In a conversation, Tom Wentworth, the AI-driven CMO of incident.io, discusses his implementation of AI, how teams can use AI to stand out, and forward-looking predictions for the future of marketing and communications teams during the AI boom.
Describe your “ah-ha” moment with AI. When did you understand the impact of AI-driven marketing?
Before we saw the mass consumer awareness around tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, I was experimenting a few years ago with my team at Recorded Future on the current AI tools on the market to see if they could help with some specific marketing efforts, such as writing and social media content. My "ah-ha" moment sort of happened at that moment. Though initially underwhelming, I realized these tools would only improve over time, and I wanted to be an early adopter to streamline my team’s efforts. A single person using AI can now outproduce teams of people, making this the ideal moment to embrace it aggressively, as I have. I now spend half my day leveraging AI, recognizing its impact on marketing efficiency and competitiveness. I think for the future of the marketing business function, I’ve come to the realization that we will no longer see these giant marketing teams – we’ll see nimble teams, marketing generalists, with a lot of AI tools at their disposal.
What AI tools or platforms are you leveraging to enhance marketing effectiveness?
I’m constantly testing and trying new tools to see how it can impact every facet of our marketing team – from writing press releases and blogs, to pulling insights for competitive research, and even building our pipeline and prospect database. Our most used tools include Zapier, which streamlines workflow automation; Clay, for its data enrichment capabilities; and CommonRoom, which allows us to build customized solutions for community-driven insights. Additionally, we employ large language models tailored to specific team preferences: ChatGPT is widely used across functions; Claude is favored by our engineering team for its precision; Cursor is essential to our developers’ workflow to code, iterate and move faster; and Grok has proven to be an unexpectedly valuable asset due to its versatility. I think it’s important to continuously try and test new tools, especially at the speed at which innovation is occurring.
What are the biggest challenges CMOs face when adopting AI in marketing efforts?
Brand authenticity. I firmly believe the future of marketing will need and rely upon marketing, but companies still need to do the legwork in the beginning of their journey in terms of creating their brand, tone of voice, etc. AI can then be leveraged to rapidly implement marketing strategies, but CMOs need to ensure that their team’s AI-generated outputs remain authentic to the brand, and your founder’s identity and values. The challenge lies in striking a balance between aggressive automation and preserving authenticity. Marketing teams should clearly define and refine the company’s tone and voice, ensuring that AI tools are meticulously calibrated to reflect these attributes. Right now, if I leverage AI to generate a blog, I have it go through multiple iterations and edits still to strike the right tone that’s authentic to incident.io.
What do you think RSA will look like in terms of AI this year? Is it still the buzzword?
AI (and AI agents) are definitely going to continue to be the buzzwords at RSA this year, like we’ve seen the past couple of years. But I wouldn’t expect to see marketing teams using AI aggressively on-site at the show. AI is best used to enhance pre- and post-event activities, such as analyzing data to gain deeper insights into attendees we plan to meet, and streamlining post-event efforts, such as drafting personalized follow-up emails. You still need to take advantage of events like RSA for interpersonal connections.
How is AI impacting hiring when it comes to your teams?
We are now prioritizing roles such as content engineers—individuals with technical expertise beyond traditional content marketing—who can leverage AI to perform a wide range of marketing functions. Even social media and graphic design teams are now expected to integrate AI to enhance efficiency. Large marketing teams will become obsolete, as AI enables smaller, more versatile groups to achieve similar outcomes.
What are your go-to information sources for the latest AI trends?
Potentially controversial answer here - but my preferred source for tracking the latest AI trends is X, where I’m coming across ongoing conversations on new tools, prompt techniques and workflows. In contrast, while I know I’m pretty active on LinkedIn in terms of a networking tool, I actually consider it to be among the least effective sources of new information as it tends to lack depth in cutting-edge AI discourse.
Where do you see the role of Communications fitting into or evolving within the AI landscape?
I think every marketing / communications professional should definitely understand and implement AI where they can within their own workflows - it is the future of business. In the short-term though, Communications appears less affected by AI compared to other marketing functions. Current LLMs lack the ability to independently develop critical themes or narratives, which limits their impact on strategic storytelling in PR. You still need that person that can story mine and understand a unique story angle from in-person conversations they are having. But even in the long-term, I think the area of Communications will remain primarily relationship-driven, with less immediate emphasis on AI integration. Sure, there are ways to bolster some Communications workflows, but I think we’ll see this business area continue prioritizing human expertise and interpersonal dynamics over AI-driven automation.
