CMO Confidential

Episode Title: AI Is Smashing the Marketing Funnel & It Might Crush CMOs in the Process
Host: Mike Linton
Guest: Mike Walrath (Chairman & CEO of Yext)
Date: November 6, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Mike Linton sits down with Mike Walrath to explore how generative AI is fundamentally altering the marketing funnel as we know it – with enormous implications for CMOs. They delve into the collapse of the traditional awareness-consideration-conversion-loyalty model, the rise of "zero-click" and AI-driven discovery, and why the new era requires brands to rethink how (and to whom) they're marketing. Throughout, the discussion highlights actionable advice, cautionary tales, and both the existential threat and emerging role for marketers in an AI-mediated world.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Death of the Traditional Marketing Funnel

• The Funnel Is Dead (03:25–04:58)

  • Mike Walrath asserts that the marketing funnel—how marketers understood brand-building through awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty—“is over” as a guiding concept.
  • Quote:

    "The funnel you’ve known your whole career is over. Right. There’s no more winning interest and getting attention to the consumer on the website. We’re moving to zero click." (Mike Walrath, 05:31)

• Changing Consumer Discovery

  • Discovery no longer begins and ends where marketers can fully control the messaging or experience.
  • Personal Example: The Land Rover buying journey, historically funneled through brand touchpoints and dealership visits, is now replaced by personalized AI research and recommendations.

2. Zero-Click and AI-Powered Discovery

• Zero-Click Explained (09:26–11:37)

  • Increasingly, queries don’t result in website visits. Instead, AI summarizes, recommends, and synthesizes research inline.
  • Example Scenario:

    "The entire sort of awareness and consideration part of the funnel has now been compressed into the AI experience." (Mike Walrath, 11:35)

• Personalization at Scale

  • AI agents aggregate and contextualize user preferences, drastically compressing the awareness and consideration processes.

3. Marketers Are Losing Control Over Messaging

• AI as the Gatekeeper (05:59–06:54, 13:59–15:35)

  • Brands are rapidly losing control over ad copy, message delivery, and when/where/how consumers encounter brands.
  • Quote:

    "AI creates the first environment in which you’re not going to be in control of your advertising copy and message anymore… You will not be able to decide what your ad copy is." (Mike Walrath, 05:59, 06:05)

• From Marketing to Bots to Influencing Bots

  • Marketers must now optimize for being the best possible AI recommendation—the so-called “AI Bake Off” (13:53).
  • Quote:

    "We have to become influence marketers. ...The most important difference is going to be that we can no longer control the message." (Mike Walrath, 18:37–19:05)

4. Brand Is More Important (and More Challenging) Than Ever

• The Enduring Role of Brand (06:54–07:13, 21:59–22:39)
  • With AI now fronting human interactions, only well-established brands with strong presence can compete for algorithms’ attention and recommendations.
  • Quote:

    "Branding is more important than ever. ... If you don’t have the brand, you’re not in this game." (Mike Walrath & Mike Linton, 21:59–22:26)

  • The era of the “brand scientist” CMO emerges—someone equally comfortable with creative and technological skillsets. (24:04–24:55)

5. Data Is King—Not Content

• Bots Don’t Read, They Scan Data (25:56–28:17)

  • All content needs to be turned into structured data so bots (not humans) can ingest it quickly and easily.
  • Quote:

    "Bots don’t consume content, they consume data. And every piece of content you’ve ever created has to become consumable data." (Mike Walrath, 25:56–26:14)

• Actionable Example:

  • Creating multiple data sets for restaurant menus (vegan, keto, carnivore), not just a generic menu for everyone, because AI recommendation engines will pick based on specific user profiles (40:10–41:01).

6. SEO is Not Enough—AEO, GEO, and Constant Iteration

• Evolving Optimization Disciplines (29:18–30:29)

  • Traditional SEO falls short. Now, CMOs must understand and invest in emerging practices like Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
  • Quote:

    "The future CMO can no longer have the luxury of having a group of people in the basement figuring that stuff out... if you miss that, you are going to be so competitively disadvantaged that it'll be hard to recover from." (Mike Walrath, 29:18–30:29)

• First-Party Data Reigns (31:42–32:45)

  • AI relies predominantly on your first-party data (citations/listings)—not social chatter or third-party reviews—for its recommendations.

7. Memory and Context: The Invisible Challenge

• Memory-Driven Discovery (19:48–21:21, 42:14–44:14)
  • AI’s memory and understanding of user context revolutionize how consumers act and what marketers must provide.
  • Quote:

    "We’re used to marketing to intent based queries and the intent is now hidden in the context and in the memory… it makes the marketing challenge much harder." (Mike Walrath, 20:52–21:21)

8. Major Danger Zones and What CMOs Must Do

• Biggest Mistakes for Boards, CEOs, and CMOs (36:17–38:07)

  • Failing to invest in the right talent, systems, and data infrastructure.
  • Relying on a single channel (e.g., Google) is a death sentence in an AI-fragmented world.
  • Quote:

    "First thing we have to do is we have to understand that the traffic's not going to come to us anymore. All of your metrics around website traffic and referrals and that's all going away." (Mike Walrath, 37:46–38:07)

• Land Grab: “Giddy Up, It’s a Land Grab Everywhere” (39:58–41:01)

  • Marketers should hurry to own as much first-party data and relevant content as possible—on every relevant platform/answer engine.

9. Practical Advice & Cautionary Story

• Deeply Rethink Data and Context (41:16–44:14)
  • Marketers—or those who serve them—must obsess over how memory/context in AI is dictating which brands/products/services surface for users.
  • Don’t ever let your AI bot talk unsupervised in front of a group—it knows more about you than you think!
  • Memorable Moment:

    "I popped [ChatGPT] on the table... I say, ‘Hey, what do you know about me?’ …I had no idea what it was going to say because I’ve been talking to this thing for two years and it knows things about me that I don’t even know it knows about me." (Mike Walrath, 41:29–43:31)

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On the End of the Traditional Funnel:

  "The funnel is dead the way we have been trained… and that may not be the most sort of disruptive thing that we're going to see with this, with this shift."
  (Mike Walrath, 03:25–04:58)

• On Zero-Click & AI Experience:

  "The entire sort of awareness and consideration part of the funnel has now been compressed into the AI experience."
  (Mike Walrath, 11:37)

• On Loss of Message Control:

  "AI creates the first environment in which you’re not going to be in control of your advertising copy and message anymore… You will not be able to decide what your ad copy is."
  (Mike Walrath, 05:59, 06:05)

• On the Future CMO Role:

  "The definition of the CMO unicorn is going to change... you have to understand the power of the brand and you have to become a scientist."
  (Mike Walrath, 24:04–25:56)

• On the Importance of Own Data:

  “86% of all of the citations that AI uses with these complex localized context-rich queries are your first-party information. ...Your first-party websites and information are the key citations for the answers that AI gives.”
  (Mike Walrath, 32:57)

• On Urgency:

  “Giddy up, it’s a land grab everywhere. Get the people, and boomer sooner, go get the land.”
  (Mike Linton, 39:58–40:10)

• On Data and AI Memory:

  “...if you’re not thinking deeply, deeply, deeply as a marketer about memory and context and how it impacts the way that consumers are going to discover your products through AI answer engines, you are massively behind the curve.”
  (Mike Walrath, 41:19–43:15)

Timestamps for Major Segments

• [03:25] – The marketing funnel is dead: why, and what replaces it
• [09:26] – What “zero click” actually looks like in the consumer journey
• [13:59] – The future: “AI Bake-Off” and who controls brand messaging now
• [19:48] – AI, memory, context, and marketing’s new challenge
• [21:59] – Brand's enduring, and increasing, importance
• [25:56] – Data, not content: preparing information for AI agent consumption
• [29:18] – Why CMOs can’t ignore SEO/AEO/GEO and the new arms race for visibility
• [31:42] – Research findings: first-party data is AI’s primary citation
• [36:17] – The biggest mistakes: underinvestment in talent and infrastructure
• [39:58] – Advice for the “land grab” era and data diversification
• [41:16] – Final advice and cautionary tale around AI and memory/context

Conclusion

Mike Walrath’s core message: The old funnel is gone, “zero-click” and AI-first discovery is here, and CMOs must urgently pivot toward data-driven, context-aware, brand-heavy strategies to remain visible in algorithmically-mediated consideration sets. Success hinges on relentless investment in structured data and the infrastructure and talent needed to make your content easily consumed by bots and answer engines. In the words of both Mikes: “Giddy up.”