🎙️ Submit your question for Episode 6 of Thinking, With AI | Community
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susanaziz
Adobe Employee
susanazizAdobe Employee
Adobe Employee
April 16, 2026

🎙️ Submit your question for Episode 6 of Thinking, With AI

  • April 16, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 103 views

🎧 Episode #6: Can an AI Assistant upskill an entire marketing team? 

 

We’re about to head into the podcast studio and film Episode 6 of Thinking, With AI. This time, we are excited to chat with Tom Capone, Director of MarTech Strategy & Operations.

 

Tom is rethinking how marketing teams operate with AI. Leading a lean team at the NFL, he’s focused on what matters most now: growing talent, not just headcount.

 

In this episode, we dig into how AI moves beyond productivity, and starts reshaping expertise itself. Can AI assistants actually upskill a team, not just help them move faster, but help them think better?

 

📞 As usual, we’re adding your voice to the conversation. In the comments below, share a question for Tom about:  

  • Up skilling junior marketers leveraging AI technology
  • Experimentation inside AEP, AJO, and CJA for drafting campaign briefs
  • Judgement, Discernment, and depth when it comes to mastery concepts leveraging AI 

We’ll choose 1–2 community-sourced questions to feature in the episode — either read aloud or voiced directly by you. 

 

Don’t Forget: Make sure to include your full name, title, company, and question. These details will help us introduce you properly if your question is selected.  

    2 replies

    berrygirl044-1
    berrygirl044-1
    Level 2
    April 17, 2026

    How do you balance using AI to accelerate junior marketers’ growth without creating over-reliance, especially when it comes to building real judgment and strategic depth?

    Courtney Blethen, Marketing Ops Manager, VelocityEHS

      TomCa11
      TomCa11
      Level 1
      April 30, 2026

      @berrygirl044-1 Thanks for the great question Courney! We covered this on the podcast episode but I wanted to double click into it here as well for visibility. 

      I think it’s a question that a lot of teams are struggling with at this time. Does using AI and having the tools create step-by-step solutions on behalf of the marketer create understanding—or dependency?

      In my eyes - you can end up with either. The difference is reflection.

      • Step-by-step guidance without “why” → results in dependency on the tool.
      • Guidance that explains tradeoffs, failure modes, and alternatives → results in understanding of the tool and how it operates.

      A useful mental model:

      AI should remove cognitive friction, not cognitive responsibility.


      If teams treat AI like GPS—never learning the map—they’re weaker.
      If they treat it like a driving instructor—explaining decisions and how they came to those “turn by turn” choices—they get stronger faster.

      The risk isn’t AI guidance.
      The risk is unexamined automation.

      Thanks for the question - hope this helps!

      Tom

      Tom Capone - AEP Champion - NFL - Director MarTech Strategy & Ops
      AbdulJo1
      Adobe Champion
      AbdulJo1Adobe Champion
      Adobe Champion
      April 28, 2026

      What are some of the use cases or tangible work assignments that you have defined for junior marketers to upskill with AI technology?

       

      Abdul Jomaa, Senior MarTech Manager, Qualcomm. 

        TomCa11
        TomCa11
        Level 1
        April 30, 2026

        ​@AbdulJo1 Hey Abdul! 😀

        I think the key to success on this is to start with the basics. From an AEP/AJO lens, I’d suggest starting with the “obvious” journeys for example - think welcome journeys, birthday journeys, etc. Same sentiment for any of the other Experience Cloud products. 

        When diving into more complex use cases, there obviously comes more possibility for variance - there is some best practice knowledge needed on how to properly prompt the tool to get the desired result. 

        There’s some great documentation on prompting guides that I think is a good place to start before “doing” anything as a junior marketer. EX for Journey Optimizer prompts:

        https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/journey-optimizer/using/content-management/ai-assistant/ai-assistant-prompting-guide

        Once the marketer is in a good place from a “how do I start” POV, my suggestion would be to reverse engineer journeys that are already approved from senior folks on the team. For example, if a birthday journey is already live, the junior marketer can prompt the assistant “how would you go about writing the prompt for this journey ID” - it’s a great way to align on the variables and components that the AI assistant is looking for when ticking the boxes for the building blocks on a given ask. 

        Hope this helps!
        Tom

        Tom Capone - AEP Champion - NFL - Director MarTech Strategy & Ops
          AbdulJo1
          Adobe Champion
          AbdulJo1Adobe Champion
          Adobe Champion
          May 11, 2026

          This certainly helps, Tom! Thank you for unpacking your thought process with tangible AI use cases. Very helpful! 🙂

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