Why Adobe’s AI-Powered Tools for Marketo and AJO B2B Are a Game-Changer for Marketers

Michaela_Iery3

When our Adobe leadership first encouraged us to use AI in our work, I was hesitant. I’m no Luddite – point me at any new gadget or a cool app that I can use in my job to make things easier, faster or just more interesting! So, it wasn’t a “resistance to change” thing. And I’m reasonably confident I’m not contributing to the creation of time-traveling cyborg assassins because I’m embracing AI prompts in the 2020s. (Don’t come at me, SkyNet.)

So what was causing me to drag my heels about AI as a tool?

It felt like…cheating. So – and part of using AI ethically is to be transparent about it as a source – I asked the AI tool that we use here in Adobe why using AI feels like cheating. It’s one of the first prompts I used. And its answers were illuminating to me:

Cultural norms value hard work, skill, and effort; using AI to improve efficiency may seem like it skips these steps, even when thoughtful decisions are still involved.
Uncertainty About Ownership: “When AI aids idea generation or problem-solving, people may ask, Is this really mine? This can create doubt about claiming full credit.”
AI is rapidly transforming how we work and think, often causing discomfort or uncertainty about new norms.

Aha! Thanks, AI, that helped me articulate and order my thoughts around something that I was struggling with. Synthesized it and even brought up some ideas I hadn’t considered yet.

And then it added: “Here’s a reframing that might help: Using AI isn’t cheating — it’s collaborating. Just like using a calculator, spellcheck, or a design template, AI is a tool. The key is how you use it: ethically, transparently, and with your own judgment guiding the process.”

There it was. AI is a tool that can help me do my job more efficiently; a tool that isn’t going to make me less authentic because I’m using it as an idea board but instead help me get to insights or ideas even faster; and it’s not going to replace me as a marketer because it still relies on me, the human orchestrator, to guide and govern the process and apply my unique perspective that AI can’t duplicate.

All that to say, I am excited about some of the agentic AIs available now or coming soon to Adobe’s B2B marketing tools like Marketo Engage and AJO B2B and I hope you, my fellow marketers, are too! Let me hit the highlights.

GenAI Features for Interactive Webinars

We all know how powerful webinars can be for both lead generation and engagement and I love having all of the webinar data directly inside of Marketo Engage by using Interactive Webinars vs. getting it from a third-party tool through an integration. And what I REALLY love is being able to take all webinar goodness and reuse, repurpose, recycle!

On-demand webinars can often bring in more leads and engagement than the original live broadcast, but they can be less user-friendly for viewers than the live event. A GenAI assistant within Interactive Webinars:

Automatically generates chapters – let AI divide your recorded webinar into logical chapters for easy navigation

Creates concise summaries of webinar content within 30–60 minutes after the event, which you can then edit, expand upon and improve for tone
And announced at Summit this year, a GenAI blog generator will help you create a blog post targeted to persona and with brand voice for further promotion. Even if you’re not fully comfortable using AI for writing, you’ve probably had enough writer’s block to appreciate not starting from a blank page. Consider it a jumping off point that your AI collaborator gives you!

Journey Agent

I’m a writer and a talker, so I could probably describe what I want a Marketo Engage program or smart campaign to do faster than I could build it – and I’m quick with the tool, having used it for 10+ years. I’m going to be able to do just that with Journey Agent!

This future enhancement to Marketo Engage will allow you to generate multistep journeys to speed up execution by using inputs like marketing briefs, text, images, or even voice prompts! Imagine how many more Marketo programs you’ll be able to build, test, monitor and analyze when you can automate their creation (while still acting as the human orchestrator evaluating the AI agent’s output and fine tuning it).

Speaking of analyzing, Journey Agent will also let you use simple text prompts to surface insights into that journey’s metrics and ideas for optimization. I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to spend more time thinking about the results of my campaign and creative ways to improve their performance and less time building the reports to give me those insights in the first place!

By the way, Journey Agent will also be part of AJO B2B.

AI Assistant for Content Generation

Yes, I’m a writer but as previously mentioned, I can get as intimidated by a blank page as anyone. I remember as a marketer having to try to come up with new email copy for a product I’ve already written about 10 times and just feeling overwhelmed. I have to do this again? How many different ways can I say this? The AI Assistant for Content Generation in Marketo Engage and AJO B2B has me breathing a big sigh of relief for my marketing friends. Remember, it’s your collaborator: you can take, leave or repurpose what it gives you but it sure makes getting started (and getting finished) faster and easier.

With the Subject Line Generation feature, you can instantly produce multiple options tailored to tone, persona, and journey stage. Beyond subject lines, the assistant enables Content Blocks and Full Email Creation, allowing you to generate text for specific sections or entire emails using intuitive prompts and your own brand assets. This means less time spent on manual drafting and more time focusing on strategy. More time? Yes, please!

So, here’s where I’ve landed: AI isn’t the villain in our marketing story, it’s the sidekick that makes us look even smarter. (And yes, my friendly AI tool actually suggested that closing line after I asked it to evaluate the content of this written blog and suggest a closing paragraph based on my style and tone throughout the piece. I liked that first line so I kept it. The rest I reworked. See? Collaboration!) It’s not about replacing human creativity and strategy; it’s about amplifying them. When we use AI thoughtfully, transparently and strategically, we’re not cutting corners – we’re clearing the path so we can spend more time on the big ideas that move the needle. And honestly? That’s a future I’m excited to help shape.

(P.S., a lot of AI bots out there on the Interwebs use “—” a lot in their generated responses. Rest assured, that’s just how I’ve always written, and AI has made me a lot more conscious of it. But don’t read the “—”s and assume this was all AI written. It’s just me, writing in my pre-AI style. Or maybe I’m a time-traveling cyborg…I guess we'll have to wait and see.)