Nicole Leffer's AI demo died on stage. The platform went down mid-presentation. She opened the same Excel workbook in a different AI, and it picked up exactly where it left off. Same agent, same memory, different brain. Want to know how to build an AI workflow that survives outages, price hikes, and model changes? Download our interactive field guide. 👇

Survey closes Sunday. Bonus: Most people say the questions alone show them where their own AI usage has gaps. A few minutes, real impact on the report. What's one AI use case you keep putting off?

You don't need more AI tips. You need to know which ones actually matter. The AI Business Society filters the noise every week: expert-led training, live skill-building sessions, a community working through the same challenges you are. What's one AI tool you keep hearing about but haven't learned yet?

We're building our annual AI marketing report, and we need real data from real marketers, not more hot takes. Quick survey on how you're using AI, what's working, and what's not. Closes Sunday. 🤔 What's the one AI tool you'd never give up right now?

Many marketers added AI to their ad process. The grind didn't go away. On July 16, AI Business Society members are learning to build an AI system using Claude Code that writes the prompts, generates the variations, and reviews its own output. No coding required. 30-day money-back guarantee. What part of ad creative still eats your time?

Many marketers are already paying for AI education. Just in hours, not dollars: searching, testing, rewriting. The AI Business Society does the filtering for you: curated training, live sessions, rapid-fire lessons, and peers who share what actually works. 30-day money-back guarantee. What's the AI skill you keep meaning to learn?

I was days away from vacation. My product site looked like it was built five years ago. And I had zero budget to fix it. That's when I decided to try something I'd never done before. In the past, I hired a user interface designer. He built the design system. Then I hired a WordPress developer to make it come to life. This process would take months and tens of thousands of dollars. This time, I didn't have the luxury of going that route. I needed something quick and it needed to look good. Then it clicked. There was a new way to solve this problem. A guest on my AI Explored podcast was raving about the relatively new Claude Design. It's capable of creating slides, wireframes, animations and… landing pages. It was a Saturday and I was just days away from going on vacation. No better time to try something new, right? What I experienced absolutely blew my mind. Here's what I did. I downloaded the product logo and masthead image from my AI Business Society sales page. The main image was an illustration of people in the wilderness pointing to a mountain. And the logo looked like a badge with earth-tone colors. I then went to Claude, clicked on the Design icon, and chose Design System. All I did was upload those two images and the URL of the landing page. Before my eyes, I saw the art elements come alive. Claude Design created motifs and surfaces (paper grain, trail rules, brass hairlines, dark fields), core brand colors (barn red, forest green, brass, sunrise ember…), fonts and spacing, buttons and icons, and a whole lot more. It also was able to clearly identify my style of writing. It keyed in on things like sentence rhythm, social proof use, and even outcomes over features. All of this was simply discerned from what little I gave it. What happened next was the big unlock. There was an option to create a landing page. So I clicked on it. It asked me if I would like to see multiple hero sections to select from. Of course I said yes. Then it started building out the full landing page. It wrote all the copy and it was good. It crafted all the sections. It was amazing. I was flabbergasted. I then downloaded the HTML file and sent it off to two of my staffers and texted them. They loved it. I would go on to art direct Claude Design by simply telling it what to change, just like I was talking to a person. We are now running a split test on the new design and so far it is winning. The initial design took less than an hour. Let me know if you want to see the before and after. Have you tried out Claude Design? I'd love to hear from you. - @Mike_Stelzner

Do images really matter on social media posts? As a writer, I've been wrestling with this. I don't think they should, but do they? If Instagram is not your playground and you prefer LinkedIn or Facebook or X, you've seen it. Some marketers who like to write, always include a photo. They're sipping coffee, on a stage, or in front of a waterfall... But hidden beneath each well-crafted picture is a story. Why not just let the story stand on its own? I get the concept: an image is worth a thousand words. But my words should be powerful enough to stop the scroll and keep people reading. Right? Plus, I think, "I've got nothing worthy to show." After all, I am a fledgling software founder. What am I gonna do, show my split test results — boring. Those other people obviously have professional photographers and beautiful sets. All things I don't have. So what do I do when I'm writing about concepts and struggles faced by marketers? Recently, I started to hear a different story from my podcast guests. They explained how the algorithm works through the lens of YouTube. On YouTube, we all know the thumbnail is the key to getting the play. Could that insight carry over to text posts on other platforms? Well, it turns out that concept on LinkedIn opens a door. If you take a vertical selfie of yourself, it shows the whole darn thing in the feed. You get a few lines of text and then the more button. So it got me thinking… How about employing a pattern interrupt? Could I actually just take a selfie of myself working with NoteGo software, wearing my sweaty baseball cap in the morning? Of course I could. And then I thought, I don't wanna limit this to socials, I will also embed it in an email. And here's the key: my audience is a lot like me. They work behind a screen and are not always camera ready. So just maybe, there's something here. Will an image help get my stories read? I think so. Will the writer in me revolt? I know so. Is it worth an experiment? Absolutely. What do you think? I'd love to hear from you.

I've been struggling as a software founder. I've discovered a huge challenge. It's one no one seems to be talking about. And this is one thing that AI can't solve for me. A few years back, I read (and loved) 10X is Easier Than 2X. I believed that doing hard work could catapult our business. Software was gonna be the thing. I rationalized that my unfair advantage was a base of loyal customers and fans. So I went on a long and windy journey. I hired the development team. Built the prototype. Brought the work in-house. Scrapped it all. Started again, and again. Barrier, smashed. Next barrier, smashed. Shoulders starting to hurt. Oh no, another barrier… I broke all the rules by NOT building a minimum viable product. Instead, I built something our team uses every day. But when it came time to release NoteGo to the world, I faced a whole new set of challenges. At first, it was persuading people to get a free account. That was a messaging issue. Solved. Then it was getting them to try the software. That was an onboarding issue. Mostly solved. But now it's something different. And this is the part I've never heard anyone talk about. How do you get people to keep using the software? Because it's one thing to set up a free account and try something once. But that doesn't lead to a successful outcome down the road. Getting people to regularly use my software is the biggest barrier I've reached thus far. In my case, we are similar to Loom, but focused on tasks like giving feedback, documenting processes, sharing ideas, and replacing meetings. But layered in with AI intelligence. If people don't make and share a video with our tool, they likely end their experience with us. So I worked to reposition our software around making the communication between remote people better. This involved fully repositioning the sales page, changing the product offerings, and a fully recrafted email onboarding sequence. This has been a very heavy lift. I don't have it all figured out yet, but I can tell that each day I am moving in the right direction. My vision is to have 100,000 customers by the end of 2026. Today, I am at the starting line. I hope to write a lot more about the journey. Have you thought about starting a software company? I'd love to hear from you. - @Mike_Stelzner

AI isn’t the problem. Trying to figure it all out alone is. The AI Business Society helps marketers: • Filter AI noise • Learn from practitioners • Build real workflows • Get support from peers If AI feels overwhelming right now, maybe the answer isn’t more information. Maybe it’s having a trusted guide. Learn more:

67% of marketers say the pace of change feels overwhelming. AI tools. Algorithm shifts. Platform shakeups. The new 2026 Social Media Marketing Industry Report breaks down what’s actually changing across social, video, and AI. 🔹840+ marketers. 🔹44 pages. 🔹50+ charts. Free for a limited time. 👉

Energy is everything at Social Media Marketing World, and our 2026 Sponsors know how to bring it! ⚡ For years, we’ve made it a tradition to have a little fun with our incredible partners. 😎But this year’s energy? It was next level. Watch what happens when you bring the best marketing minds and tools together to the beat of Bruno Mars’ ‘I Just Might!’ 🕺🪩 Beyond the dance moves, your Sponsors are here to do what they do best: empower smart marketers to grow, connect, and thrive. A huge thank you to the teams who brought the fun and are dedicated to making #SMMW26# an unforgettable experience: 🌟 AI Business Society 🌟 @_cloudcampaign 🌟 @Metricool 🌟 NoteGo 🌟 @OpusClip 🌟 @revuze 🌟 Spikers 🌟 @ThriveCart 🌟 Ugentic AI 🌟 @vistasocialapp 🌟 @ZohoSocial We love ❤️seeing the human side of brands that make our work and life easier every day. 👉 Check out all the moves, and let us know which Sponsor brought the best energy this year in the comments! Shoutout to the creative genius of @TheMobileMary at Another Brilliant Idea for producing this video, with a huge thank you to Gracie for the incredible editing! 🥰 @

Stop duct-taping tools together. @ThriveCart is the all-in-one platform for selling digital products, building courses & managing affiliates. 75,000+ creators have generated $8B+ in sales. Learn more: Follow us: @ThriveCartOfficial (IG/FB) #SMMW26#

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Most AI tools help you write posts. @Vistasocialapp helps you run your entire social strategy. Inbox, scheduling, analytics, approvals and more—powered by AI that actually understands your brand. Manage social at the speed of AI. Visit the Vista Social booth at #SMMW26#.

Social media shouldn’t feel like 24/7 work. @Metricool helps you take back control 👇 ✔️ Plan, schedule & auto-publish ✔️ All platforms in one dashboard ✔️ Team & client collaboration ✔️ Automated analytics + reports Join 3M+ pros trading chaos for clarity. #SMMW26#