Why AI feels different than other martech

#319 | Dave sits down with Jess Lytle, Head of Marketing at Exit Five, to talk about how AI is changing the job of B2B marketers and the reality of how AI is actually being adopted internally. They also cover how AI even helped Jess get her job at Exit Five and why she’s become obsessed about deploying AI in marketing and really believes this is the most important martech wave yet.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - – Goals, manifestation, and reverse-engineering outcomes
• (06:14) - – Meet Jess Lytle, Head of Marketing at Exit Five
• (08:28) - – How Jess got hired at Exit Five (webinar → DMs → job)
• (10:28) - – From demand gen to AI: early adoption, teaching, and Lovable
• (15:58) - – Why AI feels different than traditional martech
• (18:28) - – Content in 2026: originality, human insight, and AI distribution
• (29:16) - – NotebookLM: real marketing workflows and internal use cases
• (35:16) - – AI tools, team structure, and hybrid marketer roles
• (45:56) - – Working at Exit Five, founder-led marketing, and brand bets

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Brought to you by:

Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Get a free, personalized 45-minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out where agents can save you time at optimizely.com/exitfive.

AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.

Visit exitfive.com/retreat to apply for Exit Five’s first-ever, in-person Marketing Leadership Retreat, March 18–20, 2026 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Join 100 CMOs and VPs of Marketing from companies like like Zoom, Snowflake, Manychat, Bitly, G2, HP, and more for two days of thinking bigger around a trusted group of peers in marketing. 

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Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

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