Stop Automating the Past: How AI Is Changing the Way We Work with Liza Adams

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Stop Automating the Past: How AI Is Changing the Way We Work with Liza Adams

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About This Episode Most GTM teams are using AI to make existing work faster. But faster isn’t the same as different. And the teams that are actually pulling ahead aren’t automating the past — they’re reimagining the work itself. In this episode, Brian talks with Liza Adams about what separates teams that are getting faster with AI from teams that are actually changing how they work. Liza shares the story of Megan, a senior marketing leader who used AI agents to orchestrate across marketing, sales, and CS until her work outgrew her title entirely. That story illustrates the bigger idea behind the conversation: what happens when you reimagine the work first, then redesign the roles and the org around it. About Liza Adams Liza Adams is the founder of GrowthPath Partners, where she helps B2B GTM teams move beyond AI productivity into AI-driven transformation. She spent 25 years leading GTM teams at companies including Smartsheet and Juniper Networks, and has worked with AI and machine learning long before ChatGPT. She is passionate about elevating the strategic value of marketing and helping leaders use AI to become business leaders, not just functional leaders. What We Cover The AI adoption plateau and the three patterns that cause teams to stallWhy your belief about what AI can do is the cap of what your team will ever buildUsing AI as a sparring partner vs. a validation tool, and the research behind why it mattersThe difference between what’s hard for humans and what’s just historically hardHow AI doesn’t care about your org chart, your silos, or your titlesWhat CEOs are starting to want from CMOs and why most marketing leaders aren’t set up for itWhy reimagining the org chart starts with reimagining the work, not the other way around A Few Things Worth Taking Away AI for productivity should be the floor of our expectations, not the ceiling. If we only make old work go faster, we can project how it automates the human out. But if we use AI to do something different, we’re innovating, and when the business grows, humans are essential.People aren’t stupid. They just need to see what’s possible. Talking about AI capabilities is different from showing someone a workflow that pulses the market 24/7 and surfaces which customers are about to churn.Humans that use AI as a sparring partner outperform pure human teams and pure AI teams. But humans that use AI to validate their beliefs actually perform at a lower level than an all-AI team.In the RACI model, AI will never have the A. It will never be accountable. It will never lose the job for you, pay the fines for you, or go to jail for you.Don’t start with “what does the org of the future look like?” Start by reimagining the work. When you reimagine the work, the roles become clear. When the roles are clear, the org chart follows. A Few Lines That Stuck With Me “The cap of what our teams will ever build, do, and use AI for is limited by what they believe it can do.”“AI transformation can’t happen when we’re in a hamster wheel.”“AI will never lose the job for you, it will never pay the fines for you, and it will also never go to jail for you.”“It’s like hiring a bunch of actors before you even know what the script is.”“AI is making the mechanics a lot easier. I think our biggest challenge now is us.” Resources Mentioned AI Is Cannibalizing Human Intelligence. Here’s How to Stop It. by Vivienne Ming (Wall Street Journal)What Harvard Learned From 776 Professionals Using AI (Harvard/P&G research on AI and cross-functional collaboration) Chapters 00:00 Why Getting Faster With AI Isn’t Enough03:20 Why Teams Hit the AI Adoption Plateau07:43 AI as a Teammate, Not Just a Tool10:10 Using AI as a Sparring Partner12:35 What Work Is Only “Historically Hard”?18:12 AI Can Do the Work. Humans Own the Outcome.19:32 From Org Charts to Work Charts26:19 What CEOs Need From CMOs Now34:33 Reimagine the Work Before the Org Chart Transcript Brian Carroll (00:00): Well, I see this a lot in sales and marketing teams. People are using AI, some are using it really well. They built workflows, they built custom GPTs, they’re getting faster and better. But there’s a big difference between getting faster with AI and actually changing how your organization works. Welcome to the B2B roundtable. I’m Brian Carroll. And my guest today, Liza Adams. She’s the founder of GrowthPath Partners. And she spent 25 years leading GTM teams at companies like Smartsheet, Juniper Networks, and she’s worked with AI and machine learning long before ChatGPT. And now she helps teams figure out how AI can actually change the way they work. Something Liza recently said that stuck with me is you can’t reimagine the future by automating the past. Liza, welcome to the B2B roundtable. Liza Adams (00:50): Hi Brian. I’ve been looking forward to this all week long and it feels like every time you and I get together we’re always laughing. So I’m ...

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