Chief CMO Sabrina Caluori says the future of work is marketing’s next big test

Sabrina Caluori, chief marketing officer at Chief, the private network for senior women leaders, says the next big challenge for marketers is not technology but leadership, community and the future of work.

Speaking at IAB ALM 2026, Caluori said the most useful discussions at the event happened away from the main sessions, over lunch, in corridors and at a 90s-themed party. “The highlights are the conversations that happen in between the rooms… Yes, AI. Yes, transformation. Yes, all those things. But what does it really mean? Where are the real challenges and opportunities and how are we measuring those as we go forward?” she said.

Although Chief is not a traditional marketing business, Caluori is dealing with questions many CMOs now face: leadership in a world shaped by machines, how work is changing, how community can become a competitive advantage and how people and AI will work side by side inside organisations.

From network to leadership infrastructure

Chief was founded in 2019 to support women in corporate C-suites. Caluori says the meaning of leadership has changed quickly since then, accelerated by Covid and broader shifts in the workplace.

“We’re seeing women taking all kinds of different paths,” she said. “Founders, solopreneurs, fractional advisors… our mission continues to be: how do we empower women to be as powerful as possible and lead us through this next era?”

Caluori has been in the CMO role for six months, and Chief has already repositioned. “This is a startup, so we move fast. We went from insight to positioning to campaign to shift in market in about 12 weeks,” she said.

She says the strategy starts with “member obsession”, meaning a clear understanding of what senior leaders need as their working lives change. “The future of work is going to look fundamentally different,” she said.

AI agents on the org chart

One theme that keeps coming up in Chief’s leadership discussions is what Caluori calls the “superhuman organization”, which she believes is nearer than many expect.

“You’ve got agents and humans on the org chart together. And what does that mean when junior folks are peers with agents? When agents fail, who holds accountability? The human who prompted them or the agent?” she said. “How do you do performance reviews on agents? Do you ever have a junior employee working for an agent?”

These questions are already arising at companies testing AI at scale. For marketers, whole areas such as planning, analytics, content creation and targeting are being automated or augmented, moving the competitive edge elsewhere.

Caluori takes a practical line. “You protect the places where human judgment and real creativity matter. And you automate the deterministic things that can be repeated.” Done well, she suggests, automation frees people to focus on creativity, judgement, relationships and storytelling, making marketing more human rather than less.

Why community still matters

Chief’s original appeal was a private space where senior women could talk openly about their challenges. Caluori says that remains important, but the network now plays a more practical role. “What we’re seeing now is almost the power of the network coming together to help you solve problems… comparing notes because things are moving so fast.”

She argues that brands are relearning the same lesson: communities cannot simply be treated as audiences and need to create value in both directions. Caluori worked on early social media community building at HBO, and says the lesson from that time still applies.

“You wouldn’t walk into any community organization and just shout one way at somebody and expect to get a response. Communities are about value creation between individuals and the group,” she said.

Risks for younger professionals

A recurring worry among Chief members is how young people will fare in a hybrid, AI-driven workforce. Caluori sees two risks. The first is handing too much thinking to machines. “When you’re outsourcing a lot of thinking to AI, are you learning what it takes to have judgment, storytelling ability or sell ideas?”

The second is the loss of in-person mentoring in remote and hybrid workplaces. “How do you manage organizational dynamics as a senior leader when you’ve not had human mentorship in the same way?”

Her advice to people starting out in marketing has three parts: learn the fundamentals thoroughly rather than outsourcing them, become fluent with AI tools, and find real human mentors. “The magic happens when you understand the fundamentals and know how to use the tools together,” she said.

Marketing to machines

Caluori also expects brands to have to market to AI agents that make or filter purchasing decisions for people, not only to people themselves. “One of our audiences now is agents,” she said. “And that’s a whole other dynamic.”

Search, discovery and purchasing could increasingly be handled between machines, with algorithms choosing between brands on the basis of usefulness, price, reputation and data, and not just emotional appeal.

Feeling the tremors

Chief chief executive Alison Moore often says women “feel the tremors first” when major workplace changes arrive. Caluori regards that sensitivity as an advantage during rapid change.

“Women have a tendency to feel the human elements first,” she said. “And that can be a superpower if we grab hold of it thoughtfully.”