For decades, brands controlled their first impression — the homepage, the paid ad, the carefully crafted Google snippet.

Not anymore.

In this episode of AI: Machine-Made Marketing, we sit down with Johann Wrede, Chief Marketing Officer at UserTesting, to explore what happens when AI summaries — not websites — become the new brand front door.

As consumers increasingly stay inside ChatGPT, Gemini, and other LLM experiences instead of clicking through to brand sites, marketers are losing control of the narrative. Johann explains why this shift is fundamentally different from the SEO era — and why we’re now entering the age of LLM optimization.

Everyone wants viral AI content.

Most brands are doing it wrong.

On this episode of AI: Machine-Made Marketing, Jeff MacDonald, Director of Innovation and Technology at Movers+Shakers, joins us to unpack what separates AI gimmicks from true creative acceleration.

Jeff sits at the intersection of social-first storytelling and AI tool-building—helping one of the internet’s most viral agencies design systems that compress time without compromising taste. His take? AI shouldn’t be used to trick audiences or replace human instinct. It should function like special effects: enhancing the story, not pretending to be the story.