Is AI more like a tool or an operating system?

Clean data beats clever algorithms in AI marketing. Katrina Wong, Chief Marketing Officer at New Relic, brings 20+ years of enterprise go-to-market experience to the data-versus-AI debate. She argues AI functions as an operating system, not a standalone tool, becoming the intelligence layer powering interconnected agent workflows. Wong stresses that AI output quality depends entirely on data hygiene, making clean data infrastructure a prerequisite for effective AI-driven decision-making. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55 to 65% open rate.

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  Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.

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  Typical life span of an article is about 24 to 36 hours.

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  If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  Okay, last question for you. Is AI more like a tool or an operating system to you?

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  Operating system, because I do think that over time, and it gets closer and closer every day, that it's powering more and more, and maybe one day, everything we do. You know, at the end of the day, it's this intelligence layer that it's just going to be super foundational as like the premise of where we start. That's what I think.

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  You know, I think everybody's sort of heard the notion of this data layer, and that's really what AI is. It's the interface that allows you to extract and visualize your data layer. And to me, like AI is definitely much more like an operating system, maybe than a series of tools. Once they start talking to each other, and I, you know, I think of it as like for, for me, our workflows are I've got a chief of staff that's an agent. I have a podcast builder that does our onboarding that's an agent. When they can start talking to each other, now we're actually in operating system territory as opposed to customized workflow.

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  Amazing, but you bring up a good point. The data layer is still super important, so having data that's clean, AI is only as good as your data, so that is still super important. It's not just AI by itself.

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  Katrina, I appreciate you coming on the show. I appreciate your time and, and obviously you've done a lot of things very right in your career to be in the point that you are. Thank you for coming on the show and telling me and the audience a little bit about how you think about turning data into decisions.

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  Thank you, Benjamin. It's been a pleasure.

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  All right, that wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks to Katrina Wong, the Chief Marketing Officer at New Relic. If you'd like to contact Katrina, you can find a link to her LinkedIn profile in our show notes or on martechpod.com, or you can visit her company's website, which is newrelic.com. If you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app or on YouTube, and we'll be back in your podcast feed next week. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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