Using Agentic AI to Connect Across the Funnel

Human judgment still sets the guardrails

As the discussion moved into what should stay human, panelists focused on responsibility and oversight. Finnerty compared AI tools to driver assist technology: useful, but not a replacement for accountability.

“If you’re producing outputs using these tools, ultimately you’re responsible for those outputs, and you should know intimately what good looks like, and you should be able to set the guard rails and give the context and everything else to get that right output,” Finnerty said.

As the conversation shifted from accountability to what human judgment uniquely contributes, Dozeman pointed to how quickly AI-driven experiences lose their appeal without a strong sense of taste and cultural fluency, giving the example of the now-discontinued app Sora.

“The first hour you’re on Sora, it was mind-blowing—but a couple weeks later, no one’s opening it. You can feel when there isn’t that sense of taste and culture—it just doesn’t stick. That’s the part we need to preserve,” Dozeman said.

The session concluded with a rapid-fire question about what should never be automated in marketing. Dozeman pointed to taste and judgment. Vargo pointed to strategy and the human brain. Rinaldi named creativity and brought the conversation back to emotion.

“As a brand, we sell emotion. It’s comfort, it’s your happiness. How do you not lose that?” he said.

Featured Conversation Leaders

• Kyle Dozeman, Chief Revenue Officer, Americas, PubMatic
• Mike Finnerty, U.S. President, Mutinex
• Vinny Rinaldi, VP, Consumer Connections, The Hershey Company
• Jenny Rooney, Chief Brand and Community Officer, ADWEEK
• Angela Vargo, VP, Marketing, Communications, and Brand Experience, Breeze Airways