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Bart Ons posted thisThe Moment the Marketing Factory Broke We didn’t ease into this. We put it into production on Microsoft.com within weeks. Content updates that used to take days were now moving from ticket to production in minutes and hours. Not because people worked harder. Gradial was doing in minutes what used to take teams weeks. And then we kept going. → Page migrations from .NET to Adobe AEM → Net-new pages generated from Figma directly into AEM → Journey insights — pinpointing where customers were dropping off → Gradial recommending changes — deployed in real time → Campaign planning and ideation — grounded in context, powered by human creativity What started as speed became something much bigger. A completely different way to operate. And none of this happened in isolation. Through the partnership with Revel // An Infogain Experience Design Studio, the Microsoft Startups team, Platform Engineering, site leads, and the marketing organization - everyone aligned around a shared goal: increase throughput and speed to revenue. And what surprised us most was the speed of that alignment. Not months. Not quarters. Weeks. Microsoft saw the chance to demonstrate how its underlying models and Microsoft Azure platform - combined with Gradial’s agentic execution layer - could power a real, super complex workflow. And once that vision clicked, everyone leaned in. Every change still flowed through the system. And every update continued to read to and from the ticketing tool, keeping audit trails intact and governance fully visible. So we built this on Microsoft first principles ensuring the underlying architecture leveraged the full power of the Microsoft ecosystem. And because Gradial operates with a multi-model approach, we could run this as a true customer-zero deployment leveraging frontier AI models delivered through Azure with enterprise governance, security, and full operational control. All the boxes were checked: Security, Compliance, Governance. Architecture. Then we picked a few high-volume, tentpole editorials, and moved them into production within weeks. And once you see that - there’s no going back. Huge credit to the people who made that alignment happen: Thank you Takeshi Numoto, Stephanie Ferguson, Bill Hamilton, Jessica Daughetee for allowing me to innovate and for your inspiration to start building the agentic Marketing organization of the future. Thank you Charles Lamanna and Doug Tallmadge. Your support proved critical and enabled Gradial to build on Microsoft’s powerful Azure AI platform. Thank you to the Microsoft Startups & Pegasus team help us grow Ali Schumacher and Megan Rabin. Last but not least, thank you to my team: Nicole Enriquez Diem, Brian Costea, May Yu, Stacy Drulard, Danielle Cullivan, Matt Robley, Annie Tuazon Weddle, Sean Standley, Sheena Velamoor, Nazma Dreyer and many others for leaning in. So what do you do when you finally see the future? I’ll tell you what I did in the final post.
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Bart Ons posted thisThe Beginning of the End of the Marketing Factory The beginning of the end didn’t happen in a boardroom. It happened over dinner. At Microsoft, I had brought in Revel // An Infogain Experience Design Studio as a systems integration partner. Their CEO, Vikas Kamran, and I kept circling the same realization: Even the best marketing operations teams still rely on an incredible amount of manual work. Yes - teams optimize processes. Yes - they reduce costs. But the underlying problem never goes away. Execution is still slow. Still fragmented. Still dependent on super-humans stitching work together across systems. And that’s when something shifted. Not in the tools. In how we were thinking about the problem. Because the issue wasn’t inefficiency. It was the model itself. We weren’t running a modern, automated system. We were running a human-driven production line. Over dinner, that became impossible to ignore. The next leap forward in marketing wasn’t going to come from another platform. Or another vendor. It required a fundamentally different operating model. Not better tools. A better way for work to actually get done. An agentic approach to execution. Not just analyzing systems. Not just generating content. But configuring software to do the work itself. A few days after that dinner, Vikas introduced me to a new platform entering the market: Gradial. What stood out immediately wasn’t just the technology. It was what it represented. Gradial applies AI agents directly to the operational layer of enterprise software - across CMS, design tools, workflow systems, and data platforms. Not as another tool in the stack. But as an execution layer across the systems teams already use. Applied across the entire content supply chain - the chain of planning, building, reviewing, approving, and publishing digital experiences. That was the moment it clicked. This wasn’t an incremental improvement. This was the beginning of the end of the marketing factory. So we decided to try it. What happened next surprised everyone. I’ll share those results in the next post!
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Bart Ons posted this35 Websites. 100,000 Pages. 4 Billion Visitors. Still Running on Duct Tape and Late Nights. Last week I told you about the manual workflows behind T-Mobile's biggest moments. Then I moved to Microsoft And the scale was staggering. The teams behind it were the most talented marketers I've ever worked with. I felt fortunate that many had even joined me on my journey from T-Mobile to Microsoft. Microsoft had invested heavily in world-class platforms, infrastructure, and people. A portfolio of: 35 websites 100,000 pages 4 billion annual visitors Billions in online revenue. Thousands of content updates every month just to keep the machine running. All powered by a MarTech stack we had invested millions in. And yet… None of it solved the workflow problem. Then there was Microsoft Ignite. Hundreds of web pages that needed to go live in lockstep with the latest products Satya Nadella was about to unveil on stage. An immovable launch date. Incomplete information. Global teams building around the clock under enormous pressure. And then the first round of exec feedback would come in - and the cycle would reset. New input. New revisions. New reviews. More late nights. It wasn't a talent problem. The talent was extraordinary. It was a workflow problem - brilliant people trapped inside fragmented legacy MarTech systems, complex workflows, and endless handoffs. And it was a cost problem. We were spending millions on managed services, vendor overhead, and manual labor just to keep the content machine running. I kept asking myself: Why are we still doing marketing this way? The next solution wasn't going to come from another platform. Or another vendor. We needed something fundamentally different. Not incremental. Revolutionary. �� And then I got a phone call that changed everything. Next week, I'll tell you about "the dinner." If you were part of the Microsoft web or marketing ecosystem during those years, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. This is Part 2 of a 5-week story about breaking up with the outdated marketing factory. Follow along for what comes next... #MarTech #CMO #FutureOfMarketing #AIinMarketing #BreakUpWithOldMarketing
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Bart Ons posted thisDuct Tape, Late Nights, and 120 Million People Watching Millions of people are about to hit your campaign landing page. The assets just dropped minutes ago. Apple’s embargo just lifted. The clock is ticking. And the systems behind the curtain? Held together by super-humans and late nights. That was my reality at T-Mobile. And to be clear - T-Mobile was operating at massive scale with incredibly talented teams and world-class technology. But like most enterprise marketing organizations at the time, the execution engine behind the curtain was still painfully manual. I ran the web team through every Un-Carrier moment that defined the brand. Black Friday. Cyber Monday. The annual iPhone launch - where you got zero assets until the press release dropped. And then the clock started. Multi-million-dollar campaigns where the spotlight was blinding and the margin for error was zero. One moment I’ll never forget: Orchestrating a Super Bowl campaign with Kim Kardashian. Building every landing page. Every touchpoint. Knowing 120+ million people would be watching when it went live. Every pixel had to be perfect. Every page had to land flawlessly. No room for error. No time for rework. Oh - and every asset needed Kim’s personal approval before going live. If you've ever carried that kind of pressure - where the world is watching and the execution engine behind the curtain can't keep up - you know exactly what I'm talking about. The talent was never the problem. The teams were exceptional. The challenge was the brittle workflow behind the scenes. Too many handoffs. Too many manual steps. Too many systems that didn’t talk to each other. Over the past few years I’ve talked with dozens of marketing leaders across enterprise companies - and the story is remarkably consistent. Brilliant teams. Powerful platforms. But the execution engine behind modern marketing is still held together by manual workflows. And I kept telling myself: It’ll get better at the next level. At a bigger company. With a bigger budget. With a more advanced MarTech stack. ↓ Then I moved to Microsoft. And I discovered what global enterprise scale really looks like. I’ll share that story next week. This is Part 1 of a 5-week story about breaking up with the outdated marketing factory. If you’ve ever watched a brilliant strategy stall in execution, follow along. Next week: 35 websites 100,000 pages 4 billion visitors And the exact same problem. #MarTech #CMO #FutureOfMarketing #AIinMarketing #BreakUpWithOldMarketing
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Bart Ons shared thisLet’s break up with the outdated way of creating data and insights that end up in a massive backlog and never see the light of day. For the first time ever demand gen teams can now start taking action on these recommendations in a matter of hours not months! Great work Henry Hopcraft and Gradial team!!!Bart Ons shared thisWinning AI search with generative engine optimization (GEO) is top of mind for marketing leaders. But GEO without execution is just a report. Current GEO products are visibility tools that show you the problem but rely on your team to fix it, like the old SEO model. But AI models aren’t deterministic and change every few weeks. The only way to keep up with AI search visibility is with real-time execution. That’s why today, we’re launching Gradial's GEO agent, with execution built in natively. Get recommendations to improve visibility and action those changes instantly, giving your brand an always on GEO loop. See how it works and request your Gradial GEO analysis here → https://lnkd.in/geirruy5 Reports don't win generative search. Execution does. #AIsearch #GEO #marketing #marketingops
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Bart Ons shared thisCouldn’t agree more Vikas Kamran!Bart Ons shared this📉 Adobe’s recent downgrade is more than a stock move. It’s a signal. Morgan Stanley cut its rating to “Equal-Weight,” citing slower ARR growth and uncertainty around AI monetization. https://lnkd.in/g6AKFEvk Creative tools are only half the story. The other half and where the real pressure is showing is the platform + DXP backbone. Here’s the trend, by the numbers: 1️⃣ Generative AI at the surface is now table stakes. What wins is the intelligence + orchestration behind it. 2️⃣ As omnichannel journeys, GSEO (Generative Search Engine Optimization), and content variants multiply, execution grows exponentially harder: - Enterprises are already managing hundreds of content types and thousands of assets across 10+ channels. - Gartner reports that 70% of CMOs say complexity in content and channel orchestration is the #1 barrier to ROI. - McKinsey shows marketers now spend 60%+ of their time on operations vs. creativity. It's the xact inverse of where value should be created. 3️⃣ Legacy DXPs built for page templates can’t keep up. The future belongs to agentic DXPs that reason, act, and optimize across the entire stack and turning “content chaos” into orchestrated experiences. That’s why Gradial is focused on being the marketing backbone. It’s the infrastructure layer that makes campaigns, pages, and personalization run at scale. We’re energized by DXP partners, including Sitecore who recognize the urgency to help marketers balance speed, governance, and creativity. Together, we’re driving innovation through partnership, building on a shared agentic backbone vision that powers the modern content supply chain. We’ll be unpacking these themes at #SitecoreSymposium in Orlando, Nov 3–5. Looking forward to continuing the conversation there. #DXP #MarTech #AgenticAI #MarketingInfrastructure #GSEO #Gradial #SitecoreWill AI help or hurt Adobe’s stock? The uncertainty now has these analysts feeling cautious.Will AI help or hurt Adobe’s stock? The uncertainty now has these analysts feeling cautious.
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Bart Ons shared thisThank you so much Garrick Schmitt for hosting the AI panel discussion yesterday at Adobe summit! Truly enjoyed our conversation how #AI is driving new CX and workflow opportunities leveraging the power of Microsoft, Gradial and Infogain. Great job Doug Tallmadge and Sarathy Annamraju !!!Bart Ons shared thisYesterday we co-hosted an exclusive panel that featured industry leaders Sarathy Annamraju and Garrick Schmitt from Infogain, Doug Tallmadge from Gradial, and Bart Ons from Microsoft. A huge thank you to our panelists and to everyone who joined us. It was a full house! We dove into how AI is transforming customer experiences and optimizing marketing operations. Here are some key takeaways from the insightful discussion: 🔥 Doing more with less: AI is driving efficiency, reducing costs, and allowing marketing teams to focus on higher value, strategic work. 🔥 Think big, act incrementally: Take a multi-horizon approach to AI model maturity, workflow change, change management, and adoption. 🔥 Agentic marketing is here: AI agents will personalize, automate, and enhance marketing efforts to create more effective and impactful customer experiences. #Infogain #AdobeSummit #DigitalMarketing #AI #MarTech #FutureOfMarketing Lynn Brading Mark T. Magee Brittany Moore
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Bart Ons shared thisLooking forward to joining Doug Tallmadge, Garrick Schmitt and Sarathy Annamraju to discuss AI-powered digital experiences and how we are leveraging AI to accelerate our content supply chain in marketing at Microsoft. See you all soon at Adobe Summit 2025!Bart Ons shared thisLimited VIP Seats Left for Adobe Summit 2025! Join us for an exclusive luncheon and panel at #AdobeSummit - spots are filling fast! Connect with top industry leaders as we discuss "Delivering AI-powered Digital Experiences" in partnership with Gradial. Join our expert panelists, Sarathy Annamraju, SVP, Digital Experience Platforms, Infogain, Doug Tallmadge, CEO, Gradial, and Bart Ons, Sr. Director, AI Innovation & Strategy, Microsoft. The session will be moderated by Garrick Schmitt, SVP, Digital Strategy, Revel // An Infogain Experience Design Studio. Don't miss this chance to network and gain invaluable AI insights. RSVP now - https://lnkd.in/gspZzkTS. Lynn Brading, Brittany Moore, Mark T. Magee, Anish Chadalavada #AccelerateExperiences #AI #Adobe #AdobeSummit #CustomerExperiences #Infogain #EngineeringBusinessOutcomes #Revel
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Bart Ons shared thisThis week, I had the pleasure of celebrating some of our amazing Microsoft web marketers. Join me in congratulating Madeline Bach, Mark Flores, and Justin Soboloski on their incredible work! We also kept things classy during Tie Dye Day... #digital #webmarketing #ai #microsoft #globalmarketing #microsoftfabric #microsoft365 #microsoftteams
Bart Ons replied to a comment
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Vinod Sharma This is such a great way to frame it. To your point, speed gets the attention, but alignment is what actually determines whether it sticks.
The part that surprised me most was exactly what you said. Once teams experienced that compression from weeks to hours, there was no going back. Expectations were reset almost immediately.
And I think that’s where the operating model shift becomes unavoidable because the old system simply can’t keep up with that new baseline. You nailed it!
Bart Ons commented on a post
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Amy Peyrard I think you need an English Bulldog in charge of the Customer Loyalty Dept. Zero Churn :)
Bart Ons commented on a post
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This is Part 4 of a 5-part series on breaking up with the marketing factory.
If you missed the earlier parts, they set up the full picture:
Part 1: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7437524476365357056/?originTrackingId=96NQV1zL9CKpxnnWlJV4QQ%3D%3D
Part 2: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7440069209956663296/?originTrackingId=vikyVg%2FOrKS7ZDVnc4ld4g%3D%3D
Part 3: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7442602471849390081/?originTrackingId=DTMj5o2jZzvu48CT7OOK7Q%3D%3D
Curious what’s resonating most so far.
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Bart Ons liked thisBart Ons liked thisStill looking, and I know I’m not the only one feeling how tough this market is right now, especially for marketers. I bring 15+ years leading full-funnel marketing across brand, growth, digital, and events. I’ve built campaigns, rebuilt brands, and created systems and processes that actually drive results. I’m open to Sr. Marketing Manager, Marketing Director, or contract opportunities. If something comes to mind, I’d truly appreciate a connection or conversation. Thank you 💜
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Bart Ons liked thisThis is great for Seattle and WA State. Paraphrasing a comment I recently read complements this: startups in CA and WA... scale in TX. Would like to make it start and scale here!Bart Ons liked this"Seattle ranks #1 globally ... Seattle’s leadership in engineering quality reflects the region’s deep concentrations of cloud infrastructure expertise, AI platform development, and advanced product engineering, ushering in the human + AI era." https://lnkd.in/guYpaXmY
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Bart Ons liked thisBart Ons liked thisFrom our family to yours, wishing everyone a Happy Passover, Good Friday, and Easter, and a fresh start to spring. 🌷 Many of us are juggling very full calendars and very big deliverables right now leading up to our biggest SAP customer and partner event in May: Sapphire - https://lnkd.in/gRcvU6Wz. While the pace of work is not slowing down, I am grateful for the teams who continue to show up, support one another, and get the work done. ❤️ Spring is a time of renewal and new energy, and a good reminder that rest is required for growth. I hope you are able to spend time with your people this weekend and find moments of rest in between the sprints.🏃♀️ P.S. Thanks Microsoft Copilot for the awesome caricature of our Easter family picture ❤️
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Bart Ons liked thisBart Ons liked thisDuring a recent visit to Japan, I spent time with teams who are applying AI to very real, very specific business problems. One example we have been learning from, through customer work and examples like this, is ARUM, a Microsoft customer in precision manufacturing. By combining deep domain expertise with AI embedded directly into how work gets done, ARUM has shortened processes that once took hours down to minutes. Just as importantly, highly specialized knowledge is becoming accessible to more people on the team, not locked away with only a few experts. When we talk about Frontier Transformation at Microsoft, this is what we mean in practice. Not AI as an abstract idea, but AI woven into daily workflows in ways that preserve craft, translate judgment into systems, expand participation, and help teams make better decisions day to day. We are seeing this pattern repeat more broadly. Organizations are using AI to address talent constraints, learn faster, and turn hard‑won experience into something that scales responsibly. If you are curious, this is a thoughtful look at what ARUM is building and how they are approaching the work: https://lnkd.in/e73PXQFCJapan’s ARUM turns craftsmanship into scalable AI for precision manufacturing - Source AsiaJapan’s ARUM turns craftsmanship into scalable AI for precision manufacturing - Source Asia
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Bart Ons liked thisBart Ons liked thisThree interesting stats from Pruven Capital portfolio company Bilt as they continue to build towards a: Neighborhood agentic commerce platform, Anchored by your home and Underpinned by payments (could be a Bilt card or another card or even Venmo). The experience they are trying to recreate is the one you get when checking into a high end hotel -> The concierge not only informs you about what might interest you -> Goes ahead and books you -> you can make a payment by charging to your hotel bill. Exactly the same thing is now possible when you move into a home in a new neighborhood. All of this is helping drive tremendous growth in non rent spend onto Bilt's platform and network as shared in the charts below: CC: Ankur Jain, Daniel Seder, Travis Skelly
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Bart Ons liked thisBart Ons liked thisProud to share the launch of our new 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗼𝗳𝘁 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲 🎉, built in partnership with Bryan Stromer, Brenna Robinson, Hanna Wai, May Yu, and many others. In just 45 days, we built a sleek, modern experience designed to drive awareness and consideration for the Frontier Program—Microsoft’s early‑access path for customers to try emerging AI features and help shape what comes next—complete with advanced tracking to measure impact and an AI assistant that answers questions in real time. And like any project, things popped up (like launching a week early to support a key marketing moment). Bryan said something that stuck with me: “𝙒𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣’𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙡 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙨, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙬𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙡 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙬𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙣𝙙.” That mindset is exactly why this team delivered — quick problem‑solving, zero ego, and a shared commitment to getting it right for our customers and partners. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/guMPr9Aq #Microsoft #MicrosoftLife #MicrosoftFrontier #MicrosoftAIExplore AI Early Access in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft FrontierExplore AI Early Access in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Frontier
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Bart Ons liked thisThis is a massive sea change. How will email marketing change now that "do not reply" has become "we're waiting to hear back?"Bart Ons liked thisGenerally available now, you can use Conversational Email to have two-way conversations with your customers. The sooner you get started, the sooner you can delete the "Do Not Reply" at the end of every email your brand sends. Watch below to see how it works. Here's how to get started: https://sforce.co/4e7W50C
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Bart Ons liked thisCongrats to the Ecosystems Compass Report top 10 leaders! Interested in current market signals for building your partner ecosystem? Bridge Partners helps our customers grow their business by turning insights into business outcomes.Bart Ons liked thisLast week we launched the second edition of the Ecosystem Compass Report in collaboration with Partnership Leaders. This work brings together two important perspectives: Partnership Leaders provides the data, benchmarks, and market signals across the top ecosystems. Bridge Partners connects those insights to real business outcomes, based on our experience helping clients execute across hyperscalers, marketplaces, and partner-led GTM. The opportunity for growth and the pressure to deliver high-quality pipeline that sales teams can close this year are both real and immediate. The data is clear: partner-sourced pipeline consistently outperforms, with deals that are 2× larger, 3× higher win rates, and 30% faster to close. This is where we see the biggest opportunity. We’re helping clients turn these insights from the ECR into action across critical areas: ▪️Multi-partner sales and co-sell motions, like the Power of Three (GSI/ISV/Hyperscaler), that drive pipeline and revenue leveraging the best in automation and AI. The results are real. ▪️Ecosystem and program strategy that identify your highest-growth opportunities, your most valuable partners, and how to align these investments to deliver meaningful customer outcomes. ▪️AI-enabled workflows that move partner programs from experimentation to execution from scaling partner demand generation to reimagining joint planning with partners. Congrats to the ECR's top 10 ecosystem leaders! Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP, Google, Dell Technologies, Snowflake, Oracle, ServiceNow, and HubSpot. Link to the ECR Executive Summary: https://hubs.li/Q048yzs00 Asher Mathew Tai Rattigan Chris Samila Penny Byron Lauren Ventura Tim Gunderson Benjamin Hinson-Ekong Paul Shirer Matt Hansink Matthew Albert Lindsay Jensen Lincoln Barr Blair Foerster John Tribble Tania Fernández de Castro (She/Ella) Richard Albrecht Rob Toledo Michelle Sherman Kelsey McManimie Ezra Fain Travis Nesse Zac Lysen Christine King #partnerships #GTMstrategy #partnerstrategy #growthstrategy
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