We recently did a deep dive on Wiz’s marketing strategies and motions with their founding CMO Raaz Herzberg, who was there from the beginning. She started off as engineer in fact — not a marketer.
The full deep dive is here. But this post is a summary of AI in marketing, what everyone’s interested in.
How is AI actually changing marketing roles?
We sat down with Wiz’s CMO to get the unvarnished truth about what’s happening inside one of the fastest-growing cybersecurity companies. What we heard might surprise you.
“We Replace People Who Leave with AI”
Let’s start with the boldest statement from our conversation: “Every time someone left, broadly speaking, we replaced them with AI.”
This isn’t about mass layoffs. It’s about fundamentally rethinking what marketing teams need to look like in 2025. Wiz’s approach? Don’t automatically backfill roles. Instead, ask: Can AI plus our existing superstars handle this workload?
The answer, more often than not, has been yes.
The 100x Multiplier Effect (But Only for Superstars)
Here’s where it gets interesting. Wiz’s CMO shared something that every marketing leader needs to hear:
“Amazing people are just now 100 times more amazing and 100 times more effective. But I still need the amazing people.”
The key insight? AI doesn’t replace great marketers—it amplifies them exponentially. But this creates a new problem: the gap between great marketers and average ones is becoming a chasm.
What “AI-Native” Really Means
At Wiz, every team member must demonstrate AI integration in quarterly reviews. Not just “I used ChatGPT for copy.” We’re talking about fundamental workflow transformation.
“Showing up with a recipe you got on ChatGPT doesn’t count as being AI native.”
The bar is higher than most marketing teams realize.
The Reskilling Reality Check
One of the most honest moments in our conversation? The admission that reskilling might be harder than we want to admit.
“Sometimes the folks that were superstars in 2021 are not always superstars in the age of AI.”
This hits different when you’re managing real people with real careers. The uncomfortable truth: not everyone will successfully transition to AI-enhanced marketing. And that’s okay—but it requires honest conversations and difficult decisions.
What Actually Matters: Curiosity Over Domain Expertise
Here’s the counterintuitive insight that could reshape how you hire and develop your team:
“I never thought about [superstars] as being super hyper domain experts, but rather being a person that is extremely curious and just gets the job done.”
In an AI-driven world, the ability to adapt, experiment, and figure things out matters more than deep expertise in yesterday’s marketing tactics.
The Technical Product Challenge
For technical B2B companies like Wiz (cybersecurity), there’s an additional layer: every piece of content must pass the expert test.
“Every security person that reads something or hears something that comes out of Wiz is like, ‘oh, yeah.'”
AI can help with speed and scale, but domain credibility still requires human oversight and expertise. The sweet spot? AI for productivity, humans for authenticity and technical accuracy.
What This Means for Your Marketing Team
3 Key Takeaways:
- Audit your team for AI readiness now. Who’s adapting? Who’s struggling? Be honest about the gaps.
- Hire for curiosity and adaptability. Domain expertise is learnable. Intellectual curiosity and problem-solving ability are not.
- Set the AI integration bar high. Casual AI usage isn’t enough. Your team needs to fundamentally transform how they work.
The Bottom Line
The marketing leaders who thrive in the next 18 months won’t be the ones with the biggest budgets or the most people. They’ll be the ones who figure out how to 10x their superstar performers with AI while maintaining the human elements that actually drive revenue.
