In this episode of Growth Talks, Nikki Jackson, Head of Demand Generation at Gusto, joins host Krystina Rubino to share how she's spent the past year building AI fluency across her entire team—from scrappy, self-taught agent building to structured Learning Days and quarterly OKRs. Nikki breaks down exactly how she got a whole demand gen team comfortable experimenting, failing, and sharing in public, and why that discomfort is the real unlock.

 

Nikki also digs into how she measures the ROI of AI adoption, how she's using Claude as a "second brain" to move faster with data, and why staying customer-first and authentic matters more than ever in a world full of AI-generated noise. She closes with a candid take on women, AI, and marketing leadership—and why nobody actually has it all figured out.

 

🗝️ Key Takeaways:

• Lean into the uncomfortable. Real AI fluency comes from hands-on building and failing in public—not waiting until you feel ready.

• Structure accelerates adoption. Dedicated AI Learning Days, IT/security onboarding, and quarterly agent-building OKRs turned curiosity into consistent team-wide progress.

• ROI isn't as fuzzy as it feels. Time savings and efficiency gains from AI agents can be tracked concretely—don't let "it's hard to measure" become a blocker.

• AI is a second brain, not a replacement. Conversational access to data frees up strategic time and elevates conversations with analysts instead of eliminating them.

• Authenticity is the differentiator. As AI content scales, a distinct voice and point of view—especially for women in marketing—become the real competitive edge.

 

⏰ Timestamps

00:00 Meet Nikki Jackson: Building AI Fluency at Gusto

01:02 How Nikki's AI Journey Started

03:34 Structuring a Team-Wide AI Rollout

07:24 Clearing IT and Security Hurdles

08:46 AI Learning Days in Action

09:56 Quarterly Agent-Building OKRs

12:07 Measuring the ROI of AI Fluency

16:10 Building a Prioritization Rubric with AI

19:04 AI as a Second Brain for Data

23:27 The A/B Test: Nikki's Quick-Fire Round

29:42 Women, AI, and Marketing Leadership

34:57 Staying Authentic Amid AI Slop

39:40 Marketing to Busy SMB Owners

44:44 Brand Storytelling at Gusto

46:16 Creating Demand Before the Search Begins

50:48 Nikki's Favorite Growth Non-Hack

 

🔗 Mentioned in this episode:

Gusto: https://gusto.com/

 

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