For the past several years, I’ve been deep in the trenches of AI marketing - working side by side with engineers, executives, and Fortune 500 brands to turn hype into reality. Now I’m returning to share what I’ve learned, provide resources for marketers and business leaders, and launch something I’ve been building behind the scenes: a practical, enterprise-grade, all-in-one AI marketing automation platform under Paraplex Digital.
This post is both a welcome back and a roadmap for what’s next. If you’ve followed my work before, you’ll know that I’ve been writing, researching, and experimenting with AI in marketing since 2017–2018, long before tools like ChatGPT put artificial intelligence into the mainstream conversation. Back then, I argued in my honors thesis that while AI would reshape marketing, most businesses would struggle to implement it effectively without rethinking their structures and strategies. That prediction turned out to be true. And over the last five years, I’ve had the opportunity to see those struggles firsthand - and more importantly, help solve them.
The Past Five Years: Building AI Marketing in the Enterprise
From 2019 through today, my work has revolved around helping large organizations implement AI in marketing safely, effectively, and in a way that actually drives results.
- Head of Creative and Brand Safety at an AI Marketing Startup: I helped grow a company from inception to launching nationwide campaigns for tier-one brands. In that role, I worked directly with Fortune 500 companies to make sure that AI-driven campaigns didn’t just perform, but also protected brand reputation, respected data privacy laws, and cleared all compliance hurdles.
- Healthcare AI Campaigns: I oversaw AI marketing campaigns for one of the largest healthcare networks in the U.S. - an industry where privacy, compliance, and safety are not optional. This work required navigating complex legal environments while still delivering measurable growth.
- Research and Policy: AI for Disinformation Mitigation: In 2019, I worked on a project exploring how AI could be used to detect and counter disinformation and misinformation online. That work culminated in a presentation at The Atlantic Council, one of the world’s leading think tanks focused on international affairs, where we shared strategies on how AI could be harnessed to safeguard truth in the digital era.
- Carnegie Mellon University Collaboration: That same year, I collaborated with Naseer Hashim, Singularity Healthcare, and The Atlantic Council to oversee a graduate-level machine learning capstone course at the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University, one of the world’s leading AI schools. For this course, we identified an innovative use-case: Using Machine Learning to Counter the Weaponization of Social Media. The final product was a novel AI application with real-world potential to prevent election interference, improve digital literacy in the era of deepfakes, and address the increasingly sophisticated manipulation of online information.
- Bridging Business and Technology: I collaborated daily with AI/ML engineers and development teams to bring enterprise AI systems to life. My role was to translate between worlds - creating flowcharts, diagrams, and visual models that helped senior executives understand the “why” while giving developers clear direction on the “how.”
- Enterprise Implementation Knowledge: I’ve lived through the bureaucracy. In big businesses, getting an AI project greenlit isn’t about enthusiasm - it’s about navigating endless layers of approval, compliance, and risk management. I understand the process inside and out, because I’ve helped move projects forward that took a year or more just to get signed off.
- Creative Leadership for Global Campaigns: Beyond AI, I’ve overseen creative production for nationwide, multichannel marketing campaigns. From designing websites for leading ad agencies to spearheading creative for brands like Kroger, Circle K, Persil, Duraflame, Dial Soap, Snuggle, and even the Dolittle movie with Robert Downey Jr., I’ve seen what it takes to scale campaigns that reach millions of people.
- B2C Growth Marketing: One highlight was leading a hyper-targeted, multichannel campaign for an award-winning documentary - an experience that showed me how AI and data-driven targeting can amplify creative storytelling.
These experiences have given me a unique perspective: I understand both the cutting-edge potential of AI and the real-world limitations of deploying it in enterprise environments. And now, I want to bring those lessons to businesses that can move faster.
Why I’m Back: Making AI More Accessible & Agile
The reality is that small businesses, startups, agencies, and solo entrepreneurs don’t have the same roadblocks as Fortune 500s. They can move fast, adopt new tools quickly, and experiment without waiting on a 12-month approval cycle. But they often lack the expertise and guardrails that keep AI projects safe, effective, and legally compliant.
That’s where I come in. My mission is to take what I’ve learned in the enterprise world - everything from brand safety to data compliance to AI integration - and bring it to more agile businesses. I want to help leaders leverage AI’s speed and power without exposing themselves to the risks that come with the typical “move fast and break things” mentality.
In other words: you can move fast, but you don’t have to break things. I’ll show you how.
Lessons From a Decade of Business, Marketing and Design
Even before my work in enterprise AI, I spent over a decade helping brands grow across every marketing channel. Some highlights from earlier years include:
- Running Accendi, my handmade clothing brand, which I scaled into Urban Outfitters and sold in 24 countries. This was my first taste of digital marketing, email campaigns, and even early AI-driven tools before the ChatGPT era. Running a small business taught me the scrappy, all-hands-on-deck reality that so many entrepreneurs face.
- Designing and developing scalable websites for PR companies, non-profits, Montessori schools, and artists - learning how to create digital platforms that don’t just look good, but perform under pressure.
- Leading multichannel creative production for industry-leading agencies: producing ads, websites, and campaign assets that supported global launches and high-stakes brand moments.
What ties all of this together is a consistent theme: I’ve always been focused on making the complex simple, whether that’s explaining AI to executives, visualizing data in ways that resonate with customers, or designing marketing systems that scale.
The Next Chapter: Paraplex Digital
The culmination of all of this work is Paraplex Digital, an all-in-one AI marketing automation platform designed to give businesses of any size access to a similar level AI power that Fortune 500s use - but with the speed, agility, and cost-effectiveness that smaller companies need.
Paraplex is built on three principles:
- Predict: Use advanced AI models to anticipate customer behavior and optimize campaigns in real time.
- Personalize: Put data and predictions to work: getting the right message to the right customers and the right time, at-scale.
- Activate: Launch multichannel campaigns with brand-safe creative and automated workflows that comfortably meet even the strictest of privacy, data security and compliance requirements that enterprise companies pay millions to safeguard.
- Prove: Provide CFO-grade reporting and analytics that show exactly where marketing dollars are going and what ROI they’re delivering. Making sure the AI systems they’re paying for are more than just a shiny new toy and proving the real-world results we’re producing.
This framework isn’t theoretical. It’s the same approach I’ve used with Fortune 500 companies, packaged into a system that small and mid-sized businesses can actually use.
What to Expect From Me Going Forward
This blog is the first step in what I plan to make a much larger resource for anyone serious about AI in marketing. Here’s what you can expect:
- In-Depth Articles: I’ll be writing long-form, practical guides on how to implement AI in your marketing - covering everything from audience targeting to campaign optimization to compliance.
- Case Studies: Real-world breakdowns of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to AI campaigns, with lessons you can apply directly to your own business.
- Resources and Tools: Free prompts, templates, and frameworks to help you get started with AI marketing without the overwhelm.
- Behind-the-Scenes Insights: I’ll share my perspective on the current state of AI, the hype vs. the reality, and where I see the industry heading.
The goal is simple: to help businesses cut through the noise, implement AI that actually works, and scale their marketing in a safe, effective, and sustainable way.
Why This Matters Now
AI is no longer a fringe experiment. It’s at the center of modern marketing. But most businesses are still struggling to use it effectively. Some chase shiny tools without a strategy. Others fear the risks and avoid it altogether. The ones who succeed are the ones who understand both the potential and the pitfalls.
That’s the perspective I want to bring here: real-world, battle-tested, enterprise-grade insights, delivered in a way that’s accessible and actionable for businesses of all sizes.
Final Thoughts
Seven years ago, I wrote that AI would reshape marketing but only if businesses rethought their structures and strategies. That prediction has played out. Today, I’m more convinced than ever that AI is the future of marketing - but only if we use it wisely.
This blog is where I’ll be documenting that future. Whether you’re a CMO at a Fortune 500 or a founder running ads from your kitchen table, I want to give you the insights, tools, and strategies you need to make AI marketing work for you.
So, welcome back. Let’s get to work.