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How to Make AI Your Smartest Business Strategist with Jen Taylor [MAICON 2025 Speaker Series]

Written by Cathy McPhillips | Oct 2, 2025 12:00:03 PM

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.

Jen Taylor has spent her career focused on building and retaining audiences, starting with nonprofit theater at Signature in New York, then the Summer Play Festival at The Public, and later Broadway with AKA Advertising.

For the past decade, she’s been deep in the digital world, leading audience growth at A+E Networks and helping launch streaming platforms across both subscription and ad-supported models.

Today, Jen is the Director of AI Strategy & Integration at Capacity Interactive, where she helps arts and culture organizations adopt AI in ways that serve their mission. 

Her own journey with AI started at a conference, when she heard the phrase: “AI won’t replace you. The person using AI will.” That line stuck. She went home, built a presentation for her marketing team, and began experimenting with email tone, expanding brainstorms, pressure-testing campaigns, and more. Soon, she was diving deeper: listening to The Artificial Intelligence Show, taking courses, joining communities, even building her own tools.

“I discovered that combining my marketing expertise with AI wasn’t just additive, it was transformational,” she said. “It helped me move faster, with clearer thinking and more strategic impact.”

At MAICON, Jen will share how she’s using AI not just to execute tasks, but as the ultimate thought partner.

Session Preview: Promote AI from Producer to Strategist 

AI isn’t replacing marketers; it’s expanding their ability to think bigger and act more strategically. 

Jen invites marketers to reframe the way they see their AI tools. Instead of treating AI as just an execution assistant, she’ll show you how to elevate it into a true business strategist.

During her session, Jen will demonstrate exactly how she promoted her AI tools from producer to the ultimate business strategist. 

“I’m not going to tell you what AI could do; I’m going to show you what I’ve actually done,” she said. “From using AI to write an app brief, to drafting a first pass of legal feedback, to “vibe-coding” a landing page, I’ll walk through specific, replicable examples of how AI became a powerful strategic thought partner in my work.”

You’ll walk away with practical, real-world applications that will inspire you to use AI not just for efficiency, but for strategy and impact.

Lesson(s) Learned: Top 3 Mindset Shifts 

Jen couldn’t pick just one, so she shared her top three lessons learned: 

  1. AI expands your perspective. It’s not just about saving time. “It challenges my assumptions and sharpens my clarity,” she said.
  2. Better prompts mean better results. Vague, generic inputs produce bland results. “But when you bring nuance, specificity, and a point of view, AI can help electrify your ideas,” Think collaborator, not ghostwriter.
  3. The first answer isn’t the finish line. In fact, Jen sees it as the starting point. “The real power comes when you ask for different perspectives, explore edge cases, or challenge its logic. AI is only as useful as you are curious.”

Looking Ahead: Expertise Leads, and AI Follows 

Deep subject matter expertise will only grow more valuable in the years ahead. Jen believes the most successful experts will “pair deep subject matter knowledge with thoughtful AI use, knowing when to outsource and when to lead.”

Her advice is to let your expertise drive your use of AI, rather than being guided by it in the wrong direction. 

She added:

“Stay sharp in your domain, and learn to see AI not just as a tool for speed, but as a partner in perspective. It can unlock new ways of thinking, if you let it.”

Links We Like

Intro to AI for Arts & Culture Marketers

The arts sector is often understaffed, underfunded, and late to adopt new tech, yet it has so much to gain from AI. This webinar demystifies the landscape, shows accessible entry points, and empowers teams to start small and smart.

Jen Taylor on Building AI Strategy That Serves Your Mission

AI is reshaping work, but what does that mean for arts and culture? Jen shares insights from 100+ arts leaders on curiosity, caution, and opportunity. In conversation with Monica Holt of the CI to Eye podcast, she explores how AI can save time, support mission-driven policies, and amplify (not replace) human creativity.

Capacity Interactive’s AI Toolkit for Arts Marketers

This toolkit includes ten ready-to-use tools, built in ChatGPT, that solve common marketing challenges from subject line writing to audience insights. It’s a fast, accessible way for arts and culture marketers to build AI fluency without a major investment.

Jen’s Session at MAICON

Beyond Automation: How AI Became My Ultimate Thought Partner for Business Strategy 

Most marketers view AI primarily as a tool for execution—generating content, optimizing ads, or analyzing data. But what if AI could be more than that? What if it could serve as a strategic thought partner—one that helps us think more clearly, validate ideas, and refine high-level decisions?

In this session, Jen Taylor will share how she used AI to help shape the go-to-market strategy, business model, and positioning for a startup—not as the founder, but as a strategic collaborator working alongside leadership. Through real-world examples, she will demonstrate how AI can be used to:

  • Validate business models and revenue streams before launch
  • Pressure-test positioning and audience targeting using AI-driven insights
  • Develop investor narratives and strategic storytelling powered by AI

This session isn’t about AI replacing marketers; it’s about empowering marketers to think bigger, smarter, and more strategically. For those who’ve used AI primarily for execution, this talk offers a compelling new perspective on its potential as a high-value partner in decision-making.

Keep Up with Jen (and AI) 

Want to keep learning from Jen and stay on top of her latest insights?

Join Us at MAICON 2025

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!