Cultural Fluency Makers: Unlocking Business Growth Through Cultural Intelligence

CFM - Culturally Fluent AI is the Best AI
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david-wellisch_46_08-19-2026_164950: AI is getting better by the minute. The utilization of AI in the corporate ecosystem is also accelerating fast, and it is having deep implications in the way in [00:01:00] which brands market to consumers. It is helping us process more data, understand consumers faster, personalize at scale, and turn insights into action seamlessly.

But as AI becomes more embedded in marketing, another question becomes increasingly important: How do we make sure that AI deeply understands the people behind the data? Over the past few seasons of Cultural Fluency Makers, we've had conversations with marketing and insights leaders about the intersections of AI, culture, consumer behavior, and human understanding.

And while they all approach it from different perspectives, a common idea keeps emerging. The more powerful AI becomes, the more authenticity consumer depth and cultural resonance becomes. So what does it look like when we bring the two together? Let's hear what our guests had to say

Catherine Berger: the ability [00:02:00] to let artificial intelligence tools do a lot of the processing and enable our people to do a lot of the critical thinking.

And you said ask, you know, the, about asking why. I had a, um, a former boss and mentor who always used to say, "Ask why five times before you say anything." You know what I mean? Like, just really contemplate, okay, why is that true? Why is that true? Why is that true? And I think, um, you know, w- we've got some agentic capabilities as it relates to reviewing, you know, massive quantitative, um, uh, studies and kind of pulling nuggets out of them and things like that. Um, a- and I think we continue to push on that critical thinking and okay, you, you can lev- lev... We absolutely wanna leverage machine learning, but we wanna build on top of that and be very curious. We don't want the machines to replace [00:03:00] curiosity.

Koley Corte: I'd say that the home run for AI is making possible how quickly we understand that customer, and then how quickly we can convert that understanding to action. So how we can deliver relevant, customized solutions, relevant customized outreach, relevant customized engagement.

mark-anthony-edmonson---cmo-ggs-us_1_02-27-2026_163656: AI is a sharper tool for she sure for marketers. I love it. But it can never replace empathy. ~Like that's, that's the most critical thing. And we, ~we make sure every data-driven decision starts with real consumer stories, their challenges, their hopes, their daily lives.

Sometimes the best insight comes from. sometimes it doesn't necessarily come from just the numbers, but from open-ended conversations or the emotions behind a comment. I mean, I can give you an example where, um, now that we're, You know, talking to Gen Zers. I am having to [00:04:00] sit and focus and actually look at how they're actually consuming product out of a pouch.

I would never get any type of insight from AI on the consumption of food from a pouch, being able to see if they're squeezing or if they're sucking or like that is all, uh, emotional nuance that AI could never explain. So to keep marketing soulful, you have to build for interaction, not just automation.

Tobias Puehse: We don't talk about customers, we don't talk about buyers, but we talk about people, I think that's the key distinction because when you talk about customers and when you talk about buyers, you actually already create a sense of distance with them, right?

No, but we are the people and we listen not just to. Their experiences or their behaviors, but also their voices and values. And I think that's where it really comes from. A [00:05:00] mission statement for me, as my team kind of looks at it as a key critical element that then gets combined with analytics on how do people spend, for example, and our spending polls, analytics, or.

Thinking about technology, how does technology impact the world and what is all the possibilities? So when you think about those three pillars, you understand technology and the foresight. And I know we'll talk a lot about technology is today as well. But then we also focus on their behavior observed, but also the cultural elements, the things that influence them and def, and the reasons why they make certain choices.

That's when really the magic happens.

Reshma: AI can only really look at past data to predict what's statistically probable. And culture as we know it, as we've been talking about, is really never statistically probable. It's messy, it's erratic, it's emotional, and it's just deeply human. And so to me, it takes real [00:06:00] human intuition, empathy, and lived experiences to truly look at the subtle shifts and actually understand why it matters emotionally. And I don't think AI is there right now. It can't do all of that for us, right? So I believe we need to use AI for operational efficiencies and data crunching, but we have to also combine that with human intuition as the final call for our brand's soul and taking big creative risks.

Natalie: I still do think that you need the brilliant creative minds Setting the creative strategy, coming up with the creative idea, like digging deep into the research and insights and making sure that they, even if they're briefing AI to create the creative, that it's based on a very clear strategic brief that is still gonna resonate to customers.

'Cause there's no point in us putting creative out that customers are just gonna think, "Eh, well, you know, that didn't really appeal to me." Um, so I think from a, a brand perspective, and especially like I can talk to the creative [00:07:00] element of it, we still see a really big need to have a lot of, um, strategy and brilliant creative minds in the loop.

And then AI is just an incredible opportunity for our creatives because they can scale,

Tobias Puehse: human meaning and machine measurement, right? And I think. And this is, this is where I sometimes have organization insights, functions fail because they focus so much on the machine measurement part, which is like, I do a survey, I post it in a dashboard and the dashboard is available to everybody.

You know, like there's lots of data everywhere and the system, but they outsource that human meaning to others potentially as a function or even like, don't spend much time thinking about the meaning, right? It's just like. KPI driven or data driven, and, but then kind of forget like why did it happen? And again, that goes back to the pillars.

I said, like you have technology influences, you have beha, like observational influences, like spend data in our [00:08:00] case and you have the why, the people, voices, experiences and value. And so it's really bringing those languages together that kind of unlocks new, new capabilities.

mark-anthony-edmonson---cmo-ggs-us_1_02-27-2026_163656: There's so many data sources out there, like so many data sources with rich insights, I would want an insight synthesizer. Like something that could merge real time consumer sentiment from dozens of sources. And, uh, I would wish that this tool could instantly propose actionable emotional storytelling angles, and not just data dashboards, but really getting into what can we do to either solve their problems and bring forward brand solutions.

David Wellisch: You know, if digital purchases are soon to be initiated by AI agents, how does cultural fluency change?

Do we have to start marketing[00:09:00]

to

the machine's values?

Tobias Puehse: Yeah.

David Wellisch: Or does the human user's culture still dictate the AI

model's

choice or the agent's choice?

Tobias Puehse: It's

a

very

provocative

question. culture fluency does not go away, I believe. Right. And when you really think about like, it's, it's a bit of a democratization of access of information in my perspective.

Because when you look, when you think the last 10 years, merchants used a lot of algorithms and a lot of technology to present. Content, present products to consumers, So when I go to a website, it's different for me than you. That's personalization.

That's what we call it, right? At the end of the day. Now, the democratization of these agent really means to say like, well, the consumer now has maybe more equal access to a technology where we have more limited computing power to represent us. As people to say, I have these [00:10:00] values, I have these objectives.

How do, can you find me these things? And now when we give demonstrations today, obviously it's early stages. We have early implementations on nagen commerce capabilities. The level of intent and instruction is still a little bit buy me movie tickets or something. I mean, it's, it's not very complex today.

But where I'm really excited about is that soon people really have the ability to, first of all, express their wishes and, and learn together with the system. And I always give this example that many times narratives around technology in this space will be like, well, like then every, like the, the agent would just always find you the best possible price everywhere.

But actually that's, that may be just one motive that people have, but people may not only care about always having the lowest possible price. That's a very simplistic view of the world. Sure. [00:11:00] That's not consumer behavior. Yeah. Correct. Because like you may wanna have something that's particularly healthy, or you wanna have something that's particularly sustainable, or you wanna have something that.

Com celebrates your community, right? Or your small business, right, et cetera. And so it's not just like go, go out there, find me and negotiate best possible deal. But it's more like I care about small businesses. Go find me some small business products. I care about sustainability. I care about my health, I care about.

The people around me. I wanna make sure like I care about my financial wellbeing, right? Like, I mean, there's all the things I care about.

Catherine Berger: I think ultimately understanding what that story is before you're turning to AI is super critical.

Um, what value are you bringing to the consumer, um, and how do you wanna present that value? And then I think, um, you know, if used properly, I think AI can unlock how that story is told. Um, there, there's a [00:12:00] really wonderful case study, I don't wanna get the brand name wrong, but it's a cat food, um, brand, I had no idea how many rules and regulations there were around, um, using felines in advertising, but there are apparently a lot. And, um, uh, it was an Omnicom case study. They, they-- AI enabled them to dress up the cats i-in a way that they wouldn't have been able to. Um, so you're talking about, you know, very low risk because you're not manipulating product, of course. You, you know, you wouldn't wanna do that. It enabled the story to really come to life.

The campaign was all about the treat gap and, um, dogs getting more treats than cats and cats getting, you know, sort of equal treats. And, um, it was-- it's really cute and really well done, but it, it, to me, was such a great example of like the story's there, and they're leveraging the technology to tell the story.

mark-anthony-edmonson---cmo-ggs-us_1_02-27-2026_163656: So to keep marketing soulful, you have to build for [00:13:00] interaction, not just automation.