#204: Paul Roetzer (SmarterX & Marketing AI Institute) — Accelerating AI Literacy

Paul Roetzer is the founder and CEO of SmarterX and the Marketing AI Institute—a media, event, and online education company that he started back in 2016 to make AI accessible, approachable, and actionable for marketers and business leaders. Through the institute, he created MAICON—the leading annual Marketing AI conference, which is hosted here in Cleveland! He is also the co-author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence: AI, Marketing, and the Future of Business, the co-host of ​The Artificial Intelligence Show​ podcast, and the creator of ​The AI Literacy Project​, where he’s working to make AI education accessible and personalized for everyone. Paul graduated from Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and has since consulted for hundreds of organizations, from startups to Fortune 500 companies. In 2005, he founded Ready North (formerly known as PR 20/20), a digital marketing agency that became HubSpot’s first partner agency and played a pivotal role in launching HubSpot’s entire partnership strategy. He successfully sold the firm in 2021 to Blue Cypress. This was such a fun conversation for me—I love thinking about how exponential technologies will affect the future of society, and that is exactly what Paul and I got to do—we explore the vast and profound implications of AI on the future of work and society overall while also exploring the business of conferences, the importance of AI literacy going forward, lessons from the early days of HubSpot, building in Cleveland, and a whole lot more! 00:00:00 - The Evolution of Podcasting and AI Integration 00:04:13 - The Journey of Building Marketing AI Institute 00:07:12 - The Impact of AI on Marketing and Business 00:09:47 - Navigating Challenges and Embracing Change 00:12:38 - The Role of Conferences in AI Education 00:15:15 - Cleveland as a Hub for AI Innovation 00:17:48 - The Future of AI and Its Societal Implications 00:20:32 - AI Literacy and Its Importance 00:23:03 - The Philosophical Dilemmas of AI Decision-Making 00:25:45 - The Uncertain Future of Work in an AI-Driven World 00:35:59 - The Inevitable Disruption of Jobs by AI 00:41:32 - AI's Impact on Knowledge Work and Industries 00:46:35 - Marketing in the Age of AI 00:49:46 - Defining AI Literacy and Its Future 00:52:45 - Lessons from the HubSpot Journey 00:57:04 - The Entrepreneurial Journey and Its Challenges 01:01:30 - Hidden Gem ----- LINKS: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulroetzer/ https://smarterx.ai/ https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/ ----- SPONSORS: Impact Architects & Ninety Impact Architects & Ninety Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users! This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm! ----- Stay up to date by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here. Past guests include Justin Bibb (Mayor of Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Steve Potash (OverDrive), Umberto P. Fedeli (The Fedeli Group), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Stewart Kohl (The Riverside Company), Mitch Kroll (Findaway — Acquired by Spotify), and over 200 other Cleveland Entrepreneurs. Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/ Follow Jeffrey Stern on X @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe Follow Lay of The Land on X @podlayoftheland https://www.jeffreys.page/