Videos
AI Redefines Efficiency, Scale, and Value at EY
Insights
- AI has already automated the lowest-value, highest-effort work in marketing, from resizing ads to creating summaries and social clips, freeing teams to focus on higher-impact activities.
- Marketing organizations are still working through the gap between individual AI use cases and true operational scale, where AI is built into processes rather than bolted onto them.
- As AI matures, success will be measured less by individual productivity and more by the value a team or organization delivers to the business.
What does it take for a global marketing function to move past incremental AI wins toward real transformation?
Toni Clayton-Hine, Chief Marketing Officer at EY, a $25 billion professional services firm, discusses how AI has reshaped marketing over the past 18 months and where the biggest opportunities and gaps remain.
Toni highlights three critical shifts:
- How automating repetitive, low-value tasks such as content resizing and summarization has freed marketing teams to focus on higher-impact work
- How marketing leaders are working to move AI from individual use cases to full operational scale, redefining functions rather than layering AI onto existing processes
- Why the definition of success is changing, shifting from individual productivity toward the broader value a team delivers to the business
Drawing on her experience leading EY's marketing function, Toni describes AI adoption as steady rather than sweeping, and she notes real ROI gains even though attributing them to a single line item remains difficult. She is candid that the scale of change has been more incremental than she initially expected, and that human judgment, particularly the ability to define what “good” looks like, remains essential as AI capabilities expand. Internally, this work is led through the EY Studio Plus team, which is helping rethink how the marketing function operates with AI built into its foundation rather than added on afterward. Toni points to revenue growth and brand consideration as key measures guiding this shift.
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.
John Premkumar:
Good afternoon. We are at Cannes Lions 2026, speaking with the leaders driving innovation with AI in marketing. I am joined today by Toni Clayton-Hine, who has spent more than 25 years at the forefront of B2B marketing. Currently the Chief Marketing Officer of EY, which is a $25 billion professional services firm. Welcome, Toni.
Toni Clayton-Hine:
So glad to be here. Thank you.
John Premkumar:
The CMO role has undergone a lot of pressure in the recent days. What changes have you seen in the last 18 months?
Toni Clayton-Hine:
Oh, we would be here all day if I had to list the changes that we have seen in the past 18 months. But I think, like everybody, the more consistent use of AI — the introduction, consistent use, and the ways to leverage AI becomes really important to us. And whether that is for productivity, whether that's to help us drive growth, whether that's to find new ways to look at creativity, that's probably the biggest changes from a technology landscape. And then that has the flow-through effect of figuring out how that impacts everything else, from the department, to the operating model, to how we're showing the impact that we're driving to the business.
John Premkumar:
Where are marketeers spending most of their time today?
Toni Clayton-Hine:
Well, I think right now we are happy to see that those areas where we could have seen most of the effort, that was not giving us necessarily the highest value output, is being more automated. So time spent resizing ads, trans-creating content, finding ways that we could take an article and create summaries and clips and social posts. So those are definitely helping us improve the ROI of the types of things that we develop, just because those things were time sucks. And so the fact that we can now use different technologies and tools in order to do that has been huge.
John Premkumar:
Are AI marketing initiatives creating measurable value today? If so, how?
Toni Clayton-Hine:
I think that that is a little bit of an open question, from the standpoint that if I were to be able to point to a specific line item where we're seeing improvement, a lot of it is to do in the areas of automation, like I mentioned. But I often say I really feel very confident that we're saving an arm and a leg and a foot, but I'm not always sure that those are of the same person. So we're constantly trying to think through how do we move from using it at a use case level to figuring out how do we use AI at more operational scale, and where do we move from things that are really just bolted on to the various processes we have, to built in, so that we're thinking about how we redefine our function entirely.
John Premkumar:
Are there any surprises compared to your original expectation?
Toni Clayton-Hine:
I think that I was hoping for bigger — an easier view of how we would be able to see whole-scale change. It is still very much incremental in terms of what we see. I think that you could see that we're making improvements, we're more efficient, we're more impactful, but I really think that we were expecting something that would look more lift and shift, and that just changes as the technology evolves. I think also there's an element of hype in terms of being able to unlock completely new areas of creativity or efficiency, where we could automate more things, where the human-in-the-loop, the human part of the conversation, still becomes critical. I think the ability to find what good looks like and equivocate for taste becomes still very important and is a very human thing. So I think those are just the learning curve, especially for at least our organization.
John Premkumar:
Very well said, Toni. Where is the biggest gap that you have seen between strategy and execution in AI?
Toni Clayton-Hine:
I mean, the strategy is how do we use it to help think differently? The execution is still very much how do we thread together all of these use cases, and how do we identify those use cases that should be turned from individual to high value, highest and best use at scale? And so just thinking through how do we do that. I think we had hoped that we would see that as an easier way. That I could say, "My organization is flat," or "I'm able to do 10, 20, 30% more." And I am in many aspects, like in pockets, but I don't know that we've still realized the full-scale change. So that's really our next goal, is to figure that out.
John Premkumar:
When the AI maturity increases, what will change and what will not change?
Toni Clayton-Hine:
I don't know that I know yet. I just think that our ways of working will be different. What our measurement of success is will be different. It'll be less about how are we getting the most productivity out of somebody, and more how do we look at the impact that we're able to deliver as a person, as a group, as an organization, and how are we able to better deliver or show the value that we're creating to increase revenue, to increase brand consideration, to increase permission for where we want to be known in the market.
John Premkumar:
If there is one problem that you want to use AI to solve in marketing tomorrow, what would that be?
Toni Clayton-Hine:
I think that I would love for us to figure out how do we rethink at scale. So right now, again, it's so many individual ideas and individual suggestions, and how do we identify what's high value — what is high value and what's delivering the best outcome. So what is an outcome that's around productivity? What's an outcome that's driving business growth, and how do we think about that? And then how do we organize ourselves to do that? So at EY, for example, we're using our own EY Studio Plus team to help us rethink the way that we should be operating as a function, so that we can think about how do we look at EY's marketing function with AI really built in.
John Premkumar:
What aspect of AI is not being addressed today in marketing that it should be addressed today?
Toni Clayton-Hine:
I don't know that I know that answer, for the simple fact that I don't even begin to know all of the wonderful things that are done. I come to places like Cannes Lions and have conversations with you and with the ANA to come learn what I don't know. So I don't know what I don't know, right? But I definitely think that the way that people are looking, experimenting, and the way people are being open to what can change, what can improve, what could be more impactful, what can drive growth — those are the conversations worth having, and that's what you hope to walk away from something like Cannes Lions learning.
John Premkumar:
Wonderful, Toni. I think you have been quite honest, quite open, and quite frank about what is going to be there for AI in marketing. Thank you very much for your time.
Toni Clayton-Hine:
Thank you so much, and thank you for having me.
John Premkumar:
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Toni Clayton-Hine:
Thank you.
