Competitiveness comes from data, not AI. Growth first, efficiency follows. Technology without people has no purpose.

Three factors made the model look broken in 2018. The sector was oriented to output and not outcomes, selling billable hours and services rather than a connection to the business. Technology was rising in importance for marketing strategy, and there was a disconnect. And consultancies owned strategy while agencies stayed closer to channel plans than business strategy, more oriented to execution. Keenfolks was built to connect business with real outcomes, and that remains a valid contribution today.

We are in a moment that is changing everything. The right question is not what happened in the last eight years but what happens in the next six months. Companies in this sector need to stay flexible and connected to a purpose, because we are here to solve business problems. AI is not only about tools, it is how we create solutions to solve those problems for clients.

The methodology evolved from digital gap management, but data was the centre from the start and remains the centre. At Cannes, AI was the most repeated phrase, while data was barely mentioned, and that gap matters. Competitiveness does not come through AI, it comes through data. The companies focusing on data are the ones that will get the competitive edge out of AI.

In CPG you ran campaigns on a yearly basis: research, big idea, channel strategy, launch, report. Technology now lets you build repeatable systems that generate intelligence and loops of learning that grow with a platform. So whatever the campaign, Valentine's or Christmas, it piles up on the strategy and on the understanding of how the brand should market.

At Henkel in Mexico we tried to build a system to identify the return on campaigns, and it was always a mess, always more questions about what was happening at point of sale. Today we always start with a business case and the real business problem, then work step by step, in banking that means retention, cross selling or penetration, until you reach almost a P&L and an EBIT. We benchmark, but we don't stop there. For brands committed to transformation we bet with them as outcome based partners.

Investment in agentic AI for billion dollar companies rose from around 80 million to 120 last year, with McKinsey projecting 160 this year, and that is happening with 90 percent of pilots failing. That contradiction means nobody questions the technology, only its effectiveness. Companies are investing across the board, in the CMO and the CTO.

The CMO probably has the smallest tenure of all the C-level and is under pressure, and has become technical. The CTO now needs to understand marketing and frame the problem from a business point of view rather than just delivering a requested solution. And a clear mandate from the top lets barriers dissipate, so it is not only my garden, it is our garden.

The first step with any CMO is to understand the business challenge, and to be practical: what is the challenge in the next three months? Then I walk them through a framework. We focus on making the pilot work, not just piloting, and sometimes we are called only when the pilot has failed. We put a lot of focus on technology, but sometimes the answer comes from people, so we frame the problem and connect business processes, people and technology, proving along the way.

The first year taught us that you cannot deploy global campaigns and expect markets to adapt organically like a product. The connection between global, regional and local is highly valuable, so we travel and meet people. Markets are always resistant, so adaptation is key: understand the local levers, connect them to a global framework, and make adjustments that serve local interests without compromising the global strategy. Technology without people has no purpose.

Since our first project with Coca-Cola the vision was a modular system that tells you, if you invest one dollar, what your output is after the whole ecosystem. There are three types of company: one wants the tool, one wants a partnership with an enterprise like Microsoft, Salesforce or Google, and a third says it will build. Not everything, but it asks what data must be proprietary to guarantee competitiveness, and what technology guardrails that data, then scales. My recommendation is you need the third, otherwise you build on something you have to come back to later, without the end in mind.

We are not doing active acquisitions now. Keenfolks has a bigger platform than we currently serve, so we want to scale geographically and in value. To be in Brazil is still extremely important in pitches, and the same with Australia or China. Organically this market is extremely difficult to grow, so you need strategies that accelerate without losing opportunities.

We never start by focusing on efficiency. Efficiency should be a consequence. Our focus is growth, so we develop intelligent systems for brand growth with an expansive strategy, and the way we orchestrate media, content, data and command centres delivers the effectiveness and efficiency needed. Focusing on efficiency too early subtracts value because you focus on the wrong questions.

We are not in a rush. Our vision is to generate human amplification through technology so clients get the growth they want from the combination of technology and human capability, and we are already doing that globally. The amount of any raise matters less than guaranteeing execution. We are a small company, so the focus with clients cannot slip, and we make things work step by step.

The edge comes from the founders' attitude. Xavi comes from product and is passionate about innovation on business, and my background in a German company and technology brings an attitude to numbers and objectivity. We always approach from a business point of view and then bring the magic on the logic of serving the business, because when you open up you see opportunities you never saw.

I was privileged to work in sales, marketing, business and even trade marketing. The advice to my younger self is to keep believing, because that is the only thing that moves you. It does not matter if you need to adjust or do it slightly differently. Your belief in what you can do and create is the magic.