AI Transformation That Gets Marketers Home for Dinner
Ask most marketers what they want from AI and you'll hear bigger, faster, more. Ask ITG CEO Andrew Swinand and you'll hear something else: "I made it home for dinner with my family." That's the metric. Less overwhelm, clearer decisions, and work that flows without the midnight scramble.
ITG's framework makes that real. They call it Knowing, Flowing, and Growing - a human-centred, AI-enabled way to connect ambition to execution. Here's how it works in practice.
Knowing: Turning Data into Direction
"Most marketers are asking for AI without Knowing what exactly they want it to do," says Andrew. "The opportunity isn't just to generate; it's to understand what to make and why."
Knowing starts with discovery: stakeholder interviews, data analysis, and operational mapping to expose friction. "You have to know where the time goes before you can win it back." Then it couples data ingestion with decision support that actually shortens cycles.
- Automate creative briefs with evidence, not guesswork
- Surface content suggestions tied to performance signals
- Inform media choices with clear rationale
The goal isn't a magic button. It's repeatable, evidence-based planning that prevents waste before production. It helps answer the questions that move the needle:
- Who should we target?
- What should we say?
- How should we spend?
The payoff is confidence - in creative bets, in media plans, and in a strategy that compounds instead of chasing noise.
Flowing: Making Operations the Engine of ROI
If Knowing decides the right thing to do, Flowing makes sure it actually happens. The shiny outputs get attention, but operational AI is where returns show up. As Andrew puts it, "You can't spell ROI without boring."
Flowing connects the content ecosystem - digital asset management (DAM), workflow, automation, and approvals - in one place. ITG's Content Marketing Platform (Storyteq) is the hub. It's API-first and works with generative tools, managing assets at the object level rather than by campaign.
That detail matters. "Unless you can change a red shirt to a blue shirt instantly across every market," Andrew says, "the promises of AI-driven personalisation will never come true."
Storyteq, paired with ITG's automation layer, lets content adapt, localise, and version across channels without manual rework. It saves hours, reduces errors, and gets campaigns live faster.
Growing: Change How People Work, Not Just the Tools They Use
Technology doesn't deliver value by itself. People do. "The hardest part of transformation isn't the software," says Andrew. "It's helping people do familiar things in new ways."
ITG focuses on capability building: training teams, rethinking workflows, and reshaping roles so AI is baked into daily work. Their partnership with John Lewis Partnership shows the impact. An in-house agency of 260+ people was re-engineered into a more efficient hybrid content studio, consolidating seven legacy tools into one system. The result: more for less, meaningful savings, and a setup that's future-proof.
The success metric isn't a dashboard; it's human. Andrew's test: does "Mary," the long-time studio manager, stop walking physical sign-offs between floors because approvals, rights, and variants now live in one connected system? That's culture change made tangible.
If your next step is capability building, structured learning helps. See the AI Certification for Marketing Specialists for practical, team-ready upskilling.
How to Put This to Work This Quarter
- Map where time goes across briefing, creation, and approvals. Quantify the drag.
- Identify the three decisions that stall most projects. Instrument data signals to inform them.
- Centralise assets and workflows in a platform that supports object-level updates and open APIs.
- Pilot one high-volume use case (e.g., localisation). Measure time saved, error rates, and speed to live.
- Train the team, update roles, and set clear approval paths. Make the new way the default way.
The Outcome to Optimise For
Knowing, Flowing, and Growing turns content into an advantage that's insight-led, contextually relevant, cheaper to produce, and faster to adapt. The stack matters - decision intelligence, a central content hub, and the workflows that bind them - but the differentiator is discipline.
Start with the decisions, invest in the people, connect the pipes. The benefits are practical and human: better work, less waste, fewer late nights. More marketers making it home for what matters.
Your membership also unlocks:
