Why the Best Digital Marketers Are Experimenting: Kevin Hein on AI, Group Chats and Letting Go of Control

ICYMI: Kevin Hein on messaging-first behavior, creative fatigue and the future of brand influence.

“How does a brand stay at that pace? I believe the answer is: you don’t. You have to surrender to an extent.”

In this episode of 10 Minute Martech, Kevin Hein, Chief Growth Officer at GIPHY, offers one of the most grounded perspectives in the series so far: modern marketing is moving too fast for anyone to fully control.

Instead of chasing every platform shift, AI update or behavioral trend, Kevin argues that the most successful marketers are doing something far more sustainable.

They’re experimenting constantly. They’re learning quickly. And they’re letting go of the illusion of certainty.

From group chats to generative search to creative automation, his message is clear: Control is fading. Curiosity is becoming a competitive advantage.

Kevin’s Big Idea: Influence Has Moved to Private Spaces

One of Kevin’s core observations is that digital behavior has fundamentally changed.

Public feeds are no longer where most meaningful decisions happen. Instead, people now turn first to:

• Group chats
• Private messages
• Closed communities
• Small social circles

Whether it’s finding a restaurant, choosing a service provider or debating a purchase, most influence now happens behind closed doors.

For brands, this presents a major challenge.

• You can’t easily track it.
• You can’t directly insert yourself into it.
• You can’t optimize it like a feed.
• But you still have to earn your place in it.

Kevin’s Three Key Points

👉 You can’t outpace AI. Experiment instead.
👉 Automation without insight leads to creative fatigue.
👉 More data doesn’t mean better decisions.

Together, they reflect Kevin’s core message: sustainable marketing today is less about control, and more about curiosity, judgment and adaptability.

10 Memorable Moments with Kevin Hein

1. Feeds Are Losing Their Emotional Power

Kevin notes that what people post publicly today looks very different from five or ten years ago.

It’s more curated. Less vulnerable. More performative.

Meanwhile, real opinions and recommendations live in private conversations. That’s where trust is built.

2. CMOs Are Carrying COO-Level Pressure

Today’s CMOs are expected to deliver measurable growth while managing operational complexity. That accountability makes experimentation harder.

When results are scrutinized quarter by quarter, risk feels dangerous. Even when it’s necessary.

3. Experimentation Is Slowing and That’s Risky

Kevin doesn’t criticize leaders for being cautious. But he worries about what happens when testing disappears.

Without experimentation, brands drift quietly into irrelevance. By the time change becomes obvious, it’s often too late.

4. No One Can Outrun AI’s Pace

Kevin points to Google’s recent AI turbulence as proof that even dominant platforms can be destabilized quickly. In this environment, no brand can permanently “stay ahead.”

The only sustainable strategy is:

• Test.
• Learn.
• Adapt.
• Repeat.

5. Smaller Brands Have Structural Advantages

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) and emerging brands can move quickly. They can try new tools, channels and formats without risking massive budgets.

Larger organizations must work harder to create protected spaces for innovation.

6. Authenticity Still Works (For Now)

Kevin believes people are still good at sensing what feels real. Even in a flood of AI-generated content, genuine emotion and originality stand out.

But he’s realistic. That advantage won’t last forever. Which makes human creativity more valuable than ever right now.

7. GIFs Reflect How People Communicate

As CGO at GIPHY, Kevin sees firsthand how people use GIFs to express humor, empathy and identity.

Their rise reflects a broader shift. People want fast, visual, emotional language. Not corporate scripts.

8. AI Requires a ‘Hedge Fund’ Mindset

Rather than betting everything on one model or platform, Kevin recommends diversification.

• Different tools for different purposes.
• Constant evaluation.
• Ongoing flexibility.

Today’s winner may not be tomorrow’s.

9. AI Literacy Is Now Table Stakes

Kevin has invested in learning AI through certifications, courses and social creators. He treats AI education as professional hygiene. Not optional. Not “nice to have.” Essential.

10. Automation Risks Creative Fatigue

Kevin raises a critical concern about optimization-driven marketing. When systems endlessly remix what already works, creativity narrows. Short-term performance may improve. Long-term originality suffers.

At some point, humans must step back in.

Kevin’s Martech Hot Take

Marketing risks becoming overly dependent on dashboards, models and automation.

Data is everywhere. Insight is rare.

And without experimentation, brands settle into safe, repetitive patterns.

Efficiency alone won’t win.

Who Kevin Follows

Kevin learns through hands-on experimentation and digital communities.

He follows AI educators on TikTok and other platforms who break down complex tools in accessible ways.

One standout for him is Sabrina Romanov, who explains AI concepts for beginners and advanced users alike.

He also invests in formal learning through certifications and structured courses. For Kevin, confidence comes from understanding how the technology actually works.

The Takeaway

Kevin Hein isn’t offering certainty. He’s offering a mindset.

In a world where:

• Search is evolving
• Social is fragmenting
• AI is accelerating
• Attention is privatizing

Control is increasingly unrealistic.

The brands that succeed will be the ones that:

• Experiment early.
• Learn continuously.
• Let go quickly.
• Rebuild often.

Marketing’s future won’t be tidy. But it will reward curiosity.

Listen to the 10 Minute Martech Episode

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Next Up in the 10 Minute Martech ICYMI Series

Chae O’Brien catches up with 10 Minute Martech on why AI without context is just noise.

Want to Keep Reading in the Meantime? Full Transcript: Kevin Hein

Here’s the full transcript to keep you transfixed. Every insight, every quote, unedited and unforgettable.

Sara Faatz: I’m Sara Faatz and I lead community and awareness at Progress. This is 10 Minute Martech.

Kevin Hein: Google that we knew so well from search wasn’t pivoting fast enough and now everything’s upside down and OpenAI is launching code reds and now they’re launching. So, the speed at which that moves, how does a brand stay in that pace? And I believe the answer is you don’t, you have to surrender to an extent. And it comes down to the testing and learning and experimentation.

Sara Faatz: That’s Kevin Hein, Chief Growth Officer at GIPHY. Let’s get started.

Sara Faatz: So, Kevin, let’s talk about what your burning martech idea or concern is at the moment.

Kevin Hein: The biggest shift that we are seeing now is this migration away from feeds and towards the group message and group chat. If you think about your own user behavior, about what you post now as compared to what you may have posted five or maybe even 10 years ago, the texture of it is completely different. It’s less intimate in most cases and it could be pragmatic and very useful. When we think about our group messaging environments, as far as the big moments that we might have or even the small micro moments like I need a plumber or a restaurant recommendation, we’re finding that 90% of the people are going to their group chat first and we’re seeing this continue to accelerate. So, there’s definitely a migration either back towards group messaging or it’s a new type of blossoming of the group messaging environment.

Sara Faatz: Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. And do you think that that is something that from a business perspective, how can organizations harness that? If I’m in the martech space and I’m building out my martech stack and building out, what should I be thinking about and how can I implement that into a broader strategy?

Kevin Hein: So we’re finding that it’s very easy for we’ll just say a CMO who is now seeing the pressures of more of a COO as far as their accountability. There’s a lot of comfort in the places that work. And you could pick that across the entire media landscape, whether it’s the Metas and the Amazons of the world or programmatic towards TV really works for me, when I do the Super Bowl ad, I see sales lift. What we’re seeing a little less of is this experimentation in areas that might be what is coming next, but it’s not really clear. We can’t really track it the exact same way. It feels a little different. I have to do a little different type of work in order to leverage this opportunity. I think at the CMO level, it’s harder to take risks because of their accountability, how fast the market moves and what they need to show on the bottom line very, very quickly. So that experimentation is a little bit of a slowdown. And in many cases, I don’t blame these choices on some of these brands.

Sara Faatz: Right. Human’s behavior has changed fundamentally. And I was going to see how long we could go without saying AI, but I’m going to have to say it I think. Generative AI has changed the way people search, it’s changed the way they engage with brands. And I think that you see that in that the willingness to be bold, you do have to balance making, I think it’s maybe easier for an up and comer to take a few more risks. And you could argue that it probably always was, but even more so now. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not important for every brand, established or new.

Kevin Hein: Yeah, I agree, and I think it is an opportunistic yet somewhat unsettled place for a brand to be. Even if you look back in the last couple months of where Google was from a full tech stack perspective, I’m just talking about “Google’s losing,” six months ago. And now you look over the last couple weeks, it’s like, oh, wait, you build your own chips, you own search, you have the Android operating system, but you’re behind on AI. Wait, why isn’t the new Gemini so good? Oh, we’re going to launch Nano Banana and it’s going to blow everybody’s mind. And then all of a sudden, the brand Alphabet Google that we knew so well from search wasn’t pivoting fast enough, and now everything’s upside down and OpenAI is launching code reds and now they’re launching. So the speed at which that moves, how does a brand stay in that pace? And I believe the answer is you don’t, you have to surrender to an extent. And it comes down to testing, learning and experimentation. And I think that’s really hard. So if you’re a small D2C brand, you could experiment all day.

Sara Faatz: Sure.

Kevin Hein: And you should do that as a larger brand, but the risk model is different. And I think with the technologies that we have, in particular with AI, there’s a way to do it right. And I don’t know what that way is, but we’re going to see in the Super Bowl, Coke is going to launch their second AI ad. We’re going to see as the audience do, how does it resonate with us emotionally? And one of the areas that I always think is fascinating is that authenticity as a human sense, if we could call it that, is 10 times more powerful than any other sense that we have. So with AI right now, even with AI slop detectors, I still think that human part of us, the emotional part of us, the joy that we express with each other, we could still detect. Sure, we can get duped all day with AI, but I think in the end, when it comes to brands and messaging, it’s very hard still to fake people out because we’re smart, we understand authenticity. But it’s going to get there. A year from now, AI is going to be core to a lot of the content generation. But back to what you said in the beginning of how much noise there is right now. And I wonder, is it going to go back towards this analog feel? Is it going to go back to the phrase touching grass, if that’s still used? Is that going to be romanticized by the youngest generation? And with what we see about this migration to group messaging and honestly the increase in usage of GIFs for people to express themselves, we think that there’s something going on here and nobody’s really trying, it’s just happening.

Sara Faatz: Right.

Kevin Hein: And that’s another, it’s just hard to predict. And how do you harness that? It’s just amazing. I think by letting go, relinquishing, testing and experimenting. And that comes with your technology too. If you’re making a choice on which generative AI model to use, if you’re in bed with OpenAI, I don’t know. Do you use Microsoft’s Copilot for this? Does your organization use Gemini for this to work with all of their cloud-based documents? Do you use OpenAI for legal? I’m making that up. I believe it’s a bit of a hedge fund approach when it comes to experimentation.

Sara Faatz: Right, right. Well, great. So just a couple more quick questions for you. Who are you following right now for inspiration or information?

Kevin Hein: So I’ve become a student. It’s multiple sources. I’ve become a student in learning AI. And there’s a couple of individuals across TikTok that I use as the source, that are really inspiring because they’re in it. And they also describe it in a way that’s very approachable. And with that, I’ve moved forward and decided to take a couple of classes on LLM 101.

Sara Faatz: I see.

Kevin Hein: And the last one that I did was with LinkedIn, did a partnership with Microsoft. And you get a certification, so you could pat yourself on the back. And even though this 101 on the surface appeared pretty basic, there’s all of these nuggets that you learn along the way that gives you the context. So there’s an individual named Sabrina Romanov, who is somebody that I follow on TikTok that just serves it up in a way that is beginner, intermediate, advanced. And the people like her that are really in it and have a high level of dexterity, but also could explain it in a human way, are the ones that give me confidence to approach these AI-related topics that could be honestly very intimidating and overwhelming because you still need to have a decent level of technical dexterity, especially with the image and video content generation.

Sara Faatz: Sure, yeah.

Kevin Hein: That the entryway could be, wait, am I going to pay $9.99 a month for this one when I can do this one for free? And do I need to code with this one or do I need to be a graphic artist in order to really get the advantages of something like this? So my sources are influencers on TikTok that are really giving me insights into the type of dexterity you need. But I really want to be a proficient student in, I think you explained it really well, perplexity for very deep technical research. And Copilot for an integration with the Microsoft products or however one uses it. And maybe OpenAI ChatGPT is our people’s personal therapists or we’re looking for directions or what to buy.

Sara Faatz: Right, right.

Kevin Hein: I do think that will also be another trend to shift a little bit retail within LLMs.

Sara Faatz: Yes.

Kevin Hein: And if Walmart’s integrated, what’s Amazon going to do? How is Google just going to get rid of their organic delivery and move everything to an AI model? I think that the shift in retail is going to be measurable and immediate, but at the same time, maybe take a while. Sara, when do websites go away? I don’t think they do, but what purpose do they serve?

Sara Faatz: Yes. Yes. Yeah, I agree 100%. Websites aren’t dead, they’re just evolving. And if you look at the evolution of a website from, when it started, it was brochureware, and then it becomes a little bit more advanced. You still need a place where even if people are doing their research, and we have statistics left, right, and center that are showing that people are doing most of their research offline. When they come to your website, by the time they get there, they are far more qualified than they were before because they know what they’re looking for. I think making sure that you’re discoverable, that you are understanding what your brand or your, excuse me, your customer truly needs, that is where that’s going to separate the winners from the losers, quite honestly.

Sara Faatz: We all talk about having our ideal customer profiles and understanding personas, and there are tools now that will allow you to truly understand who that persona is and what they’re truly looking for, and making sure that you’re delivering content, product, and services that are actually meeting that need, that’s where I think it’s going to become incredibly powerful. And we have the technology today. It’s just something people have to, part of it is making those, shifts are fairly significant. You’re not talking about leveraging your current digital experience platforms or content management systems that you built your website on initially. You’re probably talking about CMS 3.0 or whatever, whatever version we happen to be on. So, yeah, I think that part is also incredibly exciting. It’s changing the way, it’s changing the buyer’s journey, it’s changing the customer journey just in general, and it’s phenomenal.

Kevin Hein: I agree so passionately with everything you said, and it reminded me of a couple of themes related to it. One is a question I’m always posing my team. We have a lot of data, that can be paralyzing. I’m interested in insights.

Sara Faatz: Yes, yes.

Kevin Hein: And if we map that philosophy with where the largest platforms are going towards automation, I do subscribe to a portion of that strategy where AI and the most sophisticated digital ad systems could likely take your creative and produce the best results as you define them.

Sara Faatz: Yes.

Kevin Hein: However, I do think that there’s going to be a potential numbness or saturation in that model to an extent. Because back to the context and the content, if you have a digital experience that’s converting, whatever it might be, and there’s multiple variations on that, whether it’s color, imagery, text, it’s still the root of it is based in whatever that core idea was. And I think it might contribute to a pattern of laziness or something that might become stale. It might be effective. So when we go back and we look at our data that talks about conversion and we see that this core idea that had multiple variations did really well, I’m interested to see of how long did creative until creative fatigue stepped in. Is it a three-day window where all of your results are compressed? Does it extend out to two weeks? Does it make suggestions about this worked, it’s now stale? We believe that you should consider using this brand device now. When does it get passed back to the human? Because we think about like a Disney or an Apple or any brand that’s so controlling about their IP, they’re just not going to let a system run because it’s bringing results for every campaign.

Sara Faatz: Yes.

Kevin Hein: Sure, if Disney is getting more subscribers for Disney Plus, they might be a little looser on that. But for the movies coming out, there are limitations around this, and I think the compression or the collision of when that happens is going to be really interesting.

Sara Faatz: Yes, yes.

Kevin Hein: But I am a little concerned around laziness and total dependency on an MMM model or some dashboard that tells you X, Y, and Z. Again, it goes back to that lack of experimentation, and I don’t think that’s everywhere. There’s a lot of experimentation in certain, in certain company sizes. But you look at the Fortune 50, and try to find like three innovative marketing ideas that have come out of any of them. It’s a desert. And I don’t, listen, I don’t have those ideas.

Sara Faatz: Totally agree. Kevin, thank you so much. I could have talked to you all day. Really appreciate your time.

Kevin Hein: Thank you, Sara, you as well. Thank you so much.

Sara Faatz: Listeners, thanks for tuning in. Make sure you like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, I’m Sara Faatz and this is 10 Minute Martech.

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