MAICON 2025: Humanity, Leadership, and the Next Leap Forward in AI

By: Brandon Tidd What was once a niche gathering for marketing technologists has matured into a movement of business leaders, educators, and technologists converging around a single question: How do we move humanity forward with AI? The main conference floor at MAICON 2025 opened with the kind of kinetic energy only AI can generate: coffee-fueled conversations, human-in-the-loop handshakes, and ideas bouncing faster than chat windows. The Move 37 Moment Paul Roetzer, founder and CEO of the Marketing AI Institute, set the tone with a keynote that compared today’s inflection point to chess player AlphaGo’s historic “Move 37,” a creative, unexpected play that stunned grandmasters and redefined what was possible. For Roetzer, that same moment is now unfolding for knowledge workers. We’re past the question of whether AI can do the job of the average worker. The real question is how quickly organizations can adapt to that new reality. He called out the emerging economics of automation, an industry where venture capital and innovation are no longer focused on improving human productivity but on replacing it entirely. His cautionary insight: Silicon Valley isn’t asking if the workforce will be automated, but how fast. Becoming an AI-Driven Leader Roetzer’s keynote left the audience reflecting on the rapid pace of change and the urgent need for leadership capable of guiding organizations through this transformation. Building on that momentum, leadership strategist Geoff Woods took the stage with his trademark energy and futurist lens, challenging attendees to think differently about management in the age of algorithms. Known for blending creativity with analytics, Woods used his keynote to shift from fear to empowerment. His framework, CRIT (Context, Role, Interview, Task), has quickly become shorthand for how leaders can better communicate with AI systems and with their teams. “Your competitive advantage isn’t knowing everything about AI,” he said. “It’s about…