Videos
AI Powers Meaningful Fan Engagement at Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1
Insights
- AI is helping marketing teams reduce repetitive tasks, accelerate content generation, and create more time for creative activations, insights, and measurement.
- AI-enabled localization is helping Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 communicate with global fan bases at the speed of the race calendar.
- Responsible AI adoption requires strong brand guardrails, team upskilling, and close collaboration between marketing and technology teams.
How can marketers use AI to move from mass communication to more meaningful fan engagement?
Victoria Johnson, Marketing Operations Director at Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, discusses how AI is reshaping marketing operations, content delivery, and fan engagement in one of the world’s most fast-moving sports environments.
Victoria highlights three critical shifts:
- How AI is helping marketing teams free up time by reducing repetitive tasks and supporting insight, measurement, and content workflows
- How AI-enabled localization can help brands communicate faster and more meaningfully with fans across different global markets
- Why responsible adoption depends on protecting brand standards, upskilling teams, and making AI a marketing capability rather than just a technology function
Drawing from Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1’s experience, Victoria explains how AI is helping the team balance speed with exceptional execution. In a sport that moves from country to country every other week, she describes how AI can support faster content delivery, stronger localization, and more relevant fan engagement. She also emphasizes that speed cannot come at the expense of authenticity or brand trust, especially for a brand connected to Mercedes-Benz. Victoria outlines the next major opportunity in personalization at scale and argues that marketers need a clear seat at the table when AI tools are developed. This conversation offers marketing leaders a practical perspective on how to adopt AI responsibly while improving efficiency, creativity, and global engagement.
This interview was recorded at the Cannes Lions 2026 as part of a partnership between Infosys Aster and the Association of National Advertisers. Click to learn more about the ANA and the Global CMO Growth Council.
Skyler Mattson:
Good morning from the gorgeous south of France. I'm Skyler Mattson with Infosys Aster, and today we are at Cannes Lions 2026, speaking with leaders driving innovation with AI in marketing. And I am so happy to be joined by Victoria Johnson, Marketing Operations Director of the Mercedes AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team. Welcome Victoria. I'm so excited to talk with you.
Victoria Johnson:
Thank you very much for having me. It is an absolute delight to be here.
Skyler Mattson:
Well, thank you. We have this gorgeous backdrop, so we are feeling so inspired. And I want to start with understanding a little bit more about your role, marketing ops, F1. I mean a lot of excitement in that area now. What's your day-to-day like?
Victoria Johnson:
Yeah, I must say people probably say I have the most exciting job in the world so I'm very very fortunate. Marketing Operations Director, I manage all of the marketing delivery for the team so everything from partnerships, hospitality, events, brand, branding, all of our project execution so yeah all of our marketing delivery and I've been doing that for probably near on 20 years now.
Skyler Mattson:
Okay, so 20 years, you've seen a lot of changes. I can imagine maybe the most change in the last, I mean I want to say twelve months, but in the last twelve days I feel like there's been a lot of change. Where have you seen the biggest shift in the way you do your job?
Victoria Johnson:
I think it's been interesting since I got to Cannes, I've been kind of thinking about it and the conversation here feels quite sharper this year. I think creativity still matters but speed matters more, technology matters more, measurement matters more, leadership matters more. So I think there's just this, as you said, in this last six to twelve months, there just feels like this really big fast-paced shift.
Skyler Mattson:
It's true and everybody that I'm talking to feels the same way. So speed, technology, measurement, where are you spending most of your time?
Victoria Johnson:
That's a good question. I think at the moment, everybody is sort of asking themselves those practical questions as marketeers. Like, are your team spending the right amount of time on the right things? You know, is the decision making process right? Is the creativity level right? All of these questions are sort of, and I think AI has sort of made us all stop and go, hold on a minute. We need to have a look at all of these really simple practical questions and just maybe shift the way we do things.
Skyler Mattson:
What are you seeing your teams find the most value from in terms of the way they're using AI?
Victoria Johnson:
And I think what's first probably important to say is as a sports team, the marketing department, we've sort of only sort of gradually stepped into AI and that was kind of a deliberate strategy because we didn't want to suddenly change the way we do everything because actually the way we do things actually works well for us as a brand and as a delivery. I think the main changes has been just getting rid of those repetitive tasks. So actually freeing up your marketing team to work on creative activations and actually the insight work and the measurement work of those activations can now be done by AI. Also around sort of content generation, we need to do a lot of activity and a lot of communication out to our fans and this is allowing us to do that at a much faster pace which has been really good.
Skyler Mattson:
That's so exciting, I think, when you talk about creative teams and content. Yes, it's about going faster and automating things, but the most exciting part is what do you do with that extra time? How do you innovate more? How is AI enabling you to better connect with those amazing fans that you have?
Victoria Johnson:
We have a drumbeat of events. So every other week, we're in a different country communicating with a different fan base. So AI allows you to do a lot of localization and just allows you to get content out at a really fast pace. And I think at the moment, there's a lot about having a lot of activity, but it's actually about what is going to generate cut through and what is going to generate impact. So it's kind of trying to get away from mass to actually meaningful. Making sure when you are in those different sort of global regions is that what you're communicating is actually hitting the mark.
Skyler Mattson:
Yes, from mass to meaningful. I love that. That is such a good soundbite. AI is going to mature. You're going to start using it more than you do today. But what things do you think will never change? Like what is just sort of fundamental that AI can't replace?
Victoria Johnson:
Yeah, and I must admit, as I said, with that slow adoptions, probably because with myself as the head of marketing, I've always been a little bit skeptical and I think there's a huge amount of positives. But I also think you've got to scale this responsibly and you've got to upskill your teams. Also, your teams, suddenly, you don't want them to suddenly be like, good grief, is this going to replace me? Do I not add value? I think with AI, it's sort of moving from we've experimented with AI for quite a while now. Now it's into, how does this realize value and how do we actually integrate it into our operating system, but in a good responsible way?
Skyler Mattson:
Can you talk about specifically some of these guardrails so that you ensure you are being responsible?
Victoria Johnson:
Yeah, and I think one of my biggest guardrails is we are Mercedes-Benz. So we are an umbrella brand of the Mercedes-Benz brand, and that is a brand that is extremely reputable, luxurious. It's a huge undertaking. And for me, from a marketing perspective, everything we deliver has to be to an exceptional standard. So what I don't want AI to suddenly do is speed us up and actually not make those really important, measured, timely decisions and making sure we do things in a really high execution. So that's where I kind of always battle between.
Skyler Mattson:
The pressure with a brand like Mercedes-Benz, do not mess this up. I mean that is so that is so key. Is there a marketing challenge that you wish you could point AI at and say solve this for me today?
Victoria Johnson:
Yeah, and I think we're using AI on a good drumbeat of kind of all of your sort of day-to-day, but I think the next thing is like, how do you personalize at scale? And I think that's the next piece, because I think it can do a lot of things, but how do you get that personalization? Because I want everything to feel very authentically us. So I think that's the next challenge is as we adopt more, just making sure we're staying true to our brand.
Skyler Mattson:
Yes. And one final question, in what ways is AI inspiring you or exciting you?
Victoria Johnson:
I think, AI has sort of inspired me, but it's only as you say, the last sort of six months where I've gone, okay, this is not going away. This is the way the world is going. And marketeers have actually really got to adopt this and embrace this because I think one of the main, as a Formula One team, we've been obviously using AI across engineering and other disciplines for a much longer time. But I think what's important for marketing departments is not leaving it solely to their tech teams, I think you've actually got to bring AI now into marketing and you've actually got to develop those tools so that they are fit for purpose. So I think it's not making AI a tech thing anymore and actually making it a marketing thing as well.
Skyler Mattson:
Okay, I said last question, but now you really have me thinking, how is your marketing team working with your IT team in new ways? Like do you see more of this partnership because marketing is so reliant on technology now?
Victoria Johnson:
Yeah, as a Formula One team, technology and marketing is very much entwined anyway. We have a huge amount of tech brands, we have Meta AI on our tech roster. So we very much do work well, but I think it's how do we generate tools which are now going to benefit marketing, anything from tagging of content and things like that. There's so much, so much.
Skyler Mattson:
Do you feel like you have a seat at the table now when those tech decisions are being made?
Victoria Johnson:
Absolutely, and you know what's so great about a sports team? It's quite niche and it's actually a small group of people, a Formula One team is just shy of 2,000 people and our marketing team is sort of just over a hundred people and what's great about that is I do have a seat at the table on the commercial decisions, the tech decisions and the marketing decision and that's what's so nice about the team I work for is that everything is looked at from all these different angles. We look at it from a business perspective, obviously a performance perspective as we want to win, but also a brand perspective. So I think that's actually what makes Mercedes F1 actually have a really good competitive edge is that we do work as one.
Skyler Mattson:
On the track and off the track.
Victoria Johnson:
Yes. Exactly that.
Skyler Mattson:
I couldn't help myself.
Victoria Johnson:
No, exactly that.
Skyler Mattson:
Thank you so much. A fascinating conversation. I won't keep you from the sunshine any longer, but really appreciate your time, Victoria.
Victoria Johnson:
Perfect.
