In this episode of The Marketing AI SparkCast, Aby Varma, founder of Spark Novus, a leading consultancy that partners with marketing leaders to adopt and scale AI responsibly and strategically, talks with Nicola Smith, Senior AI Programs Advisor at Southwest Airlines. They explore how enterprises can move beyond tool experimentation to embed AI into strategic workflows, why marketing leaders are uniquely suited to lead AI adoption, and how AI fluency is evolving from a competitive advantage to a regulatory necessity.

Topics Covered:

Nicola’s Career Journey: From production design and agency leadership to corporate AI strategy at Southwest Airlines.

Why Every Company Needs an AI Strategist: The AI strategist’s role in driving adoption, ROI, and cross-functional change.

The Role of AI Literacy: How varying employee fluency affects adoption and why education is essential.

AI in Marketing Workflows: Uncovering campaign inefficiencies and opportunities through strategic audits.

Strategic vs. Tool-Driven AI: Avoiding the trap of “doing AI” without a clear, value-aligned plan.

Efficiencies vs. Effectiveness: Shifting focus from doing more to doing better with AI.

Design Thinking for AI Opportunities: Why uncovering pain points—not just tools—is the key to smart implementation.

Future of Work & Skills Shift: Entry-level marketing roles are changing, but communication-first marketers are primed to lead.

Why CMOs Are Well-Positioned for AI Strategy: Marketing’s blend of creativity, systems thinking, and communication makes it ideal for cross-functional AI leadership.

Enterprise Collaboration: AI adoption needs top-down executive support and cross-department ownership.

Nicola Smith is the Senior AI Programs Advisor at Southwest Airlines, where she develops AI strategy and builds internal capabilities for AI literacy and product design. With roots in marketing and tech-forward creative leadership, she helps large organizations turn emerging tech into real-world impact.

Aby Varma is the founder of Spark Novus, a consulting firm helping marketing leaders adopt AI responsibly and strategically. A Forbes Council member, he fuses digital content, brand strategy, and AI transformation to drive growth. Passionate about ideas that inspire change, he also serves as Head of Marketing for TEDxAtlanta. Connect with him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/abyvarma/