Business & Brand
Analysis of how AI is changing marketing, media, brand strategy and the way modern teams work
A growing share of managers now run hiring, reviews, and firing decisions past a chatbot. The way those tools are built makes them a bad fit for the job.
Starbucks just paid the price for scaling an AI tool before it was ready. McDonald's watched, then announced it is doing the same thing across 43,000 stores.
The job is real, the salary starts at $295,000, and the pitch is that the company's own technology could buckle the courts and the ballot box.
TheStateofAI.com has named Melissa Rosenthal as its Editor-in-Chief. She will lead the publication's editorial direction and oversee its coverage of AI news, and strategy for enterprise leaders.
We lead with news, data, and what it means for the enterprise. We're opinionated when the numbers back it up. And we'll tell you when a launch everyone's celebrating doesn't actually matter for your stack.
The 2026 tech layoff count passed 111,000 across more than 140 companies before the end of May.
Stanford's AI Index findings on transparency, convergence, and sentiment all point in one direction: brand is the hardest advantage to build and the hardest to replicate.
It's not a skills gap. It's a standards gap. AI adoption is nearly universal, but almost no one has built the systems to govern it. Brands are fragmenting from the inside, and most CMOs don't see it coming.
Most B2B brand teams are optimizing for one audience while a second, faster-growing one forms impressions of their brand in conversations they can't see.
Most enterprise marketing teams have an AI adoption mandate but no governance for what those tools produce, and the gap is already causing campaign errors, compliance risk, and slower workflows.
McKinsey found that CMOs are winning with AI, but very few can demonstrate ROI on more than half of their marketing spend.
At Shoptalk 2026, the gap between onstage AI ambition and offstage reality was hard to ignore, with more than half of organizations still operating without clear governance for marketing campaigns.
A growing share of managers now run hiring, reviews, and firing decisions past a chatbot. The way those tools are built makes them a bad fit for the job.
Starbucks just paid the price for scaling an AI tool before it was ready. McDonald's watched, then announced it is doing the same thing across 43,000 stores.
The job is real, the salary starts at $295,000, and the pitch is that the company's own technology could buckle the courts and the ballot box.
TheStateofAI.com has named Melissa Rosenthal as its Editor-in-Chief. She will lead the publication's editorial direction and oversee its coverage of AI news, and strategy for enterprise leaders.
We lead with news, data, and what it means for the enterprise. We're opinionated when the numbers back it up. And we'll tell you when a launch everyone's celebrating doesn't actually matter for your stack.
The 2026 tech layoff count passed 111,000 across more than 140 companies before the end of May.
Stanford's AI Index findings on transparency, convergence, and sentiment all point in one direction: brand is the hardest advantage to build and the hardest to replicate.
It's not a skills gap. It's a standards gap. AI adoption is nearly universal, but almost no one has built the systems to govern it. Brands are fragmenting from the inside, and most CMOs don't see it coming.
Most B2B brand teams are optimizing for one audience while a second, faster-growing one forms impressions of their brand in conversations they can't see.
Most enterprise marketing teams have an AI adoption mandate but no governance for what those tools produce, and the gap is already causing campaign errors, compliance risk, and slower workflows.
McKinsey found that CMOs are winning with AI, but very few can demonstrate ROI on more than half of their marketing spend.
At Shoptalk 2026, the gap between onstage AI ambition and offstage reality was hard to ignore, with more than half of organizations still operating without clear governance for marketing campaigns.
A growing share of managers now run hiring, reviews, and firing decisions past a chatbot. The way those tools are built makes them a bad fit for the job.
Starbucks just paid the price for scaling an AI tool before it was ready. McDonald's watched, then announced it is doing the same thing across 43,000 stores.
The job is real, the salary starts at $295,000, and the pitch is that the company's own technology could buckle the courts and the ballot box.
TheStateofAI.com has named Melissa Rosenthal as its Editor-in-Chief. She will lead the publication's editorial direction and oversee its coverage of AI news, and strategy for enterprise leaders.
We lead with news, data, and what it means for the enterprise. We're opinionated when the numbers back it up. And we'll tell you when a launch everyone's celebrating doesn't actually matter for your stack.
The 2026 tech layoff count passed 111,000 across more than 140 companies before the end of May.
Stanford's AI Index findings on transparency, convergence, and sentiment all point in one direction: brand is the hardest advantage to build and the hardest to replicate.
It's not a skills gap. It's a standards gap. AI adoption is nearly universal, but almost no one has built the systems to govern it. Brands are fragmenting from the inside, and most CMOs don't see it coming.
Most B2B brand teams are optimizing for one audience while a second, faster-growing one forms impressions of their brand in conversations they can't see.
Most enterprise marketing teams have an AI adoption mandate but no governance for what those tools produce, and the gap is already causing campaign errors, compliance risk, and slower workflows.
McKinsey found that CMOs are winning with AI, but very few can demonstrate ROI on more than half of their marketing spend.
At Shoptalk 2026, the gap between onstage AI ambition and offstage reality was hard to ignore, with more than half of organizations still operating without clear governance for marketing campaigns.
A growing share of managers now run hiring, reviews, and firing decisions past a chatbot. The way those tools are built makes them a bad fit for the job.
Starbucks just paid the price for scaling an AI tool before it was ready. McDonald's watched, then announced it is doing the same thing across 43,000 stores.
The job is real, the salary starts at $295,000, and the pitch is that the company's own technology could buckle the courts and the ballot box.
TheStateofAI.com has named Melissa Rosenthal as its Editor-in-Chief. She will lead the publication's editorial direction and oversee its coverage of AI news, and strategy for enterprise leaders.
We lead with news, data, and what it means for the enterprise. We're opinionated when the numbers back it up. And we'll tell you when a launch everyone's celebrating doesn't actually matter for your stack.
The 2026 tech layoff count passed 111,000 across more than 140 companies before the end of May.
Stanford's AI Index findings on transparency, convergence, and sentiment all point in one direction: brand is the hardest advantage to build and the hardest to replicate.
It's not a skills gap. It's a standards gap. AI adoption is nearly universal, but almost no one has built the systems to govern it. Brands are fragmenting from the inside, and most CMOs don't see it coming.
Most B2B brand teams are optimizing for one audience while a second, faster-growing one forms impressions of their brand in conversations they can't see.
Most enterprise marketing teams have an AI adoption mandate but no governance for what those tools produce, and the gap is already causing campaign errors, compliance risk, and slower workflows.
McKinsey found that CMOs are winning with AI, but very few can demonstrate ROI on more than half of their marketing spend.
At Shoptalk 2026, the gap between onstage AI ambition and offstage reality was hard to ignore, with more than half of organizations still operating without clear governance for marketing campaigns.
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