AI & Marketing: Search, Lies & Video Tapes with Simon Poulton

Marketing, Media & Adtech

Simon Poulton joins The ADOTAT Show for one of the smartest, funniest, and most brutally honest conversations about where marketing is headed — and why so many of us are in denial about it.

In this episode, Simon takes us deep into the AI-driven search revolution, where users don’t really “search” anymore — they just ask questions and hope their algorithmic butler doesn’t hallucinate an answer. We talk about how Google’s shiny new interfaces are rewriting discovery itself, what “agentic ecosystems” actually mean, and why the real war isn’t over keywords — it’s over who teaches the machines what truth looks like.

Simon also tackles the cult of measurement with the precision of a surgeon and the wit of a man who’s seen one too many PowerPoints. He argues that marketers don’t really want precision; they want validation. That we’ve turned data into a deity, and dashboards into confession booths. And that most of what passes for “optimization” is just highly organized anxiety wrapped in acronyms.

Along the way, he drops truth bombs about:

How removing levers from ad platforms doesn’t make marketers smarter — it just exposes who never knew what those levers did in the first place.

Why creative teams are trapped in an A/B testing purgatory where innovation dies in decimal points.

Why failing fast isn’t just a startup mantra — it’s survival advice for CMOs who’d rather risk big than die beige.

And yes — there’s a dance-off. Because when you’re done fighting attribution models, sometimes you just need to prove your point with bad rhythm and good lighting.

Brought to you by Troutman Amin LLP, the legal lions who keep adtech’s wildest players out of the headlines, and Incremental, the measurement masterminds reminding the industry that causation still matters.

🎙️ The ADOTAT Show — Stay bold, stay curious, and know more than you did yesterday.