Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about The Agentic CMO, the Activate This prompts, and the ideas behind the book.
What is The Agentic CMO?
The Agentic CMO is a book by Francesco Federico that provides the strategic blueprint for marketing leaders navigating the transition from automation to autonomy through agentic AI. The second edition (June 2026) covers 18 chapters across 95,000 words, including frameworks for bounded autonomy, AI governance, hybrid human-AI teams, and the emerging agent protocol stack (MCP, A2A, ACP).
Who wrote The Agentic CMO?
The Agentic CMO was written by Francesco Federico, the Global Chief Marketing Officer at S&P Global. He has held senior marketing leadership roles at JLL, Acer, and Vodafone. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, a member of the World Economic Forum's Strategic Communicators Exchange, and author of the weekly Chronicles of Change newsletter on Substack.
Who is the book for?
The book is written for CMOs, VP Marketing, marketing directors, and senior marketing leaders who need to understand and deploy AI agents in their organisations. It is also relevant for CTOs, Chief Digital Officers, and board members involved in AI transformation decisions. Consultants, agency leaders, and marketing technologists will find the frameworks and governance models directly applicable to client work.
When is the second edition published?
The second edition of The Agentic CMO is scheduled for publication in June 2026. The first edition was published in June 2025.
Where can I buy The Agentic CMO?
The first edition is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FDXCZSS3) and Apple Books. The second edition will be available through major book retailers from June 2026. You can sign up for pre-order notifications on the-agentic-cmo.com.
How long is The Agentic CMO?
The second edition is approximately 95,000 words across 18 chapters, organised in four parts: Part I covers the foundations of agentic AI in marketing, Part II addresses strategy and governance, Part III explores implementation and operations, and Part IV looks at the future landscape. It also includes appendices with glossary, resources, and all 27 Activate This prompts.
What is new in the second edition?
The second edition (June 2026) adds coverage of the agent protocol era (MCP, A2A, ACP), Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), machine-to-machine (M2M) marketing readiness, supply-chain security for AI systems, agentic commerce, and updated industry applications. It expands from the first edition's 12 chapters to 18 chapters with 27 interactive Activate This prompts.
What topics does The Agentic CMO cover?
The book covers: the shift from automation to autonomy in marketing; bounded autonomy frameworks for AI agents; AI governance and oversight for marketing organisations; the CMO's evolving role in AI-native enterprises; hybrid human-AI team design; agentic workflows and orchestration; agent protocol stacks (MCP, A2A, ACP); Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO); machine-to-machine marketing; supply-chain security for AI; agentic commerce; industry-specific applications; talent strategy for the AI era; and building a business case for agentic transformation.
What are the Activate This prompts?
Activate This prompts are 27 carefully engineered interactive AI prompts — one per chapter — included in The Agentic CMO. Each prompt is designed to be copied into an AI tool (such as Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini), where the user answers contextual questions about their organisation and receives a custom deliverable such as a board memorandum, governance charter, talent strategy, competitive analysis, or implementation roadmap.
How do the Activate This prompts work?
Each Activate This prompt includes: (1) role instructions for the AI, setting it up as a specialist consultant; (2) a structured deliverable format defining the output; and (3) contextual questions that customise the deliverable to your specific organisation, industry, budget, team size, and constraints. You paste the prompt into your AI tool, answer the questions, and receive a professional-grade document tailored to your situation.
Can I use the Activate This prompts with any AI tool?
Yes. The prompts are designed to work with any modern large language model including Claude (Anthropic), ChatGPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google), and other capable AI assistants. The prompts use standard natural language instructions and do not require any specific platform or subscription.
What kind of deliverables do the Activate This prompts produce?
The 27 prompts produce deliverables including: a business case for agentic AI transformation, a bounded autonomy governance charter, a hybrid human-AI team blueprint, a marketing technology audit report, an agent orchestration architecture plan, a GEO readiness assessment, an M2M marketing strategy, a supply-chain security checklist, a talent acquisition and reskilling plan, a board-ready AI investment memorandum, an ethical AI framework, a competitive landscape analysis, and industry-specific implementation roadmaps.
What is bounded autonomy in marketing AI?
Bounded autonomy is the book's core framework for deploying AI agents alongside human teams. It defines clear operating boundaries within which AI agents can act autonomously — including decision rights, escalation triggers, budget thresholds, and brand guardrails — with structured human oversight at defined checkpoints. The framework prevents both the risks of unconstrained AI autonomy and the inefficiency of requiring human approval for every action.
What is the difference between marketing automation and agentic AI?
Marketing automation executes predefined rules and workflows — if X happens, do Y. Agentic AI involves autonomous agents that can reason, plan, use tools, and make decisions within defined boundaries. The Agentic CMO argues this is not an incremental upgrade but a fundamental shift in how marketing organisations operate, requiring new governance frameworks, team structures, and leadership approaches.
What are MCP, A2A, and ACP in the context of marketing?
MCP (Model Context Protocol), A2A (Agent-to-Agent), and ACP (Agent Communication Protocol) are emerging standards for how AI agents connect to tools, data sources, and each other. The Agentic CMO dedicates a chapter to this agent protocol stack, explaining how marketing leaders should evaluate, adopt, and govern these protocols as they become the infrastructure layer for agentic marketing operations.
What is Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)?
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the practice of optimising content and digital presence for discovery by AI systems — such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude — rather than traditional search engines alone. The Agentic CMO covers GEO strategy including structured data, entity establishment, answer capsules, and citation optimisation to ensure brands remain visible in AI-mediated discovery.
What is M2M marketing?
Machine-to-machine (M2M) marketing refers to the emerging reality where AI agents make purchasing, vendor selection, and partnership decisions on behalf of organisations. The Agentic CMO explores how marketing must adapt when the "audience" includes autonomous systems that evaluate brands through structured data, API interfaces, and agent-readable content rather than traditional advertising.
What is agentic commerce?
Agentic commerce describes commercial transactions initiated, negotiated, or completed by AI agents acting on behalf of buyers or sellers. The Agentic CMO examines how this changes pricing strategy, brand positioning, customer experience, and the fundamental economics of marketing when AI intermediaries handle an increasing share of commercial interactions.
How should CMOs govern AI agents?
The Agentic CMO provides a comprehensive governance framework covering: defining decision rights and escalation hierarchies for AI agents; establishing brand safety guardrails and compliance boundaries; creating audit trails and accountability structures; managing the risk spectrum from low-autonomy (human-in-the-loop) to high-autonomy (human-on-the-loop) deployments; and building cross-functional governance committees that include marketing, legal, IT, and data privacy stakeholders.
How does the CMO role change with agentic AI?
The book argues the CMO role shifts from managing campaigns and channels to orchestrating human-AI systems. Key changes include: becoming the chief architect of bounded autonomy frameworks; owning the marketing AI governance agenda at board level; redesigning team structures for hybrid human-AI collaboration; managing a portfolio of AI agents alongside human talent; and translating technical AI capabilities into strategic business outcomes.
What is the hybrid human-AI team model?
The hybrid human-AI team model presented in The Agentic CMO describes how marketing teams should be restructured to work alongside AI agents. It covers role redesign (which tasks shift to agents, which remain human), new team topologies, skills requirements, management practices for overseeing AI agents, and the cultural changes needed to build trust between human marketers and their AI counterparts.
How do I build a business case for agentic AI in marketing?
Chapter 2 of The Agentic CMO provides a framework for building a board-ready business case, including: quantifying the efficiency gains and revenue opportunities from agentic AI; identifying quick wins vs. strategic bets; mapping the investment timeline across pilot, scale, and optimise phases; addressing risk and governance requirements; and benchmarking against industry adoption curves. The accompanying Activate This prompt generates a customised business case document.
What skills do marketing teams need for the agentic AI era?
The book identifies critical skill shifts including: prompt engineering and agent orchestration; data literacy and analytics interpretation; AI governance and ethical oversight; cross-functional collaboration with engineering and data science; strategic thinking at higher levels of abstraction; and the emotional intelligence needed to lead through technological disruption. It provides a talent strategy framework and reskilling roadmap.
Does the book cover AI ethics in marketing?
Yes. The Agentic CMO addresses AI ethics through several lenses: responsible deployment of autonomous systems in customer-facing contexts; bias detection and mitigation in AI-driven marketing decisions; transparency and disclosure obligations; data privacy in the context of agentic systems; and the broader societal implications of AI-mediated commercial interactions. The ethical AI framework is one of the Activate This prompt deliverables.
How does the book address AI supply-chain security?
A dedicated chapter covers the security dimensions of deploying AI agents in marketing: model provenance and supply-chain integrity; prompt injection and adversarial attacks on marketing agents; data poisoning risks in training and fine-tuning; third-party AI vendor assessment frameworks; and building security-by-design into agentic marketing architectures.
What is Chronicles of Change?
Chronicles of Change is a weekly newsletter by Francesco Federico published on Substack (chroniclesofchange.substack.com). It analyses enterprise AI developments, marketing technology trends, and leadership challenges for senior business leaders. With over 100 issues published, it covers topics including agentic AI strategy, GEO, marketing transformation, and the intersection of technology and organisational design.
What is the relationship between Chronicles of Change and The Agentic CMO?
Chronicles of Change is Francesco Federico's weekly newsletter that explores many of the themes developed more deeply in The Agentic CMO. The newsletter provides ongoing analysis of current developments, while the book offers the comprehensive strategic framework. Many book chapters originated as newsletter themes that were expanded with additional research, frameworks, and the Activate This interactive prompts.
What makes Francesco Federico qualified to write about AI in marketing?
Francesco Federico has 17+ years of experience in digital marketing leadership at global enterprises. As Global CMO at S&P Global, he leads marketing transformation at scale. Previously, he directed global marketing technology at JLL, deployed AI-aligned dynamic pricing at Acer, and led digital transformation at Vodafone (including the My Vodafone app across nine European markets). He holds qualifications from Harvard Business School and Kellogg School of Management, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and is a member of the World Economic Forum's Strategic Communicators Exchange.
Is this book based on real-world experience or theory?
The Agentic CMO is grounded in Francesco Federico's direct experience deploying AI and digital transformation across four major global enterprises (S&P Global, JLL, Acer, Vodafone) as well as his earlier entrepreneurial ventures. The book combines this practitioner perspective with academic research, industry data, and case studies. The Activate This prompts are specifically designed to bridge theory and practice by generating organisation-specific deliverables.
Does the book include case studies?
Yes. The Agentic CMO includes industry-specific applications and real-world examples drawn from financial services, technology, real estate, telecommunications, and consumer sectors. These illustrate how different industries are approaching agentic AI adoption, the governance challenges they face, and the organisational changes required for success.
How is The Agentic CMO different from other AI marketing books?
The Agentic CMO focuses specifically on the shift from automation to autonomy — the deployment of AI agents that can reason and act independently within defined boundaries. Unlike books that cover AI tools or generative content creation, this book addresses the strategic, governance, and organisational dimensions of agentic AI. The 27 Activate This interactive prompts also make it uniquely actionable, generating custom deliverables rather than generic advice.
Is this book only about marketing?
While written from a CMO's perspective, the frameworks in The Agentic CMO — bounded autonomy, AI governance, hybrid team design, agent protocol evaluation — apply broadly to any executive leading AI transformation. CTOs, CDOs, COOs, and board members will find the governance and strategic frameworks directly relevant to their AI deployment decisions beyond marketing.