In an exclusive conversation with MartechAI.com, Patrick Lynch — Founder of broden.ai and a seasoned Fractional CMO — shares why AI won’t replace CMOs, but CMOs who embrace AI will replace those who don’t. Drawing on his experience across CRM, e-commerce, and performance marketing, Lynch breaks down what’s broken in today’s growth strategies, why outcome-led thinking matters more than ever, and how AI-first marketers are reshaping the future of brand leadership.

Brij Pahwa (BP):  You’ve worked with brands across CRM, performance marketing, and e-commerce. Where are you seeing the biggest gaps in how companies are leveraging AI for customer growth today?

Patrick Lynch (PL): The biggest gap right now is between companies that have strong data foundations and those that don’t. If you’ve invested in understanding your customer journey, have clean signals, and a clear measurement framework, AI becomes a real growth driver. These businesses are getting great results because they’re feeding the right inputs into the system.

But many teams are still focused on output — more emails, more ads, more content — without really knowing what’s moving the needle. They’re not identifying the key interactions that actually drive growth. And without that clarity, AI just scales inefficiency.

There’s also a gap in capability. The brands making progress aren’t always the biggest, but they’re the ones set up to test, learn, and adapt quickly. What’s changed is the pace of innovation. AI tools are now faster to onboard, easier to integrate, and more flexible than ever. A lot of the traditional blockers have been removed. What’s left is having the focus and intent to make it work.

(BP):  Do you believe most CMOs today truly understand their MarTech stack, or are they overwhelmed by too many tools and too little integration?

(PL): I think most CMOs have a good high-level understanding of their stack — they know what’s in place and broadly what each tool is meant to do. But when you dig deeper, many don’t have full visibility into what these platforms are truly capable of, or the internal expertise to unlock their value.

A big part of the problem is resource. Even with the right tools, you need people who know how to get the most out of them. That kind of trained, cross-functional capability is still missing in a lot of teams.

Then there’s the issue of legacy. Many businesses are tied into long-term contracts with platforms that have lost momentum or simply haven’t kept pace with the market. They’re locked in, which makes it harder to pivot or trial newer, more agile solutions.

It’s especially tricky right now with the speed of change in AI. The landscape is moving so fast that committing to a long-term stack feels risky. We haven’t yet seen which tools will emerge as true leaders in this space, and making big bets too early can leave you exposed.

So it’s not just about having too many tools — it’s about knowing how to use them, having the right people to drive them, and staying flexible enough to adapt as the market evolves.

(BP):  What’s your view on the rise of fractional CMOs? Is this a signal of changing marketing priorities or just a cost-cutting trend?

(PL): It’s both, but there’s more to it than just cutting costs.

From the CMO side, a lot of experienced marketers have done the big jobs, led large teams, and climbed the ladder. Over time, they often find themselves further away from the work that really matters — the strategy, the creative thinking, the decisions that actually drive growth. Going fractional gives them the freedom to focus on where they can add the most value, and the variety of working with different businesses keeps things energising.

For companies, it’s a smart way to bring in senior expertise without the full-time overhead. You get someone who’s seen what works and what doesn’t, often across different industries and stages of growth. It can save a lot of time, avoid common mistakes, and give clearer direction.

And with AI moving so fast, I think this model will only grow. The tools are becoming more accessible, but knowing how to apply them effectively is a different challenge. That’s where experience and strategic leadership are more important than ever. A fractional CMO can help a business make the most of these opportunities and keep marketing aligned with wider goals.

(BP):  From a data perspective, what are the 2–3 metrics that growth-stage companies should obsess over, and what are the ones they often waste time tracking?

(PL): The three I always come back to are customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, and conversion rate. These are the metrics that tell you whether your marketing is sustainable, scalable, and actually delivering impact.

But to improve those, you need visibility of the leading indicators that drive them — things like engagement rates, time to first value, email open-to-click ratios, or product-qualified leads. These give you early warning signs of what’s working and where you’re losing people before it hits your core numbers.

Where companies often go wrong is chasing vanity metrics — page views, impressions, likes. They can look good on a dashboard, but they don’t tell you much unless they’re clearly tied to downstream outcomes. Growth-stage businesses especially can’t afford that kind of distraction.

I’ve seen too many teams drowning in data, reporting on everything, but not actually learning or changing anything. It’s better to focus on fewer metrics that really matter, and understand what’s driving them, than to have endless dashboards with no clear next steps.

(BP):  You talk about “smarter strategy”. What does that mean practically in an age where AI can automate so much of decision-making?

(PL): Smarter strategy is about knowing where to focus so that AI actually delivers value. AI is a powerful tool that can help define, implement, and execute marketing activity much faster than we could before. But it still needs direction.

That’s where strategy comes in. You need a clear view of your goals, your audience, and where the biggest opportunities for growth are. Without that clarity, AI just makes you faster at doing the wrong things.

The real skill is knowing where to apply AI so it has the most impact. Is the challenge around acquisition, conversion, retention, or something deeper in the customer experience? Those are decisions that require experience and commercial judgement. AI can support that thinking, but it can’t replace it.

It’s not at the point where it can take over the role of a strategic leader. It doesn’t have the market context, the creativity, or the ability to make trade-offs. Smarter strategy means putting the right plan in place and then using AI to scale what works and adapt quickly when things change.

(BP):  Which AI-powered marketing tools or platforms have genuinely impressed you in the last 12 months, and why?

(PL): The tools that have stood out to me are the ones that make life easier for marketers and actually help get better results — not just the ones adding AI as a buzzword.

ChatGPT is the obvious one, but what’s impressed me is how quickly it’s evolving. The pace of improvements and new features being rolled out is incredible. It’s gone from being a content generator to something much more versatile — a tool for research, idea generation, summarising insights, even helping with campaign planning. It’s become a genuine extension of the team.

Tools like Jasper and Copy.ai have also helped speed up content production, especially when plugged into automation platforms like n8n or Zapier. When you build the right workflows around them, they stop being just writing tools and start becoming a proper engine for scale.

I’ve also been impressed by platforms like Mutiny and Personalize. They bring AI into the website experience and allow teams to personalise messaging without needing heavy development support. For lean teams trying to move fast, that’s a big advantage.

And in the performance space, tools like BlackCrow AI are doing interesting things with predictive audiences. Especially as we move into a world with less third-party data, tools that help you get smarter with your own signals are becoming more important.

The ones I rate most are the ones that reduce busywork and help teams move faster, learn quicker, and make better decisions. That’s where AI is starting to really show its value.

(BP):  What’s broken in how most businesses approach performance marketing in 2025, and how would you fix it?

(PL): The biggest issue is that performance marketing is still being treated as a separate function. It’s often disconnected from brand, from CRM, from product, and even from the customer experience. That kind of siloed approach just doesn’t work anymore.

Ad platforms have changed, costs have gone up, and the easy wins have disappeared. You can’t just put money into Google or Meta and expect strong returns without looking at the bigger picture. Performance isn’t just about media spend — it’s about the full journey, from the message to the landing page to how well you convert and retain people afterwards.

Another problem is the obsession with short-term ROAS. It pushes teams to optimise for what's measurable right now, rather than what actually drives sustainable growth. That means creative often gets underfunded, first-party data is underused, and longer-term value gets ignored.

What’s needed is a shift in mindset. Instead of being channel-led, performance needs to be outcome-led. That means starting with a clear understanding of your goals and your customers, setting up the right measurement framework, and making sure performance, brand, and creative teams are working together.

The companies that are doing this well are thinking longer term. They're using AI to help scale and optimise, but they’re also sticking to the fundamentals — getting the right message to the right audience at the right time, and learning fast.

(BP):  As someone who's sat at the intersection of strategy, data, and AI, what’s one marketing prediction you believe in that most people would disagree with?

(PL): I think we’re going to see the role of the channel specialist start to fade. The marketers who’ll be most valuable in the next few years won’t just be experts in one area like paid search or CRM. They’ll be the ones who understand how to use AI effectively, how to test and learn quickly, and how to connect strategy, data, and execution in a way that drives real results.

The tools are evolving so quickly that deep platform expertise is becoming less of a differentiator. What’s more important now is being able to think strategically, adapt fast, and use AI to move from idea to action with minimal friction.

That doesn’t mean specialist knowledge disappears completely. But marketers who rely on doing one thing really well, without adapting, are going to find it tough. The ones who can work across functions, use AI to get smarter and faster, and bring teams together are the ones who will thrive.

In my view, the AI-first marketer — someone who knows how to get the best from the tools and apply them with real intent — is going to become the new standard.