As AI becomes central to enterprise strategy, marketing leaders are being forced to rethink far more than campaigns, content and customer engagement. For Gabie Boko, Chief Marketing Officer at NetApp, marketing teams cannot afford to be passive observers of this change. They must be part of designing what their future roles look like.
In a conversation with MartechAI.com's Brij Pahwa, Boko spoke about why AI success depends on the “plumbing” behind data infrastructure, why NetApp does not position itself as an AI company despite being central to AI readiness, and how marketing teams must disrupt themselves before AI does it for them.
She also discussed data sovereignty, the rise of AI agents, India’s innovation potential, and why enterprise marketing organizations are headed for a major reset.
You recently wrote about AI ROI and the gap between what organizations expect from AI and what they actually get. You referred to the “plumbing” that supports AI. What do you mean by that?
CMOs are often categorized as dealing with the transaction of doing the work. What is really interesting is that most CMOs recognize, especially in the AI era, that the infrastructure around how they do the work, and especially their contribution to the outcomes and understanding of data, is much more vital than just the work itself.
If they are not part of the conversation that says, what are we doing to manage our data, secure our data, and build the kind of infrastructure we need to compute with AI workloads and worry about ransomware on our data, then we are not having the right conversation because we are not doing it end-to-end.
As with any great house, you need to make sure you are not just worrying about the sofas, but also the toilets and the electricity. Marketing is much the same. Data is our lifeblood. It is how we contribute to the growth of the company.
Contributing to growth means understanding everything that goes into securing it, the storage, the compute, and honestly, we call that data infrastructure. We call that intelligent data infrastructure. That is what I refer to as plumbing.
Marketers have always struggled with data. Many are increasing AI marketing spend, but impact measurement remains a challenge. As a global CMO, how do you look at ROI?
It is an ongoing issue. It is not a new issue for marketers. Marketing is blessed and cursed with a variety of metrics. We measure everything. We measure everything we touch and how we do it.
I think it is less about not having the metrics and more about picking the ones that demonstrate that we are a growth agent for the company and that we are contributing to how a company is performing.
How a company is performing is not about clicks and impressions, experience or share of voice. It really is revenue. How are we contributing to revenue, and how are we contributing to the pipeline that the salespeople have to close?
For me, that has been about creating tighter relationships with the sales team. If we are passing you something, how are you following up on it? It is about creating SLAs with them that say, if you do not like it, how are you getting that information back to me?
I am committing to a portion of your pipeline and to a portion of that pipeline closing. So when I go in front of my board and CEO, I can be very confident that I contributed to 5, 10, 12 or 20 percent of the pipeline, and that I am contributing to the bottom line of the company.
All the other metrics matter. Impressions, links, experiences and performance are part of that. But that is not what a board wants to hear, and that is not the ultimate end-up growth. It is about making sure we hear what is important for a company. For my company, that is contributing to pipeline, contributing to revenue, and creating the relationships with the sales team that demonstrate the connection between what marketing has delivered and what sales is closing.
NetApp has repositioned itself around intelligent data infrastructure. What does NetApp do differently, and how does it define this space?
Our start was in data storage. That is really about what box you are putting your data on. We expanded that box from an on-premises position in a data center to saying we can also have that same storage in the cloud.
What makes us unique is that we have software-defined data management. We look at how that data management layer allows you to connect your data from on-premises storage to cloud storage.
As we continued to grow that, we added value in terms of applications, workloads and solutions that allowed you to diagnose, analyze and protect your data. You can only do that if you are seeing your data across all of those locations.
You are also understanding data in a structured and unstructured way. It is not just ones and zeros. It is video, pictures, everything. So how are you understanding all of the data, where it is sitting, and being able to touch it?
When we say data infrastructure, we are saying it is not just storage. It is everything that goes into helping you get the most value out of your data and making it accessible to applications, compute factors, AI and everything that is going to extract value from that data to deliver the outcomes you need.
Maybe it is customer success, maybe it is lifetime value, maybe it is whatever your metrics are as a company. You need that data to be able to do that. A clear data infrastructure connected across all of those aspects really solves that.
Where we believe our value is, is saying that the layer that connects that is really an intelligent layer. It means you are not just looking at your data in silos, fragments or slices. Intelligent data infrastructure is about being able to see it as a whole and bring AI to it, to secure it, share it and do it across any platform at any time.
We are focused on the data, we are focused on the infrastructure that allows you to access your data, and the intelligence on that connection that allows you to utilize it in the best way, and the most simple way possible.
Many enterprises are rushing to position themselves as AI-first companies. What separates meaningful AI transformation from AI marketing hype?
Everybody is making AI promises or AI washing themselves. But what is behind it?
I would not call NetApp an AI company, but I would say we are a company that can help you be ready for the AI era. That is an important distinction.
We have been through a lot of eras with data, including the cloud era, the multi-cloud era, the on-premises era, and now the AI era. We want to build for whatever era your data is in.
For us, intelligent data infrastructure reframes AI readiness as a data challenge. We hope that means you can turn the AI promises your organization has into real business impact. But I do not know if a lot of companies really focus on the outcome and the impact because they want to ride the wave.
Three years ago, we redefined ourselves as the intelligent data infrastructure company. We did that very purposely. We could have already defined ourselves three years ago with a .ai, but we chose not to greenwash or AI wash ourselves as an AI company, because we really believe that data, no matter what era you are in, can help guide how you manage the complexity of your business.
Specifically for AI, we are now finding that this promise is coming to fruition. People are looking at data infrastructure as necessary to run AI compute and AI workloads because they need that data to do that.
We believe we are part of the AI era. We are not just part of it, we are core to it. But we do not need to AI wash ourselves to do that. Go find what is real. Go find what is authentic. Go find how AI is helping you help your customers, and then you will find the right way to position yourself.
There is a larger global debate around data sovereignty, data ownership and how AI companies use content and information. As a technology leader, how do you respond to that?
AI presents a lot of murky problems that we are all still grappling with.
As far as I am concerned, my customer owns their data. That is the truth. As we work with our customers to protect and guard their data, we are supporting their sovereignty on their data.
I cannot speak for where AI is going to go. I cannot speak for how the world is going to make these decisions, but they are really heady decisions.
As an individual, I protect myself and my own data. As a company, I protect my data for my company, and I am very, very clear that I need to protect my customers’ data.
It is incumbent upon every technology leader to have that conversation and decide how we answer it. The premise is human, it is a human right, it is a company right, and it is definitely, in my opinion, my customer’s right that I am out to protect.
As AI agents begin automating workflows across content, analytics, personalization and data intelligence, how do you see the role of marketing teams evolving?
Marketing is going to be one of the biggest evolutions.
Marketing is a growth driver, and marketing as part of an organization needs to move beyond silos and look at much more orchestration. You are going to see the evolution of demand becoming an orchestration avenue run by a lot of different agents. I know a lot of people are already working on that.
You are going to see communications values being orchestrated. Marketers in general are a really good proving ground for how AI can start to be embedded into an organization.
I have always liked to say that marketing is the biggest determiner of how companies are running. It is not just a lens on internal process, it is a lens for how we want to show a market how we run.
Agents are going to determine how many business or marketing applications get utilized in whole. Maybe we do not use them anymore, maybe we use them in part. We are going to be super focused on orchestrating not just the applications, but the agents of agents.
The context of demand, communications and brand starts to become vehicles that are run with creative components on top of them, which we can guard and become more interested in how they drive growth.
I do not know all the answers, but I am excited that marketing is at the table. We are able to draw a storyline with how we are embedding AI, how we are going to use agents, and how we can start to shape how marketing is determined or used inside a company for the future, which is not how it is used today.
I was talking to somebody yesterday and said, it could be really interesting. Am I doing myself out of a job? Probably. But a different job? No.
That is what marketing is. Agility and action. That is what AI brings to it, and that is what agentic brings to marketing.
There is a lot of fear around AI making humans redundant, especially in marketing teams. What is your perspective on that?
Marketing has to disrupt. It has to create and disrupt its own disruption. That is what I like to say internally to my team.
Yes, the humans that I have today will not be doing the same jobs that they are doing. I think they need to be part of designing the job for the future and using AI to do that.
I do not have the full picture. I do not think anybody does. Do I believe in the power of a human mind to create and guide? Absolutely I do. Do I believe in the power of AI to simplify, orchestrate and govern aspects of how we do our jobs? Absolutely.
The friction is going to be how we allow ourselves to design that in tandem and not be told what that looks like.
I am here in India, and I said this to my India team: the job you have today is not going to be the job you are going to have in two years. What I am giving you permission to do is to go tell me what that future job is. So get in there with me and tell me how you would redesign it.
Since you are in India, what insights have you taken from your visit here?
I love my team here. I love India quite a bit. I have been here quite a lot over my life.
I believe that the power of India comes in innovation. There is so much talent in this country. What I have been excited about in speaking with the engineering teams, sales teams and my own marketing team here is the energy behind the design for the future and how to be a part of that.
That is what India can bring to the table. You have so many people, you have so much richness. How are you going to be part of designing what the future is for India and for technology? If it is going to happen, I suspect it is going to come out of here.
Looking ahead, what do you think enterprise marketing organizations will look like compared to today? Which roles will disappear, and which capabilities will become essential?
Corporate marketing and the aspects that make up corporate marketing, like communications vehicles, brand vehicles and even physical events, will probably stay. They will probably be enabled, simplified and guided by AI, agents or governance in terms of content and design. That makes their jobs easier.
I think the bulk of the change is going to come in how you generate demand, how you build content, and how you meet the need of acquiring new customers.
I do not think the website of the future is one that exists today, and I want to be part of designing what that looks like. I do not think the demand organization is one that exists today. Those are the roles that will have to be seriously changed first.
If we get those right, and we understand how to guide, build and orchestrate agents that can do this, then it changes our relationship with IT, commercial offices, partner ecosystems and how products are designed.
Once that happens, does it change corporate marketing? Yes, it probably does even more. But you are going to see ripple effects.
It is not going to start in the content place. I think everybody in marketing has already been there and we use it that way. It is going to go into how you feed and grow how audiences find you, and how you get to your economic buyers, which is your digital and personalization perspective.
The ultimate thing is to have my people be part of it and not be afraid of it. I want to be first in the pool. I want to embrace it. I am sitting with my IT team and saying how I look at infrastructure needs to change. How I look at my data needs to change. I am talking to my partner team about how these relationships need to change. I am talking to the product team. This needs to change.
As far as I am concerned, everything changes. What changes first is probably the low-hanging fruit, but ultimately, my job changes. That is why I am in this job. I think that is the most exciting part of it.
Looking beyond the hype cycle, what do you believe will be the most meaningful and lasting impact of AI on businesses and society over the next decade?
I got into technology when I was young because I wanted to be part of change. I think that is what you are seeing with AI.
Do I think industry and enterprise industry are going to change? Absolutely I do. I think this is that scale of revolution, like the industrial revolution from farming to machines.
But I do not think it has to change how humans interact with each other or how humans can continue to contribute. That is my hope. As humans, we rise to this challenge and embrace it for what it is.
It is technology. It is not a replacement of our brain. It is maybe an augmentation. That is my hope. Is it reality? I do not know. I have stopped guessing what reality is. I just want to be along for the ride.
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