Senior VP & Chief Marketing Officer, Qualcomm
Search every verified Don Mcguire interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Don McGuire, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Qualcomm, has been active in several industry events discussing the company's brand strategy and technological direction. At the 2026 SPORT BEACH Cannes event, McGuire spoke about the intersection of sports, music, and technology, stating that Qualcomm has begun combining sports and music partnerships to create deeper emotional connections with audiences. He also discussed how AI is changing content discovery, moving from traditional search methods toward agent-based interactions. At VivaTech Festival 2026, McGuire introduced the concept of the "ecosystem of you," describing it as a framework for using technology in daily life while keeping personal data private and secure, and allowing augmented intelligence to learn from users to become more helpful. At Qualcomm's 2026 Investor Day, the company announced a revised fiscal 2029 revenue target of $40 billion, up from a previous $22 billion target for non-handset revenue. McGuire noted that handset revenue is expected to fall below 50% of total revenue by 2027 and to one-third by 2029, as the company expands into automotive, IoT, and data center markets. In a 2024 interview, McGuire identified complacency and missing technological inflection points as the most destructive forces in tech, and he expressed skepticism about the need for AI to reach superintelligence, calling it "very dangerous" to pursue innovation for its own sake. He also emphasized that for AI to scale, it must be hybrid, with workloads distributed between cloud and edge devices to address sustainability and economic challenges.
“We're entering the agentic age, right? So, we're leaving kind of generative AI behind or gen AI and we're now we're entering the age of agents where agents are going to be your companions, your buddies, your friends, and they're going to be helping you. Agents are going to be talking to other agents.”
“It's got to be humanled, AI powered, and it's the integration of the two working together. humans plus augmented with artificial intelligence to make the creative process faster, streamlined, more productive, whatever it might be.”
“Well I think definitely because look both sports and music revolve around passion and emotion and like when we are going out to attach our brand into people's lives it's all about people's passions and making an emotional connection. So we used to look at sport and music separately but we've started to do is combine th...”
“Well discovery is actually undergoing a big evolution with the advent of AI not just generative AI, but now as we move into the agentic age where you're just going to talk to your agent and your agent's going to help you discover things. And it's going to be less about you having to kind of dive in through an app or an...”
“We call this concept the ecosystem of you. The ecosystem of you is really about how you use technology in your daily life, but how you keep that data set yours, right? And and not gift it to the world um either mistakenly um through a claw or whatever, um but actually keeping that data close to you, private, secure, sa...”
“I think historically some brands refused or were reluctant to share the spotlight with a partner um for fear of dilution. Of brand dilution. I think that's BS.”
“18 months ago, we set a target of $22 billion in non-handset revenue. We are revising the target. Our fiscal 2029 revenue target is now $40 billion.”
“We'll be less than 50% in 2027. In 2029, with the forecast we just showed you, handset will be a third of our revenues. We're in licensing, Android handsets, automotive, IoT, and now in data center. Across these businesses, we address $1.7 trillion of TAM.”
“I think it's a combination of things. There's I think there's really two main vectors. I'm sure there's a lot of noise around each of these, but for for the first vector, I think I'll talk about the inability or the lack of understanding of technology that leads to regulation that um probably is not uh appropriate and...”
“I would say complacency and uh literally missing inflection points where uh technology trends shift or behavior shifts uh or the technology itself um is able to do something different and because you're happy with where you are, you don't see sort of the forest through the trees.”
“We invest in each generation of wireless inflection 10 years before it happens. And so we started researching 6G at the beginning of 5G. And you have to do that. And that's billions of dollars of of of investment. It's something that is not going to manifest itself or materialize possibly for 10 to 12 years.”
“We did a horrible job up until this last earnings call... we looked at how we communicated to that that that audience not only what was important of what happened in that quarter but where we were headed. And and for the first time talked about sort of the new new the next new. And that signaled to the people who get o...”
“I would destroy the ability for AI to reach super intelligence. I don't think it's needed. I just don't think I think doing something just to do something I'm I'm going to reference Oppenheimer here for a second. doing something just to do something is very dangerous.”
“In order for AI to scale both from a technology perspective and a usability perspective, it's going to have to be hybrid, meaning not everything can happen in the cloud. In some cases, it takes too long. The workloads are too much. The taxing on the data center is too much. The economic model doesn't work. You can't bu...”
“I'm not a huge fan of regulatory oversight in general, because it's too slow. And by the time they get something regulated, it's already moved beyond the regulation. And so it's irrelevant. And so it's really about standards and governance and practices and best practices that can be adopted and principles. And if we c...”
Don McGuire, Qualcomm Incorporated joins Juliana Cobb of 72andSunny in the SPORT BEACH Content Studio for a ...
At SPORT BEACH Cannes 2026, Don McGuire, EVP and CMO at Qualcomm, joined moderator Erika Bennett, Founder and CMO of Revolt/Offscript, alongside Rob Christensen, EVP of Global Sales at Vevo, Kevin Chernett, EVP and Head of Global Partnerships at Live Nation, and Olympic medalist Scotty James for a discussion on how sports, music, and technology is helping sports reach new audiences and build deeper fan connections across cultures and communities. Highlights from the discussion include: • How music serves as a powerful connector across different touchpoints • How Snapdragon uses technology t…
At VivaTech Festival 2026, Qualcomm EVP & CMO Don McGuire joined Michael Kassan, Founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, alongside Alex Hardiman, Chief Product Officer at The New York Times, and Jean-Yves Minet, Global Brand President at Accor, for a discussion on how leading brands are creating deeper customer relationships through connected ecosystems, AI, and personalized experiences. Highlights from the discussion include: • How brands are building loyalty through ongoing engagement across products, services, and experiences. • The role AI plays in delivering more relevant and personalized cust…
On June 24, 2026, Qualcomm executives shared the company’s vision for its next chapter as a leading data center company, with expanding edge to cloud capabilities at Qualcomm Investor Day in New York City. Led by President and CEO Cristiano Amon, the event outlined how Qualcomm is evolving to lead in the era of agentic AI, expanding into a full-stack computing platform across edge, cloud, and data center, anchored by the introduction of Qualcomm Dragonfly, the company’s new data center solutions brand. Also announced was the doubling of the company’s revenue outlook for QCT non-handset reven…
In Silicon Valley, value can be created or destroyed with every new technology and product innovation. Over his career, Don McGuire, EVP and CMO of Qualcomm, has seen waves of value creation and destruction. From Don’s POV and experience, the most significant destructive force in tech comes from complacency – companies wary of disrupting short-term profits trot out the same gameplan quarter after quarter. As a result, they stop innovating, fail to adapt outdated product strategies, and miss critical technological inflection points. Former industry leaders like Blackberry and Nokia are case stu…
How is Qualcomm using software innovation, AI, and marketing partnerships to build a stronger technology brand identity? In this episode of The Speed of Culture Podcast, Matt Britton sits down live at CES with Don McGuire, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer of Qualcomm, to discuss software innovation, AI, automotive technology, tech collaboration, Snapdragon, marketing partnerships, brand identity, and how Qualcomm is helping power the next generation of connected experiences. Don explains how software is transforming industries from automotive to PCs, and why technology companies need to colla…
Don McGuire did not build his career through a straight line. He lost elections as a kid, moved every few years, started over again and again, and had to learn resilience early. After graduating from college, he was still unsure what to do, but a leap into the early cellular industry launched a career that would take him from sales to marketing and ultimately, the CMO seat at Qualcomm. In this episode, Don chats with Ilana about how to stay in control of your career in a world changing at the speed of AI. He shares why resilience matters more than ever, how to spot the right time to leap, and…
At #MWC26, Qualcomm EVP and CMO Don McGuire joined industry peers to discuss how marketing is entering its most transformational era. Highlights include: • The impact of #AI across marketing teams • How to modernize marketing organizations in ever-changing environments • Maintaining brand authenticity within a world of constant optimization and short term pressure For more information on Qualcomm innovation, visit https://www.qualcomm.com/
Don McGuire, EVP and Chief Marketing Officer at Qualcomm Incorporated, joins Ali Cornford, CEO of 72andSunny New York, in the Clubhouse Content Studio during Super Week at SPORT BEACH. #sportbeach2026 #sportbeach #SBSuperWeek
The CMO Spotlight offers an inside look into the minds and journeys of high-performing marketing leaders. Setup CEO + Founder, Joe Koufman, sat down with Don McGuire, the EVP and Chief Marketing Officer for Qualcomm, to talk about seizing the moment of opportunity, empathetic leadership, Louis Vuitton, and more.
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