Inside Webflow’s Bet on an AI-Native Web and What That Means For CMOs

In this episode of Scratch, Eric sits down with Adrian Rosenkranz, Chief Revenue Officer at Webflow, to explore how AI is fundamentally changing the way brands grow, compete and get discovered. As large language models reshape how people find and evaluate products, Adrian argues that marketing is shifting from a game of clicks and traffic to a game of relevance and answers, where your website, content and brand have to work for both humans and machines at the same time. We’re effectively marketing to bots at this point! They dig into what this means in practice for CMOs, from how SEO and content strategies need to evolve, to why many AI initiatives stall inside large organisations. If you’re currently trying to bring AI to your marketing team (Who isn’t?) then Adrian has some practical guidance and perspectives to share to ensure that your AI initiatives actually deliver something valuable.  The conversation also goes beyond tools and tactics into leadership, creativity and culture. Adrian reflects on lessons from Salesforce, the importance of narrative and design thinking, and why creativity, taste and speed of adaptation are becoming the true sources of differentiation in an AI-native world. It’s a wide-ranging discussion about how marketing, growth and brand leadership need to evolve for the next era of the web.Watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube    🖊️Mentioned in the show:Favorite challenger brand: Ramp Best campaign: Duolingo Amp By Rival The Rival 50: The Best Challenger Brands of 2025 Scratch is a production of Rival, a marketing innovation consultancy that develops strategies and capabilities that help businesses grow faster. Scratch is hosted by Eric Fulwiler, and he’s joined by Adrian Rosenkranz of Webflow in this episodeFind Rival online at www.wearerival.com, LinkedIn, Twitter. Find Eric on LinkedInFind Adrian on LinkedIn.Say hi at [email protected], we’d love to hear from you. Rival is a marketing consultancy for brands that want to challenge convention in their category. We’re on a mission to understand what challenger brands do differently to grow in categories that are being disrupted, and use a challenger playbook to deliver outsized impact through an integrated, tech-enabled approach. Past guests include CMOs from Mastercard, GE, Shell, Hyperloop, Adobe, PepsiCo, and Papa Johns.If you’re interested in learning more about marketing from successful CMOs, we compiled a list of the top 5 CMO podcasts to listen to in 2024; check it out here 🔗  https://www.wearerival.com/content-hub-articles/cmo-podcasts-you-cannot-afford-to-miss-in-2024