From experiments to operating systems
[04:39] Change management and skills
[06:16] People to follow for inspiration
[08:00] Hot take: AI as HR strategy
About the Guest:
Al Moore is a creative, collaborative, and values-driven B2B marketing leader with a 15+ year track record of driving outcomes through integrated brand and performance marketing strategies. A proven people leader, he builds high-performing teams, earns trust across organizations of all sizes, and develops thriving integrated marketing programs. Al is known for turning disparate inputs from customers and business stakeholders into crisp, coherent messaging and compelling value propositions that drive employee engagement and sales results. Executive teams rely on him for critical messaging and communications that require both strategic clarity and a sensitive touch.
Follow This — Al’s Recommendations:
➞ Exit Five: http://exitfive.com
➞ Eric Mayhew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericmayhew/
Connect:
➞ Al Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/al-moore/
➞ Sara Faatz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-faatz-b67213
💡 Learn more about Progress: www.progress.com
Sara Faatz: 00:00 I'm Sarah Faatz, and I lead community and awareness at Progress, and this is 10-minute MarTech.
Al Moore: 00:05 The best technologies in MarTech have a democratizing effect, right? So it's natural that marketers are going to be early adopters to AI, but that's not necessarily what's keeping us up at night. I think what's keeping us up at night is how do we do that in a way that's going to be successful, scalable, in line with our business objectives? And to me, that comes back to first principles of marketing.
Sara Faatz: 00:32 That's Al Moore, VP of Marketing at Fluency. Let's get started. Al, thanks so much for being here. I think let's start with the fact that people are going to tell you that AI is changing the world, and I think it is, but I think what's changing more than anything is human behavior. I would love to get your take on what the opportunity is for people in marketing or MarTech in the face of that.
Al Moore: 01:09 It's a great question. If you zoom all the way out, the best technologies in MarTech have a democratizing effect. They make it easier for us to connect with our audiences. They make it easier for our audiences to find us and do their research. I think it easier us to share information and AI is just sort of the latest and maybe most revolutionary example of all of that. So it is having an accelerating effect on a long-term trend where our markets and our consumers and people want to do more research upfront and they want to engage with brands and companies differently. So it's natural that marketers are going to be early adopters to AI and it's natural that we are going to want to leverage these tools, but that's not necessarily what's keeping us up at night. I think what's keeping us up at night is how do we do that in a way that's going to be successful, scalable, in line with our business objectives?
02:06 And to your point, in line with how our consumers want to reach us. And to me, that comes back to first principles of marketing. And that is one of the biggest opportunities that we have is to use this opportunity to think about, okay, how can I tell an authentic story to my market? How can I empower my team to be successful? How can I be helpful? These are things to keep marketers up at night for time immemorial. And AI has really just sort of accelerated that. And that is the opportunities to think more systematically around how can we leverage these tools versus just experimenting with them in our silos and within our own works.
Sara Faatz: 02:54 Have you found new ways to do that? Or are you still in experimenting phases or what is working?
Al Moore: 03:01 Yeah, I think two things. One is we work as an organization. We're very focused on building an operating system that's going to allow advertisers to reach their markets at scale, expand new channels, stay current with how their audiences are looking to shop and use AI powered automation to be able to deploy campaigns at scale.
Sara Faatz: 03:29 And
Al Moore: 03:29 We take a similar approach internally within our own teams. How can we actually, not just in siloed ways, look at and experiment with different LLMs and different AI use cases? How can we actually take the marketing use cases, the client success use cases, the sales use cases, the technical and engineering use cases and applications, ladder those up to broader business goals, right? Cross-functional working groups, cross-functional pools of data that are governed and that are organized and structured in a way that AI can safely operate and shared context. And so that's what I'm most excited about in terms of moving from individual workflow-based experimentation into more of a real organizational way of working that uses these tools and eliminates duped efforts and ensures that everything is, we're all working to our greatest effect.
Sara Faatz: 04:39 Right. Well, and I would think that that would take some change management because it's probably different than the way you've worked before. Does it also mean that you have or need different skillsets within the organization?
Al Moore: 04:51 The change management piece, I think it begins, again, drawing back to first principles, are we open and transparent with how we're communicating? Is there that psychological safety with your teams around, "Here's how I'm using AI. I want to bounce an idea off of you, " so that we have open dialogue around how we are using these tools, and then we can take that and apply this towards cool, here are the rules of the road, here are the governance, here's how we can be most successful with this. So that's been one major area of focus and also kind of a learning here is thinking about how do we just communicate openly about how we're using these tools as a first step. And in terms of the change management pieces and kind of skills that you're looking for, yes, there's change management involved and anytime you're on a journey of a new technology or a new way of working, there's going to be a lot of change management that happens.
05:49 But I think again, having cross-functional leaders, cross-functional workflows and open dialogue across the different functions of the business is a way to kind of unlock and create that environment where people can move forward together
Sara Faatz: 06:04 And
Al Moore: 06:05 Share their wins, share their experiments, share their failures, and make progress collectively. And that's been a big point of emphasis internally within our team and our organization.
Sara Faatz: 06:16 Well, let me ask you this, who are you following right now for inspiration or information?
Al Moore: 06:23 There are a lot of great thought leaders out there right now and a lot of leading voices in this space. I think that there's a lot of value in the communities as well. And I follow and I'm a part of the Exit five community. And that's a great way for B2B marketers in particular to engage with peer sets and to kind of get the tribal knowledge of, "Hey, what's working for you? What's not working for you? How are you moving forward with this in your technology in your team and both from a technical perspective, a strategic perspective and kind of an ops and HR perspective?" So I love the Exit5 community for that. Then within the space that I operate in, the advertising ecosystem, there's a lot of noise around AI and there's a lot of jargon. So it's really valuable to have voices that can separate the jargon from real proven use cases of real practical subject matter.
07:22 So Eric Mayhew is a great voice in helping to break down the fact from the fiction when it comes to advertising and AI's impact on advertising. I appreciate Eric so much. I went to work for him, but I definitely recommend him as a leader for anybody that's looking to drive paid media at scale. But yeah, again, I would also look to communities because we need to be working together and hearing from each other around how to put this technology to work successfully.
Sara Faatz: 08:00 One last question for you. You have a MarTech hot take.
Al Moore: 08:05 I know it's a great question. I don't know if this is so much of a hot take as just maybe something that's under discussed in the space is the importance of thinking about AI from an HR lens and not just a time savings and efficiency lens. I don't know anybody that is working less hard right now because of AI or working fewer hours. The best use cases and the best examples of AI being used successfully involve aligned data, business context, and 10x or more impact multipliication. So we need to think about AI as a workforce multiplier and we need to think about how we work with it in a way that we would work with our human teams. You're not going to hire teams, 10,000 people, and turn them loose with no governance, no training, no context, no data, right? And your best managers are going to be able to collaborate with an AI in a similar way and direct it in a similar way that they might be working with a peer.
Sara Faatz: 09:15 And so
Al Moore: 09:15 I think that when we are building our teams and leveraging these tools, we need to think about that with that HR type of mindset. Am I setting my team up for success? Am I providing the right level of guidance? Am I providing the right level of data information so that everybody can be successful? And I think that is an area that's going to separate people that are just experimenting and running amuck with a bunch of different tools from a really orchestrated and scalable AI strategy and growth strategy across your team and your business.
Sara Faatz: 09:50 Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Well, Al, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed our conversation today.
Al Moore: 09:56 I very much appreciate it. Thanks so much, Sarah.
Sara Faatz: 09:58 Listeners, thanks for tuning in. Make sure you like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, I'm Sarah Fatz, and this is 10 Minute Martech.