The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX

Greg Heinz, Senior Director of Brand and Digital Strategy at Optimizely, led the company's rebrand — and he argues AI should amplify creative work rather than automate it away. Recorded live at Opticon 2026 in New York City.
A rebrand is repositioning, not a new logo. Heinz walks through the research behind Optimizely's brand evolution, the market signals that made the case internally, and what the company had to give up to make the new promise credible.
The line between amplification and authorship gets drawn on purpose. "AI" covers everything from a tool that speeds up a designer to a system that ships work with nobody in the authoring seat. Heinz on where he insisted a person stay in the seat, and why.
A brand is proven by behavior, not messaging. What had to change in product decisions, sales conversations, and the digital experience for the new positioning to be true — and what keeps the brand recognizable as one company as the volume of expression goes up.
Greg Heinz and Greg Kihlström also get into what changes when the first thing evaluating your brand is an AI system researching on a buyer's behalf rather than a person.

About Greg Heinz
Greg is a marketing manager with over fifteen years of professional experience in B2B software solutions and services, Healthcare, Sports and Entertainment. My goal is to help organizations achieve rapid growth through brand development and demand generation. I am a strong believer in creating amazing experiences and lasting impressions through UX design and storytelling.

Greg Heinz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gjheinz/

---------- Resources ----------

Optimizely: www.optimizely.com
The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703

We’re proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873f

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba

Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When every employee can produce polished, on-brand-looking content in seconds, who actually owns the brand anymore?

Agility requires guardrails, not just accelerators. Moving fast is only an advantage if the organization is still moving as one recognizable company.

Today we're going to talk about the gap that opens up between how fast AI lets an organization produce and how well its brand actually holds together as that output scales. We'll explore:

- What really gets diluted when content creation is democratized — and how quickly that compounds
- Treating brand as infrastructure: building systems that guide AI-generated work rather than teams that police it after the fact
- Why investment in brand governance has to scale in lockstep with investment in AI tools

To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Meghan Gendelman, CMO of B2B at Canva.

About Meghan Gendelman
Meghan Gendelman is Chief Marketing Officer, B2B at Canva, where she leads global B2B marketing to help organizations turn visual communication into essential infrastructure for modern work.
Meghan’s previously led cross-functional teams across Marketing, Enablement, Customer Success, and Sales. Most recently, she served as GVP of Growth Marketing at Docusign, where she worked on category building and positioning the company to win the enterprise. Prior, Meghan spent nearly 13 years at Salesforce, where she held senior roles including CMO of Financial Services, SVP and Head of Marketing for the Americas, and SVP of Global Strategic Marketing.
A champion of inclusion, Meghan pioneered the first Women’s Summit at Dreamforce and is passionate about developing diverse, values-driven leaders. She lives in Northern California with her husband and two daughters.

Meghan Gendelman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgendelman/

---------- Resources ----------

Canva: canva.com

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873f

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba

Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kevin White, Head of Marketing at Scrunch, argues that referral traffic from ChatGPT is the wrong instrument for measuring AI search — and that the real question is whether a model represents your brand accurately when no one clicks at all. He and Greg Kihlström get into what to build and what to measure instead.
"AI search" is several different problems wearing one label. A crawler pulling your content, a model synthesizing an answer, and an agent acting on someone's behalf are not the same event — and teams that treat them as one end up optimizing for the wrong thing.
A website now serves two readers with different needs. White on what changes structurally when the page has to work for a human and for a machine that will compress it into three sentences.
Visibility is probabilistic, so accountability has to change. The same prompt can surface your brand one day and skip it the next. White on what a marketing leader can honestly commit to a CMO or a board in that environment.

About Kevin White
Kevin White is a B2B tech marketing leader who has helped shape go-to-market at Segment, Retool, and Common Room, and now leads marketing at Scrunch AI, an AI-first customer-journey platform. He got his start in SaaS at Gigya — where he was handed Marketo and told to 'figure it out,' the spark for a learn-by-doing growth mindset that merges analytical rigor (attribution, lifecycle infrastructure, reporting) with creative offer- and channel-building. That growth foundation carried him to leading whole marketing orgs, though he's candid that the climb pulled him away from the hands-on craft he loves, and at Common Room he deliberately stepped back into a senior IC role. At Scrunch he focuses on one of the most overlooked shifts in modern marketing: websites are now consumed as much by AI bots as by humans, and brands that make their sites legible to LLMs — through structure, markdown and JSON, schema, and a parallel AI-optimized experience — win the emerging AI retrieval channel.
Kevin White on LinkedIn

---------- Resources ----------

This episode is brought to you by Scrunch. Scrunch gets your site AI-ready so you show up in answers, get cited, and grow revenue. Learn more at Scrunch.com

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873f

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba

Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the moment where the buying decision actually gets made is still the part of the journey we understand the least?

Agility depends on seeing what customers actually do — not just what they clicked — and being able to act on it while the promotion is still running.

Today we're talking about the gap between where brands are putting their media money and where they can actually see it working. Retail media budgets are climbing, stores are getting reinvested in, and yet the shelf itself remains one of the least instrumented parts of the customer journey. We'll be covering:

- Why the surge in retail media spend hasn't automatically produced better measurement.
- What it takes to connect a digital impression to what a shopper actually does in the aisle.
- How marketing, merchandising, and store operations have to work differently to act on any of it.

To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Angie Westbrock, CEO at Standard AI.

About Angie Westbrock
Angie Westbrock brings 20+ years of experience in retail, CPG and tech to her role as the CEO at Standard AI, the retail analytics startup valued at $1B that’s helping retailers and brands understand shopper behavior so they can improve the customer experience and their bottom lines. Angie specializes in scaling teams, culture, and business operations to support massive growth. She’s bucked the mold of what’s expected of women since the start of her career; she was one of the first brewing managers at Anheuser-Busch, one of the youngest women to run a plant at CPG giant Sara-Lee, and helped lead Lyft’s global Covid-task force with a young family at home.

Angie Westbrock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angie-westbrock-a2581111/

---------- Resources ----------

Standard AI: standard.ai

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703

We’re proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873f

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba

Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With trillions spent on digital ads to capture consumer attention, is the most powerful and effective channel for product discovery the one your brand is overlooking?
Agility requires brands to move beyond a digital-only mindset and recognize that the modern customer journey fluidly moves between online and offline moments. It means building the capabilities to engage and measure impact in the physical world with the same precision we've come to expect from digital.
Today, we're going to talk about the next evolution of retail media and why the physical store, far from being obsolete, is becoming the next great frontier for data-rich, high-impact customer engagement. We'll explore how brands can bridge the gap between their digital strategies and in-store realities to not only drive discovery but create measurable, full-funnel marketing moments.
To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Matt Eichorn, CEO and Co-Founder and Dilini Fernando, CMO at Freeosk.

About Matt Eichorn
Visionary entrepreneur Matt Eichorn has been at the forefront of evolving brand and shopper marketing experiences for the better part of 20 years. As the current CEO, President, and Co-Founder of Freeosk, Eichorn has built a one-of-a-kind technology platform to deliver multi-sensory experiences at scale. His foresight to digitize millions of real-world intent signals in-store, as they happen, is unlocking new insights and shaping the landscape of retail media 3.0 for brands, category managers, and retailers alike.Dilini Fernando is the Vice President, Marketing at Chicago-based Freeosk – the only omnichannel discovery platform with in-store automated sampling. Dilini joined Freeosk in October of 2020 to lead integrated marketing programs, including brand, product and partner initiatives. Prior to Freeosk, Dilini spent ten years at MolsonCoors in brand marketing, digital innovation, new product development, and portfolio strategy. Dilini received her BA from Brown University and her MBA from the University of Chicago. She is a previous recipient of Brand Innovators “40 Under 40”.
LinkedIn: Matt Eichorn

About Dilini Fernando
Dilini Fernando is the Vice President, Marketing at Chicago-based Freeosk – the only omnichannel discovery platform with in-store automated sampling. Dilini joined Freeosk in October of 2020 to lead integrated marketing programs, including brand, product and partner initiatives. Prior to Freeosk, Dilini spent ten years at MolsonCoors in brand marketing, digital innovation, new product development, and portfolio strategy. Dilini received her BA from Brown University and her MBA from the University of Chicago. She is a previous recipient of Brand Innovators “40 Under 40”.
LinkedIn: Dilini Fernando

---------- Resources ----------

Freeosk

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems.

We’re proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save!

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose.

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off.

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more.

Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia—the wiki for marketing technology.

Produced by Missing Link.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.