David, like you, I've been in this wonderful field of ours for a long time and honestly, I have never been in a situation where we are collectively experiencing dramatic shifts at four different levels. So we had since the beginning of the year tectonic shift in geopolitics that has had a direct impact on macroeconomic, all that, while we're going through technological disruption through gen AI. And then on top of that, every single company that I am aware of, and you spend more time talking to them than I do, is going through its own internal transformation trying to absorb the three dimensions of change that I just mentioned. So that creates a level of uncertainty, a level of high change, and most people as human beings, we even as marketers we like to say that we thrive on change, but at the end of the day, change is very, very, very hard. And now most of us are going through an intensity of change that I personally had not experienced before. Why? Because you have the three levels of distinct change at the same time. Before, yes, there were wars, so that's geopolitical, there were some macroeconomics, there were some technological, we all went through digital, mobile, social media, virtual reality. We all, but the combination of all of them together is rather new territory for all of us.
Every single company and CMO that I know, we have all gone through the different levels of AI acceptance from a level of incredible excitement where everybody and their mother went for pilots. We had, I think I mentioned this to you, we had more pilots than the Royal Air Force going on at the same time. By the way, most of them small, most of them did not have scale as a mindset. We went through that. We went through exhaustion on that particular piece. As I was going to start, the one thing that as a leadership team we came to terms with is we are a global company. We have global scale. The whole experimenting with little startups in San Francisco is not going to help us. So what we did was let's go where the areas where we are going to have the most significant impact, always with the customer in mind, which I think is an important consideration. AI is not an end in itself and many people are thinking about it as an end in itself. I have a productivity target and I'm going to hit it. AI is a means to an end, is hopefully a better way to servicing your customer. If you're not doing that, you cannot cut your way into glory, as a boss of mine used to say. So what that meant for us are three areas. Number one, because of the business in which we are in, we produce a lot of NPI assets. Most of them, not now, for a long time ago, are computer-generated stuff. We used to have multiple agencies around the world because every client will have a creation and all for that. So all of a sudden, the best way to actually have that NPI asset on time so that our customers can sell that was one area where AI is helping us. So we went from zero to 30, this year will be at the 60% level of NPI assets optimized, not created, but optimized by AI. The second one is media, and as we move into identity-based targeting across platforms, as you know, identity-based, you have them within the firewalls. Now we have the opportunity with some of the big media agencies around the world to actually do identity-based targeting and go through, in our particular case, our most important target is the IT decision maker, to be able to take content to that particular individual through the journey across the world, across the multiple opportunities for engagement. AI is helping us on that as well. And again, is how can we get our messages in a more effective way to that particular customer. So that's the second. And then the third area is the one that everyone likes to talk about, which is everything that has to do with back-office automation. In our particular case, and I think most companies, whether they have the data or not, they intuitively will tell you 50% of the time of the about 1,300 marketers that we have around the world are spent on non-revenue-producing tasks. So the ability to automate all the record-keeping and optimization of processes and solutions and all that is the third area in which we're working. The first two are driven by my team. The third area, everything that is back-office, we are responsible for the marketing and communications area of it, but we're doing it together with the chief transformation office, which from a CMO standpoint, the stuff that you and I care about, that has become, in addition to the CFO and the CEO in the past, the chief transformation officer has become a key and very important relationship for the CMO. Any of the stuff that I'm talking to you about that will have a significant impact in the way that we serve our customers and we do marketing around the world has a direct impact on technology. Therefore, that relationship needs to be secure.
David, this is, as I said, rather an intense time and I divide, let's call it my personal leadership principles, into three. First, you start with the body. You have to take care of yourself. We all have, more and more so now than in the past, incredibly demanding lives. We're talking about all the changes that we're going through and we're talking about the fact that we all want to be great partners, great parents, great community participants like the World Federation of Advertisers. We want to be great at everything and the amount of time and intensity that all the things that we're talking about, which sound very simple as bullet points, well, there's geopolitical, there's macroeconomic, there's all this type of stuff. It takes a lot of time and a lot of emotional energy. And because of what we spoke earlier, all this creates a level of uncertainty on people and you are a leader. So the only way that you're going to be your best self for all the different elements of your life as a business leader, as a father, as a partner, as a community, is by, it starts by taking care of yourself. If you are not doing that first, nothing is going to work around you. And by the way, you and I had a brief conversation, I made that mistake. I paid dearly for that. So when I'm talking about this, I'm talking with cost. The fundamental mental shift that we need to make, at least that I had to make, was I didn't have time because I was busy in all the other elements of my life and the paradigm that I had to shift was don't do it for yourself, because we always put ourselves last, or at least I used to put myself last. The moment that you say, you know, I'm going to take care of myself for others, and the most generous thing that I can do for the people that I love and the people that I care for and the responsibilities that I have is to start with me first, has never been more true than now. I'll give you an example. We just went through an unexpected CEO transition. Our CEO from HP after 30-some years moved to PayPal. He had been a core, one of those pillars that define what culture is in a company. So by the way, in addition to that, David, a very close friend, one of the reasons why I returned to HP. So this was hard for the company, this was hard for the team, and honestly, it was hard for me personally as well. And as these changes are going, and for about two weeks I was one of the few people that only knew, because we had to work on the multi-stakeholder communication process, because you know, stock price, employees, customers, investors, all need to be taken care of the right way or things can become very complicated. So I was going through all that stuff. One of my good friends, a Brit, you guys tend to be fantastic about these things when you allow yourself to be, 'Antonio, I know you, be careful that you don't become the wailing wall. You are not made out of stone and you're not God.' So the whole notion that because you can, when things are going this way and people don't know whether they're going to keep you, you can become a wailing wall. So the best and most important thing is to make sure that you're taking care of yourself. Make sure that you understand the role that you're going to play. And then begin with that. So that's kind of, let's say, body. On the mind thing, David, like you, I like to read. And again, I studied history in my student days. I never thought I did it for, I don't know, intellectual stimulation. I never knew that the lessons that I learned as a student became almost critical as I became a global marketer at this stage. You know, this thing is happening, the world, and by the way, the change in CEO was happening, by the way, it's just two weeks ago, there was two thoughts. One was a personal take on Machiavelli, which one day we'll have a conversation about that. He gets a really bad rap, most people have not read it or have not read it recently. The questions that he asked princes or us to ask ourselves are fundamental questions, whether you like his answer or not is separate. The questions are critical. Do you want to be loved or do you want to be feared? For example, one of the things that I remember on that particular handbook, and again, this is my paraphrasing, look at life as it is as opposed to life as you want it to be. And that's like super, super, super important in these times. And then I add on top of that Marcus Aurelius. I'm a big fan of the Stoics. I have Meditations on my night table. The thought that the world is change and life is what your thoughts make of it. So the whole notion that I have to be not only physically ready for this but I also need to have my mind in the right stage so that it is what it is, guys. But our CEO left. We didn't want him to. He left. AI is here to stay. And we're transforming this area and this is what it is. And let me explain why. There are the things that we know are going to be different and there are the things that we don't know that could get better. And I can tell you, given my history, which is very parallel to yours in a way, when things like this are happening in the world, you only miss the stuff that you knew, you never know the things that are actually going to get better. You never do that. And then over time you went like, oh wow, that thing that we had at that moment made a change, now they have. So the whole notion of keeping the mind in the right place, super, super important. And then the third element in mind is in situations like what we're facing, the whole notion of purpose becomes very clear, which is you do what you have to do, what is in front of you, because that's your role today. That's your role. And by putting your attention of trying to do what you're there to do the best possible way and being fully aware of the size of the shadow that you cast, the fact that you're being watched, that your reactions matter, and then it becomes the right model for me. And then at the end of the day, it's about actions. You got to keep doing. You got to keep doing. You got to keep doing to the extent that you're able to focus your team on the actions that are at hand and begin to convince that to the extent that we act today, we have an impact on the things that as they can be tomorrow. And that the best safety that you can have against the uncertainty and self-fulfilling prophecies is to actually do what you have to do today. So that's kind of where I've been working with myself throughout all this. I think like everybody else since the beginning of the year where everything began to shift, I was working on two parallel levels, which is the stuff that I need to work and the stuff that I need to work on me to be able to do what I need to do. Is probably the most significant work that I have done over the last 12 months. And by the way, David, you know this, these things take time. And when people sometimes, 'Antonio, you're not very active with the community and with the external events.' Listen, there's nothing that I personally like more than have intellectually stimulating conversations with people like yourself. The truth of the matter is when you're going through this level of change and when you're driving some of it yourself, earning a seat at the table that everybody talks about as a data point takes a lot of time. The more you earn, you sit at the table, the less time you're going to have because you become an integral part of the company transformation as opposed to the person that is doing marketing. So the whole notion that I am devoting most of my time to making sure that I am anchored the right way and that I'm doing the work that I need to do so that I can help my team, the company, the community to get to where they are. That's kind of, we only have 24 hours a day. We only have one life. We have to choose how we do it. Even where we are, I made the choice of spending more time with my teams and customers than with the community. But that's at a cost to me because I get nourished from conversations like this one.
