Building an AI-First Marketing Team: Insights from Smartcat Marketing Leaders

Smartcat recently hosted the webinar, From Handoffs to Handled: Learn How AI Agents Are Reshaping Global Marketing, which pulled back the curtain on how marketing leaders can realistically build AI-first teams and drive measurable ROI.

Claire Foster, Head of Product Marketing for Smartcat’s marketing solutions, sat down with Nicole DiNicola, Smartcat’s VP of Marketing, to discuss both the excitement and the challenges of scaling global marketing in an AI-driven era.

The discussion touched on some of the biggest questions marketers are asking: How do you balance quality with scale? How can AI agents actually work like teammates? And how do you prove ROI when resources are flat?

As Foster pointed out, 60% of CMOs say they lack the budget to hit 2025 targets, while 67% of consumers expect localized digital experiences and 75% of B2B buyers demand content in their native language. “ If you don’t have it, they’re not going to buy from you, ” Foster stressed.

That gap between customer expectations and marketing resources is exactly where AI agents step in.

DiNicola shared an all-too-familiar story: a massive global trends report her team once produced that had 20,000 responses and huge revenue potential.

“ Everybody wanted their cut of it in every language, by region, by industry. Suddenly this flagship asset became a daunting task, and we couldn’t deliver it everywhere. We had to say no—not because it wasn’t valuable, but because we didn’t have the resources. ”

“That’s what AI agents solve for. They help us move from being the bottleneck to being the growth driver, ” she explained.

Smartcat’s Agents for Website Translation, PDF Translation , Media Translation , and Image Agent were highlighted as examples of pre-built solutions marketers can deploy. These agents automate localization while keeping quality in check by looping in human reviewers when needed.

The speakers brought the conversation down to earth with customer stories:

1. Babbel streamlined its SEO content localization, saving 31 hours per month while maintaining 100% quality.

2. Expondo increased productivity by 50% and cut outsourcing costs in half by integrating Smartcat Agents across their product content systems.

3. Welcome Pickups boosted bookings by 66% and reduced localization time by 50%, showing how SEO-led growth scales faster with AI.

One of the most compelling parts of the session was how AI agents are shifting org design.

“It’s like every marketer can now become a content creator, ” DiNicola explained. “ A product marketer can take a messaging doc and have AI turn it into a campaign plan with emails and sequences—fewer handoffs, less lag, more ownership. ”

She also noted the rise of hybrid roles like “content product marketing manager” and the comeback of PR as teams adapt to AI search optimization (AIO).

“If you go in thinking that any software with a ChatGPT wrapper will solve your complex, global challenges, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. You have to treat agents like employees—train them, onboard them, and set them up for success. ” – Nicole DiNicola

Marketers on the call wanted to know: how do you prove the business case?

Foster suggested looking at opportunity cost : “What’s the pipeline you couldn’t generate before because you lacked coverage in a market? Now, with agents, you can say yes more often and expand faster. ”

DiNicola added, “Keep track of the initiatives you’ve had to say no to. As you start saying yes, show how that changes the pipeline and win rates. That’s your ROI story. ”

For deeper analysis, Smartcat’s blog post The Real-World ROI of AI in Enterprise Marketing provides frameworks and examples.

The webinar closed with a call to action: marketers need to start integrating AI agents not as “side tools” but as core teammates.

For those wanting to dig deeper, check out these resources:

1. What Are AI Agents? – a primer on how they work with your teams

2. Smartcat Launches AI Agents to Transform Global Content – announcement of Smartcat’s enterprise-ready AI Agents

3. The Real-World ROI of AI in Enterprise Marketing – case studies on how brands like Babbel and Welcome Pickups achieved measurable growth

“Marketing has always been about impact. AI agents give us a chance to have more of it, with less friction, ” DiNicola concluded.