There is a difference between using AI and using it well, and Graeme Stiles spends his week inside that gap. He is CEO and Chief AI Officer at Algorithm Agency, the first CAIO we have had on the show, and the agency is building a second arm in AI transformation and capability training.

So his job is partly deciding what is worth teaching other businesses, and partly deciding what to leave out. Very little of what he teaches is about tools.He is blunt about the businesses that over-invested, told everyone to use AI, and rolled it back when the bill came in with nothing to show for it. He is just as blunt about agencies selling AI search as a new line item.

Underneath both is one argument: get the foundations right and they outlive whichever platform is winning this year.

Connect with Graeme on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/graemestiles/

Connect with Terence on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terence-mentor/

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We keep framing this as a fight: the data and reporting side of marketing against the cultural and creative side. Tshiamo Maremela doesn’t accept the split. He’s a strategist and the founder of a cultural intelligence and creative advisory, and he helps businesses make sharper decisions when things are messy.

His line on it: data gives you a signal, culture gives you the context, and strategy is what you do with both.

The part that should worry you is the quiet risk. We all know the brand that misread a moment and got cancelled. Tshiamo is more interested in what happens when nobody says anything at all - your campaigns still perform, the dashboard still looks healthy, but the brand is quietly becoming less important in people’s lives. By the time a comms problem has run long enough, it’s a business problem.

In this episode:

• Why culture can’t be a single KPI, and what you can actually measure: behaviour, conversations, language, the movement of ideas
• Lived intelligence, his term for the knowledge that doesn’t come from research, and how to build a system that uses it
• Why ten layers of approval make an idea safe, and safe is the problem
• The defensive version of cultural marketing: an African proverb, an African print, an African song, and a brand you can’t tell apart from any other
• Why not every cultural moment needs a response from your brand
• Two brands getting it right, including an artist residency in Mexico that Tshiamo worked on as strategist
• His four-part practice: look, understand, decide, act, and why marketing can’t run it alone

Connect with Tshiamo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tshiamomaremela

Connect with Terence on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terence-mentor

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Are small agencies now the ones winning, and should in-house marketers be looking at them instead of the big names?

Lucky Hustle just won Small Agency of the Year for the second year running, which Darren Morris believes nobody has done before.Darren is honest in both directions.AI has changed what a team of 25 can take on, and clients have noticed that ten people for ten days has become two people for three.

But he's just as clear that a small agency taking on an account the size of a bank would fall over, and he's watched others try it until the house of cards came down.

In this episode:

• What counts as a small agency, and why staff numbers are still the measure
• Why big brands went big for so long: heritage, 95-day payment terms, and someone to bankroll the campaign
• The "more monster", and why his five-year plan is to sustain rather than grow
• Why "a long healthy three years" with a client is nowhere near long enough
• What to look for when you pick an agency, starting with people who won't kiss your ass
• The clients who say jump, and the brands that sink because the agency always asks how high

Darren was on the show before, talking about AI and trends for 2026. This one is about the business underneath the work.

Connect with Darren on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darren-morris-527598151

Connect with Terence on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terence-mentor

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.