MMA CMO AI Transformation Summit SSA – Agenda
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Networking Lunch
Welcome Address: Setting The AI Agenda for CMO's
A short scene-setter framing the urgency of AI transformation and the key priorities for marketing leaders.
The AI-Native CMO: How Marketing Leadership is Being Rewritten
A leadership perspective on how AI is redefining the role of the CMO, from decision-making and influence to organisational design and growth accountability.
Turning AI ambition into action: a CMO–partner perspective
A practical conversation on how CMOs and partners are translating AI ambition into real execution and measurable outcomes.
The AI Accountability Era: how modern CMOs prove growth in a fragmented world
A global view on how CMOs are being held accountable for growth, and how measurement, attribution, and AI are reshaping marketing’s role in driving business impact.
Conversation with Jeffrey Bustos
A follow-up discussion unpacking key insights from the keynote and their relevance to the South African market.
The Agentic Retailer: transforming intent into action with Google AI
How AI is changing retail and commerce, shifting from intent to action, and what this means for marketing, customer journeys, and conversion.
How Senior Marketing Leaders are leading brands in an AI-Enabled world
A senior leadership discussion on how CMOs are navigating AI transformation, balancing innovation with trust, aligning teams, and delivering measurable growth.
Networking Break
A View from The MMA
A short perspective on the role MMA is playing in helping marketers navigate transformation and shape the future agenda.
The New Discovery Layer: how AI Is reshaping brand visibility
As AI-powered interfaces reshape how consumers search and decide, LLMs are becoming a new discovery layer. In the US, over 50 million people already use tools like ChatGPT to inform purchase decisions, with adoption growing rapidly in South Africa. Discovery is shifting from a list of options to a curated answer — where fewer choices, higher intent, and shorter paths to decision redefine how brands are found and chosen. Visibility is no longer just about ranking, but being included in the recommendation, and we see a shift where the interface becomes the funnel. In this fireside, Kimberly-Clark shares how they are navigating this shift in practice, exploring the role of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) and how BrandScan is helping measure presence in AI-driven discovery environments.
What Comes Next: Rethinking your marketing organisation in the agentic era
As organisations begin to implement AI across their marketing teams, the next challenge is to transform your ways of working to maintain competitive superiority. This forward-looking session explores how marketing organisations evolve in the agentic era - from the automation of executional roles to the new posture of humans. Providing a future-facing lens, this keynote helps CMOs prepare for what comes next by building teams equipped to leverage the agentic AI era.
The AI Reality Check: a CMO perspective on putting AI into practice
A practical discussion on real deployments, lessons learned, and how organisations are moving AI from theory into day-to-day application.
What Comes Next: Media, Data & AI Convergence
A future-facing discussion on how media, data, and AI are converging, and what marketers should be preparing for now.
The CMO Action Agenda: A closing discussion focused on what CMOs should do next
Become an MMA CMO AI Transformation Summit Africa | 20 MAY 2026 | JOHANNESBURG partner today.
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Sarah Utermark
Country Manager - South Africa
MMA
E: [email protected]