Laura MacDonald, Chief Growth Officer of Hotwire, said AI's role in marketing and communications has only grown, but practitioners need to ensure quality data is training models and humans are adding the creativity.
I caught up with MacDonald, a 2025 AX100 customer experience leader, at Constellation Research's Ambient Experience conference. Here are the takeaways.
AI for data analysis: Hotwire uses AI to analyze data and provide recommendations for better marketing campaigns. The AI acts as a co-pilot, quickly generating answers and campaign ideas. However, AI doesn't replace human creativity. "We can use AI to a certain point to get much more, much quicker to answers and comments, but you still need that human element from a creativity and content point of view," said MacDonald.
AI Search Discovery Tool: Hotwire has developed an AI tool that aggregates data from various sources to understand user behavior and identify key trends. This tool uses synthetic personas to gather information and optimize future responses.
For instance, AI can help marketers take a persona such as a CTO in the US and then role play to create a composite. "We're asking the chat bot questions based on the role of a CTO. There are some big caveats, but it's pulling from data and content to say these are the questions that have been asked before. It gets you there faster," said MacDonald.
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Personalization: AI can personalize responses based on user interactions, but it doesn't access external personal data. The personalization is limited to the information provided during the conversation. "I think you're going to see more personalization based on your behavior and what has been said," said MacDonald. "AI agents will be able to say, 'this is what I've learned' and here's what's going to benefit this person vs. another offer. It should make a better experience."
Other key items from our conversation.
- Human Creativity: While AI is useful for data analysis and quick answers, human creativity remains essential for effective content creation and campaigns. Marketing AI will always need a human in the loop.
- Data Challenges: The biggest challenges in AI implementation are ensuring data quality and compliance with security and privacy laws. AI is only as good as the data it's trained on.
- Ethical Considerations: There's a need for guardrails to ensure AI provides a great user experience without overstepping ethical boundaries or asking for unnecessary information.
