A 3-hour online session for marketing leaders. Build managerial fluency in AI: where it creates value, where it introduces risk, and how to apply it in your organization.
How AI is reshaping marketing, and how to lead through it.
Most AI training fixates on tools. This session focuses on the decisions AI affects and the judgment required to use it well. You'll examine AI's role across the four core marketing decisions (who to reach, when to engage, what to say, where to spend) alongside real-world cases of failure, hybrid success, and agentic applications.
Exercises use ChatGPT, Copilot, or Claude. No technical background required, though familiarity with marketing and organizational decision-making is assumed.
Marketing is a system of connected decisions. AI changes the economics of each one.
Segmentation, targeting, positioning
Prediction sharpens who's most likely to act. You still have to decide which segments are real fits versus statistical lookalikes worth chasing.
Timing & cadence
Automation makes outreach faster and more personal. The question is where responsiveness builds trust and where it crosses the line.
Content & creative
Generative AI produces content at scale. You have to discern where it reinforces your brand voice and where it dilutes it.
Channel & budget allocation
AI reallocates budget across channels in near-real time. The trade-off is trusting short-term wins without sacrificing long-term brand.
We move from where AI changes marketing decisions, to how AI actually works, to where it should and shouldn't be allowed to decide.
Frame AI as a prediction engine inside the marketing decision system. Examine how STP, timing, content, and allocation shift when AI is in the loop, and why the same AI produces different outcomes across firms.
Managerial understanding without the technical overload. Walk the architecture (data, model, decision, action, feedback) and the four types of AI you'll encounter most: predictive, generative, agentic, and retrieval.
The central managerial question is what AI should be allowed to do. Work through failure cases, hybrid human-AI models, and frontier agentic applications, then assess your organization's readiness.
Practical clarity you can apply in your organization.
For marketing practitioners and business leaders responsible for AI integration.
Responsible for marketing strategy and outcomes. You need a clear way to evaluate vendor claims, set guardrails, and decide where AI gets latitude and where humans stay in the loop.
Weighing where generative AI helps and where it dilutes brand voice. You want a sharper line between scale-it and review-it, plus the language to defend it internally.
You already use AI-touched tools for targeting, bidding, and attribution. You want a clearer mental model of what's under the hood, and where to trust it, intervene, or pull it back.
Marketing sits inside your remit but isn't your only focus. You need an executive view of where AI changes the marketing P&L and what conversations to have with your team next.
A framework for evaluating which marketing decisions AI should assist with, recommend on, or stay out of.
Cases where AI caused real damage, and the patterns of judgment that prevent it.
The session ends with a readiness assessment. You leave with a specific picture of where your organization stands.
This session counts toward Pamplin's AI for Executives: Building with AI certificate. Take one, take two, or earn the full badge.
Register for this AI in Marketing session on its own.
Pair this session with any other course in the AI for Executives series.
Complete all three courses to earn the AI for Executives Certificate Badge.
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Issued by VT Continuing and Professional Education
Assistant Professor of Practice
Department of Marketing, Pamplin College of Business
Dr. Shilpa Rao designed and leads Pamplin's undergraduate AI in Marketing curriculum (MKTG 4114) and is developing the college's Minor in AI in Marketing. Her work combines nearly a decade of industry experience in banking, healthcare, and travel with academic research on the ethical, organizational, and strategic dimensions of AI in marketing.
She holds a Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, an MBA in Marketing Analytics, and graduate work in computer applications and statistics. Participants get a rare combination of practitioner intuition and rigorous academic framing.
Register for this 3-hour session and walk away with a usable framework, real cases, and a readiness picture for your organization.
Questions about fit, bundling, or group enrollments? Our Executive Education team is happy to help.
