How Ramp Is Rebuilding Marketing Around AI Agents

#357 | Dave sits down with George Bonaci, VP of Growth at Ramp, to talk about what growth actually looks like at one of the most talked-about brands in B2B. George breaks down why Ramp has no CMO and why he thinks that's a feature, not a bug. He makes the case for attention as the new moat when execution gets commoditized, and shares how he went from hardcore attribution obsessive to betting on stunts with no direct attribution. They also get into Project Glass, Ramp's internal AI tool that reads every Slack channel, preps his meetings, and diagnosed a reporting issue in 15 minutes that would have taken two weeks to investigate. And George shares why he thinks marketers now have two jobs: marketing to humans and marketing to machines.Timestamps(00:00) - - George's background: from biochemist to accidental marketer (04:45) - - How marketing is structured at Ramp (no CMO) (07:00) - - Why brand is the growth lever (11:15) - - AI and the death of functional marketing roles (12:30) - - Ramp's hub and spoke model for AI (13:50) - - Building autonomous go-to-market workflows (15:00) - - How the team responded to going agent-first (18:40) - - The J curve of productivity (20:00) - - Are marketing jobs safe? (21:45) - - Marketing to machines: Ramp's two jobs (23:00) - - Offering $3,000 bonuses to AI agents (25:20) - - Project Glass: Ramp's internal AI tool (31:00) - - Attention as the new moat (32:50) - - How to measure attention without direct attribution (38:00) - - Why taste matters more than ever in direct mail and events (39:00) - - How George went from "measure everything" to betting on stunts Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, helping modern marketing teams build fully custom sites—no developer needed—that perform in AI search. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.Markup AI - A content quality platform that scans your content against brand voice, preferred terms, messaging standards, and AI-search readiness before it goes live, right inside Google Docs. Learn more at markup.ai.Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more