Human-First AI Marketing Podcast by Avenue9

Send us Fan MailMost businesses are sprinting into AI, cranking out more content, launching more automations, and moving faster than ever. The problem is, speed doesn’t fix a broken foundation. In this episode, Mike Montague sits down with Carmela Fortin to unpack the “pre-AI layers” most teams skip; the human factors like clarity, alignment, buyer psychology, and real conversations that actually determine whether your marketing works.You’ll learn why more AI content often leads to fewer results, how to spot the hidden gaps in your strategy that data alone can’t reveal, and what high-performing teams are doing differently to win in a fast-changing market. If your team feels busy but not effective, this conversation will help you slow down just enough to choose a better direction, so AI becomes an amplifier of your strategy, not a distraction from it.Top TakeawaysAI won’t fix a broken marketing foundation: If your messaging, goals, and strategy aren’t clear before AI, you’ll just scale confusion faster instead of results. The most important marketing signals aren’t in your data: Buyer anxiety, hesitation, and internal team readiness often drive decisions more than anything your dashboards can measure. Speed creates activity; clarity creates outcomes: Moving faster with AI feels productive, but without direction it leads to wasted effort and misaligned campaigns. Vanity metrics hide the real story: Traffic, clicks, and conversions don’t tell you why something worked; real insight comes from conversations and context. Human conversations are your biggest competitive advantage: Teams that actively talk to customers, ask better questions, and listen deeply outperform those relying only on automation. AI can amplify bad decisions just as easily as good ones: Poor inputs, weak strategy, or misaligned goals get scaled just as quickly as strong ones. Most teams are optimizing for outputs instead of outcomes: Creating more content isn’t the goal; creating meaningful engagement and business impact is. Alignment can’t be automated: You can’t shortcut team buy-in, internal clarity, or customer understanding with tools; those have to be built intentionally. Marketing success starts with better questions, not better prompts: The teams winning right now are asking deeper questions about their buyers, not just trying to generate better AI outputs. The future belongs to teams that blend human insight with AI efficiency: The edge isn’t choosing AI or human strategy; it’s knowing how to combine both in a way that builds trust and drives action.The Human-First AI Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Avenue9. We use artificial intelligence to amplify your unique voice, empower your marketing team, and enable your scaling business to achieve big-brand success.Explore new avenues available with AI marketing at Avenue9.com.No matter where you’re starting from or how big your goals are, we turn modern marketing challenges into exciting opportunities. Let's get started with a discovery consultation!Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

Rachel Minion, marketing consultant and founder of Rockstar and Moon, helps small businesses scale while keeping their voice. She discusses balancing human and AI input, why templated automation destroys trust, and why relevance beats volume in outreach. She also covers automating admin and systems while keeping creative work human.

Send a textArtificial intelligence is moving fast; faster than most business leaders realize. In this episode of the Human-First AI Marketing Podcast, Mike Montague sits down with AI researcher Dr. Craig Kaplan to explore what may be the next major shift in technology: the transition from AI as a simple tool to something closer to an intelligent entity. The conversation tackles the big questions people are asking right now: Will AI become smarter than humans? How quickly could that happen? And what does it mean for businesses navigating the AI revolution?Along the way, Mike and Craig explore the real risks and opportunities of advanced AI, including the difference between the “Terminator scenario” and the “Iron Man scenario,” the race between governments and tech companies to build more powerful systems, and why many experts believe AI development is accelerating faster than expected. For SMB leaders, marketers, and curious innovators, this episode offers a chance to step back and see the bigger picture. You’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of where AI is heading, what superintelligence could mean for society, and why the choices we make today will shape how humans and intelligent machines work together in the future.Top TakeawaysAI has evolved through three major phases. It moved from rule-based symbolic systems to machine learning and now into the emerging era of autonomous AI agents.We are shifting from tools to intelligent entities. Modern AI systems are beginning to act more like independent intelligences that can take actions and make decisions.Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is the next milestone. AGI refers to AI capable of performing any cognitive task at the level of an average human.Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) may follow quickly. Once AI reaches general intelligence, it could rapidly surpass humans across many fields.Many experts believe the risk of catastrophe is non-zero. Poorly aligned superintelligence could pose serious risks if development continues without safeguards.The biggest danger may come from the AI arms race. Nations and tech companies are competing to build more powerful systems, making it difficult to slow development.Regulating AI will be harder than past technologies. Because AI is widely distributed, traditional regulation models may struggle to keep up.Advanced AI will likely develop goals and values. The values embedded in these systems will shape how they interact with humanity.The future could resemble the “Terminator” or “Iron Man” scenario. Outcomes depend on whether AI systems are aligned with human interests.The choices we make now matter. Today’s research, safety standards, and design decisions will determine whether AI becomes humanity’s greatest tool or its greatest risk.The Human-First AI Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Avenue9. We use artificial intelligence to amplify your unique voice, empower your marketing team, and enable your scaling business to achieve big-brand success.Explore new avenues available with AI marketing at Avenue9.com. No matter where you’re starting from or how big your goals are, we turn modern marketing challenges into exciting opportunities. Let's get started with a discovery consultation! Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

Raj Singh, VP of New Products at Mozilla and longtime startup builder, explains the rise of the ownership economy and tools that make launching a business fast and cheap. He digs into why trust, distribution, and distinctive taste matter as AI creates more noise. Practical moves include picking one AI tool, simplifying products, and building moats that big platforms cannot copy.

Send a textIn this episode of The Human-First AI Marketing® Podcast, Mike Montague sits down with Brett Farmiloe, CEO of Featured.com and Help a Reporter Out (HARO), to talk about the real PR opportunity most small and mid-market companies are missing in 2026. You’ll learn how getting featured in credible media outlets isn’t just great for brand awareness, but it’s also how you get cited in AI models, improve your SEO, and build the trust that drives high-value sales conversations.From the rise of reactive PR to the surprising ways AI is reshaping journalism, this conversation breaks down how modern PR actually works, and how SMBs can use AI tools without sounding like them. You’ll hear actionable tips on pitching reporters, showing up with original insight, and why getting quoted by a human is the best way to be found by machines. If you want smarter exposure without selling your soul to algorithms, this episode is your blueprint.PR is evolving & reactive PR is where SMBs should start. Instead of blasting press releases, look for in-progress stories where journalists are already asking for sources.Small businesses can now use AI to scale media outreach. AI tools can match your expertise with relevant media opportunities and even help draft responses so you're not starting from scratch.Generative AI can’t replace original thought. Journalists want human insight, not ChatGPT output; Brett’s platforms detect AI-generated content and surface real voices.Your media mentions feed your future search and AI visibility. Getting quoted in trusted outlets increases your odds of being referenced in AI models and cited in search results.Only pitch where you’re a perfect fit. Relevance, timeliness, and helpfulness matter more than hype; follow instructions, respond fast, and be genuinely useful.AI doesn’t write your story, but it can help find the right audience. Let AI do the heavy lifting of filtering through thousands of journalist requests, so you can show up where it counts.Press isn't dead; it's just decentralized. Authority is now earned across podcasts, Substacks, newsletters, and traditional media. PR today means showing up across all of them.Original human content will only get more valuable. As AI slop floods the internet, real, expert insights become a premium commodity for both journalists and machines.The Human-First AI Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Avenue9. We use artificial intelligence to amplify your unique voice, empower your marketing team, and enable your scaling business to achieve big-brand success.Explore new avenues available with AI marketing at Avenue9.com. No matter where you’re starting from or how big your goals are, we turn modern marketing challenges into exciting opportunities. Let's get started with a discovery consultation! Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

Send a textWhat happens when AI meets immigration, one of the most complex, emotional, and high-stakes journeys in someone’s life? In this episode, Mike Montague talks with Grant Frazier and Ryan Bradley, co-founders of Global Entry Hub, about how they’re using AI to make immigration support more accessible, trustworthy, and human. You’ll hear how they built a multilingual AI assistant that guides people through global immigration processes, and why accuracy, empathy, and trust had to come before speed or scale.This conversation goes far beyond immigration. It’s a masterclass for marketers and business leaders in what not to do with AI, and how to build smarter systems that actually serve people. If you’ve struggled with AI content that feels robotic, tools that underdeliver, or marketing automation that breaks trust, you’ll get fresh insight here. From hallucinating chatbots to real-world data architecture, Grant and Ryan share lessons every SMB leader should hear before launching their next AI initiative.Top Takeaways:• AI should be scoped with precision rather than speed. Trying to build broad, general-purpose tools leads to confusion and a loss of trust, especially in high-stakes industries.• Trust is earned through constraint, not creativity. Their AI assistant only answers what it knows with certainty, which is critical when people's futures are on the line.• Accuracy is more important than automation. A wrong answer in immigration isn’t just a typo. It could cost someone time, money, or even legal status.• Data infrastructure matters more than the UI. Behind their AI agent “Mira” is a web of scrapers, data lakes, APIs, and logic rules that make her reliable.• Hallucinations aren’t just a tech issue, but a human one. Users must trust what they’re being told. Without that, your AI becomes a liability rather than an asset.• Global audiences need local nuance. Many AI tools reflect a Western bias in training data; true global support requires cultural and linguistic adaptation.• Human support is still essential in emotional customer journeys. For something as personal as immigration, no AI can replace the empathy and assurance of a real person.• Don’t market your AI before you prove it works. Early “AI-first” marketing fell flat until it was paired with human follow-up and refined positioning.• Governments move slowly. Startups don’t have to. While governments may take 5–10 years to modernize, startups can fill urgent gaps now if they build responsibly.• The biggest risk in tech is overpromising. Most AI failures in business come from trying to do too much, too fast, without clear constraints or user understanding.The Human-First AI Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Avenue9. We use artificial intelligence to amplify your unique voice, empower your marketing team, and enable your scaling business to achieve big-brand success.Explore new avenues available with AI marketing at Avenue9.com. No matter where you’re starting from or how big your goals are, we turn modern marketing challenges into exciting opportunities. Let's get started with a discovery consultation! Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

Bryan Harris, founder of Growth Tools and a marketer who helps SMBs win clients, talks about using AI to cut repetitive work while keeping real human connection. He discusses when to use AI and when to pick up the phone. They focus on sharpening offers, solving client acquisition, and why trust beats prompts every time.

David Espindola, AI futurist, strategist, speaker and author of Soulful, discusses redesigning roles so humans focus on creativity, trust, and real relationships. He warns against anthropomorphizing voice agents, stresses human-in-the-loop workflows, and urges SMBs to start with clear problems and context-rich training for AI. He also covers sales CRM automation, hyper-personalized marketing, and ethical hopes for an abundant future with AI.

Send a textIn this episode of The Human-First AI Marketing® Podcast, Mike Montague sits down with Mia Umanos, CEO of Clickvoyant and host of the AI Kid You Not podcast, to explore what AI means for both modern shopping and modern parenting.We cover everything from the surprising lack of optimization in e-commerce experiences, to how AI is rewiring our brains, and why that matters. You’ll hear practical insights for SMBs trying to compete in an AI-powered world, what frontier AI leaders already know (but aren't saying), and why the real danger isn't just using AI, but losing the ability to think. If you're navigating how to lead, learn, or parent in the age of algorithms, this conversation is for you.AI is already changing how kids learn and how parents teach. Mia shared how her daughter used ChatGPT to create a study guide to improve failing grades, demonstrating the positive learning utility of AI today. Most e-commerce brands aren’t optimizing for how people actually shop. Less than 1% of SMBs scientifically test or personalize their shopping experience, missing major ROI and customer insights.We’re entering a new era of “AI agents” that will shop for us. From product discovery to one-click purchasing, AI will increasingly make decisions on behalf of consumers, and brands need to prepare for that shift.The rise of AI literacy starts at home. Just like kids learned how to navigate the internet, Mia believes Gen Alpha needs to grow up understanding what an LLM is and who Sam Altman is—because AI is shaping their future.AI doesn’t just provide unprecedented access to information, but to skills. With tools like code generators and AI tutors, younger generations will outsource not just memory, but capability; making human creativity and judgment more critical than ever.Critical thinking, writing, and research are becoming rare (more valuable). We need to actively teach and protect these human skills, or risk losing them in a world where AI can do the “easy thinking” for us.AI is rewiring our brains whether we like it or not. Just the presence of a smartphone lowers our cognitive performance, and the same effect may apply to AI tools if we’re not aware of how we use them.Marketing channels are fracturing and SMBs need to unify the experience. With omnichannel platforms and fragmented attribution, marketers must rethink how they track, test, and guide buyers through the journey.Most SMBs are still guessing, not testing. AI tools like Clickvoyant offer predictive analytics and shopper behavior insights, but too few brands are actually using them to make data-driven decisions.The future of marketing belongs to the brands that co-create with AI—not the ones who fight it. Mia encourages leaders to see AI as a thought partner, not a threat, and to find ways to scale creativity withThe Human-First AI Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Avenue9. We use artificial intelligence to amplify your unique voice, empower your marketing team, and enable your scaling business to achieve big-brand success.Explore new avenues available with AI marketing at Avenue9.com. No matter where you’re starting from or how big your goals are, we turn modern marketing challenges into exciting opportunities. Let's get started with a discovery consultation! Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

Charlie Van Derven, a content marketing strategist and fractional CMO for financial advisors, explains why trust still trumps AI. He discusses spotting robotic AI content, using webinars, email, and LinkedIn to nurture prospects, and balancing automation with real conversations. He also covers CRM-driven prospecting and timing outreach around life trigger events.