Second Edition — June 2026
The
Agentic
CMO
Leading marketing in the age of AI agents
By Francesco Federico
Pre-orders open June 2026. No spam.
The author has led marketing at
Why now
The mandate has changed
Marketing organisations are being asked to do more with less — and to do it faster. The old operating model of briefing agencies, waiting for campaigns, and measuring after the fact cannot keep pace. The CMO who cannot orchestrate intelligent systems will not survive the next budget cycle.
Agents are operational
AI agents are no longer theoretical constructs in research papers. They are executing campaigns, managing budgets, and making real-time decisions inside marketing operations today. The question is not whether to deploy them, but how to govern them.
The leadership gap is widening
Most marketing leaders lack frameworks for deploying autonomous systems responsibly. There is no MBA module for this. No consultancy playbook that wasn't written six months ago. This book provides the operating manual that the profession is missing.
Fortune 500
Built Inside a Real Operation
Every framework was tested where budgets are real, timelines compress, and boards demand returns — not in a lab or a thought experiment.
27
Ready-to-Deploy Prompts
Copy into any AI tool, answer questions about your context, and receive a custom deliverable — board memos, governance charters, talent strategies.
Bounded
The Autonomy Model
The operating model for deploying AI agents alongside human teams — with the governance to let them run and the guardrails to keep them honest.
What's inside
19 chapters across four parts, plus appendices
Part I
The Agentic Imperative
Why the marketing mandate has fundamentally changed — and what the new operating model demands.
Understanding Agentic AI
Building the Business Case
Part II
Building the Foundation
Architecture, culture, talent, and governance — the structural prerequisites for agentic operations.
The Bounded Autonomy Model
Governance for Autonomous Marketing
Part III
Execution & Scale
Compliance, measurement, ethics, and the operational playbook for deploying agents at scale.
Regulatory Compliance & Board Governance
Measuring What Matters
Part IV
The Frontier
GEO, machine-to-machine marketing, hybrid teams, and your 90-day transformation plan.
GEO: Generative Engine Optimisation
Your 90-Day Agentic Transformation Plan
From Chapter 1
The Autonomy Spectrum
Rule-Based Automation
Predetermined rules. If X happens, do Y. Consistent, scalable, entirely dependent on human-defined parameters.
Predictive AI
Analyses historical data to predict outcomes. Powerful analytical instruments that still require human interpretation and action.
Generative AI
Creates new content from patterns. Transformative for creation, but operates in request-response mode. A human must prompt, review, and deploy.
Agentic AI
Perception. Action. Cognition. Evolution. Agents that monitor, execute, reason, and improve — autonomously, within boundaries you define.
Increasing autonomy →
"Instead of marketers using tools, we are now orchestrating intelligent agents that make their own decisions within defined parameters. This is bounded autonomy."
— The Agentic CMO, Chapter 1
Written for
CMOs
CIOs & CTOs
Transformation Leaders
Board-Facing Executives
Francesco Federico
Global Chief Marketing Officer, S&P Global
Francesco Federico leads the global marketing operation at S&P Global, a company with a $160 billion market capitalisation. The Agentic CMO is not a theoretical exercise — it was written inside that operation, testing every framework against the constraints of real budgets, compressed timelines, and board-level accountability.
His career spans S&P Global, JLL, Acer, and Vodafone across global markets. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a member of the World Economic Forum Strategic Communicators Exchange.
More about Francesco →Reserve your place
Pre-orders open June 2026. No spam.
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