Topic guide · 16 conversations
Use AI for the plumbing. Keep the voice human.
Conversations about AI search, automation, accessibility, digital transformation, brand sameness, and the judgment a machine cannot supply.
AI is changing the work. Pretending otherwise is not a strategy. Neither is handing it the parts that make your work yours.
These episodes get into AI search, automation, accessibility, brand sameness, workflow, and the creative judgment a machine cannot supply. Use AI for the plumbing. Keep the voice human.
Get your hands dirty. Ask an AI what it thinks your brand is. If the answer is generic, do not blame the machine. It learned from what you made public.
The conversations
Ranked by relevance
Chris Gilbert: Creative Developer
Senior Creative Developer
Senior creative developer Chris Gilbert, with over a decade in the craft, on the evolution of AI in software development and the future of web design.
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DEEO Returns: Art, AI, and Why Humans Decorate
Co-founders, DEEO Studio
Yianni and Monica of DEEO are back for round two. Nearly three years into building their creative studio, they’ve hit a different gear. A conversation about where design, brand, and AI are all headed, and why decoration is a fundamentally human impulse we can’t afford to hand over to machines.
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Mallory Willsea: Build the Stage
Media Builder · AI Strategist · Host, Higher Ed Pulse
Higher ed marketing is full of old playbooks, slow adoption, and fear of risk. Mallory Willsea has made a career out of pushing against that gravity.
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Carl Smith: Burnout, AI, and Bullsh*t
Community Builder · Founder, Bureau of Digital
Bureau of Digital founder Carl Smith on the evolution of agency life, the promise and peril of AI, and why trust and human connection still run the industry.
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Carol Keese: A CMO Says Marketing Isn’t the Fix
VP for University Communications & CMO, University of Oregon
Higher ed websites all sound the same, look the same, and Carol Keese has a lot to say about that. As VP for University Communications and CMO at the University of Oregon, she argues that when an institution has a substance problem, more marketing isn’t the fix.
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Volt Santos Miran: Why Higher Ed Websites Still Look the Same
EVP, Brand & Web Strategy, Carnegie
Why do higher ed websites still look the same and wrestle with problems that were already familiar when the web was young? Volt Santos Miran joins Tracey to talk about copycat design, underfunded web teams, shared governance, and why the institution should never be the hero of the story.
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Jaime Hunt: Empathy Is Not a Soft Skill
Founder, Solve Higher Ed Marketing · Author
Jaime Hunt has spent a career arguing that empathy belongs at the center of marketing strategy, not on a poster in the break room. As the founder of Solve Higher Ed Marketing and an author in the field, Jaime makes the case that understanding your audience deeply is the hardest, most rigorous work a marketer can do.
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Christina Melito: Designing for Tension
Creative Director, Fifteen4
What does it really mean to lead creative work in a world being reshaped by AI, complexity, and constant change? An honest, funny, and deeply insightful conversation about what creative leadership actually requires today.
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Diane Querey: 20 Years of Digital Transformation at WWF
VP Digital Platforms, World Wildlife Fund
Diane Querey has led digital at World Wildlife Fund through two decades of platform shifts, including the WWF Together app that won an Apple Design Award in 2013 and the Apps for Earth campaign with Apple that raised $8 million.
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Miles Kemp: CEO at Variate
CEO, Variate
From an architecture background to leading digital transformation for brands like Marriott, Carnival, and Macy’s: Miles Kemp on designing at enterprise scale.
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Elizabeth Stauderman: Creative Thought in Action
VP Communications & Marketing, Skidmore College
How do you make creativity a strategic tool, not a luxury, when resources are limited and expectations are high? Elizabeth Stauderman joins to unpack how she brought Skidmore’s motto, Creative Thought Matters, to life through a full web and brand transformation.
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Kris Land: The Infinity Within
Entrepreneur, Technologist, Author
Tracey sits down with entrepreneur, technologist, and author Kris Land to explore the ideas behind his book The Infinity Within and the deeper role fear, doubt, and curiosity play in shaping human experience.
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Yianni Mathioudakis and Monica Sanchez: DEEO
Co-founders, DEEO
The DEEO co-founders on digital design, strategy, and innovation, plus the discipline of rejecting bad-fit clients.
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Dave Look: Chromatic
CEO, Chromatic
Where it all started: Chromatic CEO Dave Look on Drupal development and why developing diverse skills, from Krav Maga to lockpicking, makes better leaders.
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Ashley Budd: Mailed It!
Senior Marketing Director, Cornell · Co-author, Mailed It!
Higher ed marketing expert Ashley Budd, co-author of Mailed It! and Senior Marketing Director at Cornell, on email that people actually open.
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Dayana Kibilds: The Language Problem Killing Higher Ed Access
VP of Strategy, Ologie · Author, Mailed It.
Dayana Kibilds has spent nearly two decades helping colleges and universities find the words to say what they actually mean. Most financial aid pages come back solid red in the Hemingway app. A wall. And then those same schools wonder why first-gen families aren’t finding them.
Episode detailsFrom Tracey
Related writing
The Shakespeare of alt tags
Diane Querey has run digital at WWF for twenty years. Her line on where AI belongs is the clearest I have heard.
Show note · 6 min readThe Hemingway test, and the word that means nothing
Two exercises from episode 27 with Dayana Kibilds: one that shows you how hard your pages are to read, and one that shows you how little they say.
Essay · 5 min readWhy decoration is the last thing we should hand to machines
From the DEEO conversation: art, AI, and the impulse to make a thing more beautiful than it needs to be.
Direct answers
A few useful definitions
Where should creative teams use AI?
AI is most useful for repetitive production, first-pass analysis, metadata, and other scaffolding. People should remain responsible for the voice, the judgment, and the decisions that make the work distinctive.
What does AI search mean for a brand?
AI search assembles answers from information a brand and other sources have made available. Clear facts, original expertise, consistent identity signals, and useful public content make it easier for those systems to describe a brand accurately.