No business school prepared leaders for managing humans alongside autonomous AI agents. In this AI Answers episode, Paul Roetzer and Cathy McPhillips break down the immediate strategic shifts required for 2026. They explore where marketing agencies can use AI in a post-billable-hour world, the rise of the AI Output Verification manager, and why LLM’s "alien technology" requires a new approach to risk. Plus: Practical advice on building custom GPTs and knowing when not to automate.

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

Timestamps:

00:00:00 — Intro

00:03:38 — Question #1: AI Leverage for Marketing Agencies

00:07:44 — Question #2: The "Alien" Nature of LLMs

00:10:06 —Question #3: Responsible AI Mistakes to Avoid

00:13:07 — Question #4: Evaluating AI Platforms

00:16:32 — Question #5: Platform Consolidation

00:18:32 — Question #6: Building Internal Systems vs. Third-Party Tools

00:20:09 — Question #7: Data Privacy Concerns

00:23:09 — Question #8: Signaling Trust & Authenticity

00:25:47 — Question #9: Reinventing Workflows & Org Charts

00:30:50 — Question #10: How to Start Building AI Assistants

00:33:34 — Question #11: What You Should Never Automate

00:36:12 — Question #12: Scaling AI Too Fast

00:38:36 — Question #13: New Leadership Skills

00:41:42 — Question #14: AI Output Verification

00:45:29 — Bonus: AI Book Recommendations

This episode is brought to you by Google Cloud:

Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.

Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/

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