MAICON brings together top visionaries and experts in the field of AI during a three-day conference packed with actionable sessions and networking events—all to position you as the change agent your organization (and career) needs. In this ongoing speaker series, we’re featuring these extraordinary leaders, with forward-looking predictions, actionable tips you can use today, and a preview of their MAICON 2025 sessions.
Dale Bertrand is the founder of Fire&Spark, an SEO and content marketing agency, and a seasoned speaker with more than 25 years of experience. He has spoken at over 100 conferences and trained more than 1,000 marketers across the country.
But Dale’s story didn’t start with marketing.
Dale began his career as a software and hardware engineer after graduating from Brown University, and later returned to earn a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering. Over the next several years, he joined three semiconductor startups, even helping build a supercomputer for the National Security Agency. Despite the technical accomplishments, the startup grind left him burned out and searching for more purpose in his work.
“I knew I wanted to do something different with the next phase of my career,” he said.
And that’s when he made a monumental pivot. Dale was recruited by an MIT-based start-up in 2008 to solve analytical marketing problems. He “loved applying learnings from engineering to digital marketing.” Plus, the startup's founder became a trusted mentor who encouraged him to pursue outside interests, including public speaking and exploring the broader potential of marketing AI.
Eventually, he launched Fire&Spark, where he uses his technical experience to refine marketing strategy.
Keep reading to learn from Dale’s decades of marketing experience and for insight on what to expect from his session at MAICON.
Dale has spent several years leading his agency through an ambitious AI integration journey, leveraging AI’s strength for strategic ideation, decision support, planning, and quality assurance. Central to this effort is a suite of custom GPTs Dale developed to “improve the quality of our outputs and decision making.”
Meet “Roe,” Dale’s GPT that focuses primarily on improving Q2 goals. “Bruce” is his AI assistant used to develop 1-2 page strategic initiative documents, and “Eddie” builds rubrics for client deliverables to ensure quality standards are well-defined.
The results?
“By shifting from content generation to idea generation, AI can support decision making and help your team innovate your process well beyond just time savings.”
In his MAICON session, Dale will share proven strategies and hands-on steps for using AI tools to fuel smarter, more creative ideation within your own team.
It’s become clear that Google’s algorithm favors content freshness when making ranking decisions. Thus, keeping content fresh is more important than ever.
You might think hiring a writer is the obvious choice, but Dale recommends a new approach.
“Keeping content fresh requires a different skill set than planning and writing new content,” he noted.
So, don’t hire a writer; create a new role instead. Find a “Content Updater” who can create visuals (not narratives) and CTAs (not headlines). This person must be able to analyze data, research competitor content, fix broken links, and deploy SEO tools.
“That's an unlikely set of skills to find in a writer or marketer (that's why it needs to be a new role). Who's updating your content?”
Consumer search is shifting. Decision engines like Google provide pages and pages of results to sift through, while information engines like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overview give direct answers.
Dale said:
“Here's what marketers need to understand: Acknowledge the shift. Your customers are learning how/when to use two different types of search engines … Humans will choose the most convenient option. It's human nature. Your customers prefer speed and convenience over absolute precision.”
He believes it will happen slowly, and then all of a sudden, but ultimately, information queries will move to AI.
The big impact:
“If your brand isn't appearing in these AI responses, you're becoming invisible to a growing audience.”
This will also lead to reduced site traffic. But on the bright side, those who do visit your site will be higher-intent visitors with a higher chance of conversion.
These conference sessions from Dale cover practical AI for marketing teams, helping marketers change their mindset around AI.
Creativity remains a marketer’s most valuable and irreplaceable skill. Yet even the most inspired marketers can struggle to consistently generate fresh ideas. Join AI and digital marketing expert Dale Bertrand as he shares hands-on strategies for using AI to enhance creativity across all your marketing campaigns.
Through real-world examples, you’ll learn specific AI tactics to elevate your email marketing, web copy, content marketing, and social media. We’ll even explore how to use AI to swipe your competitors’ best creative ideas. Expect to leave this session with actionable next steps to drive AI-enhanced marketing creativity within your organization.
Connect with Dale and follow along with his AI journey:
Marketing Artificial Intelligence Conference (MAICON) was created for marketing leaders and practitioners seeking to drive the next frontier of digital marketing transformation within their organizations.
We’re excited to host our 5th annual MAICON—Marketing AI Conference—at this pivotal point for our industry. Join us from October 14 to 16, 2025, in Cleveland, Ohio, and use the special code SPEAKERSERIES100 at checkout to receive $100 off your registration!