‘Beginning to be the practical’: GE global CMO Linda Boff on the evolution of AI in marketing
With over 20 speaking sessions hinging on generative AI, the Possible conference in Miami this week addressed the challenges and opportunities associated with the technology head on. Veteran marketer Linda Boff, global CMO at GE, for one, recognized that the hype cycle is still swirling, but sees practical applications beginning to emerge.
“It’s less the promise and beginning to be the practical,” she said in a video interview with Digiday, adding, “I still don’t think it’s finite. We need many more use cases, many more examples, many more opportunities where we can show effort, result — effort result.”
Boff pointed to market research as an example of where the practicality of AI is beginning to have an impact, in a good way, on an industry feature that has lingered too long on traditional methods.
“From where I sit, market research has not been disrupted for the entire time I’ve been a marketer, so that’s decades,” said Boff. AI, Boff continued, is starting to give marketers the ability to find data sets and market intelligence from a far wider audience, with what she said is “pretty fantastic efficacy.”
“So using things like synthetic polling, we can get a pulse on how the aerospace industry is viewing something. Previously we would have to do a long-form survey, and these people are hard to get to.”
While Boff did caution that the industry does have to be “sober about what the data tells us,” she noted that AI offers up the ability to take those last few steps toward more complete consumer intelligence.
“Sometimes having knowledge that 80% is right and then go validate that final 20% is more efficient, a lot smarter and more cost efficient,” she said.
Watch our full interview below:
More in Media
The Rundown: Google has drawn its AI payment lines — and publishers’ leverage is narrow
For publishers trying to navigate AI licensing, the message was blunt: Google is willing to pay for access, but not for training – and it remains unwilling to define AI Overviews as a compensable use of journalism.
Media Briefing: Google’s latest core update a reminder that pageviews can’t remain the primary metric
Google’s latest core update signals pageviews can no longer be the primary metric, favoring intent-solving publishers over scale.
After an oversaturation of AI-generated content, creators’ authenticity and ‘messiness’ are in high demand
Content creators and brand marketing specialists on how 2026 will be the year creator authenticity becomes even more crucial in the face of rampant AI-generated “slop” flooding social media platforms.