Where does it actually work, and where does it break things?
As artificial intelligence quietly embeds itself into the daily machinery of marketing, a gathering of practitioners in Perth on July 29 will turn away from the question of whether to adopt it and toward the harder question of how to use it wisely. The Western Australian Marketing Association has convened voices from healthcare, insurance, and academia — fields where trust is not a brand value but a survival condition — to examine where AI genuinely delivers and where it quietly erodes what it was meant to protect. It is the kind of conversation that marks a maturation: the hype has passed, and the real work of integration, judgment, and ethical clarity has begun.
- The AI adoption debate is over — marketers are already using it — but the more demanding question of how to use it well remains largely unanswered.
- Sectors like healthcare and insurance, where customer trust is existential rather than aspirational, are feeling the tension between algorithmic efficiency and human confidence most acutely.
- Panelists with real deployment experience — not consultants, but practitioners who have had to decide where to hold back — will surface the gaps between what AI can do and what customers will accept.
- The conversation will press into creativity, brand voice, ethical governance, and the new skills marketers must build as AI shifts from special project to everyday infrastructure.
- No resolution is promised, but the discussion is designed to move the field from abstract enthusiasm to the grounded, specific work of responsible integration.
On the morning of July 29, marketing leaders will gather over breakfast at Fraser's Kings Park in Perth for a conversation that has become unavoidable but remains unsettled: what is AI actually good for in marketing, and what is it not?
The Western Australian Marketing Association has framed the session deliberately. The question of whether marketers should adopt AI has effectively been answered — the technology is already here, already reshaping how campaigns are built and audiences reached. The harder question is how to use it well, where it moves the needle, and where it creates more problems than it solves.
Moderating is Jason Balchand, co-founder of So Media Group, whose decade of experience deploying AI across product development and startup advisory tends to strip away both evangelism and panic. The three panelists represent different angles on the same tension: Smiljka Dimitrijevic from St John WA brings healthcare's operational demands around innovation and trust; Dr Shahid Hussain of Edith Cowan University contributes research into consumer confidence and ethical governance frameworks; and Vici Richardson of HBF speaks from insurance, a sector where customer confidence is the foundation of everything.
The panel will examine where AI has moved from promise to practice, but also surface the friction between efficiency and trust — how brands maintain their voice when algorithms are involved, and what skills marketers will need as AI becomes ordinary infrastructure rather than a special project.
What distinguishes this gathering is its specificity. These are practitioners who have made real decisions about where to deploy the technology and where to hold back, who have watched customer reactions shift in real time. The real challenge, as they understand it, is not adoption but integration — embedding AI into daily marketing activity without surrendering the human judgment and ethical clarity that made the brand valuable in the first place. The breakfast will not solve the AI question. But it will move the conversation from the abstract to the actual.
On the morning of July 29, a group of marketing leaders will gather over breakfast in Perth to have a conversation that has become unavoidable but remains unsettled: what is artificial intelligence actually good for in marketing, and what is it not?
The Western Australian Marketing Association is hosting the session at Fraser's Kings Park, and the framing matters. This is not another panel about whether marketers should adopt AI—that question has been answered, at least in the sense that the technology is already here, already in use, already reshaping how campaigns get built and audiences get reached. Instead, the focus has shifted to something harder: how to use it well, where it actually moves the needle, and where it creates more problems than it solves.
Jason Balchand, co-founder of So Media Group, will moderate the discussion. He brings more than a decade of experience deploying AI and machine learning across product development, systems improvement, and startup advisory—the kind of background that tends to strip away both the evangelism and the panic. Alongside him will be three panelists who represent different angles on the same tension. Smiljka Dimitrijevic, Head of Brand & Marketing at St John WA, works in healthcare, where innovation and trust are not abstract concepts but operational requirements. Dr Shahid Hussain, a lecturer in business and marketing at Edith Cowan University, has spent his research career examining how AI affects consumer confidence and the governance frameworks that might keep it ethical. Vici Richardson, Head of Brand & Growth at HBF, operates in insurance, another sector where customer confidence is the foundation of everything else.
The panel will dig into the places where AI is already delivering measurable value—where it has moved from promise to practice. It will also surface the challenges that remain, the gaps between what the technology can do and what customers will accept, the friction between efficiency and trust. The conversation will touch on creativity, on customer experience, on how brands maintain their voice when algorithms are involved, on the skills marketers will need as AI becomes less of a special project and more of the ordinary infrastructure of the work.
What makes this panel different from the dozens of others happening across the country is the specificity of the people in the room and the questions they are prepared to ask. These are not consultants selling AI solutions. These are practitioners who have had to make decisions about where to deploy the technology and where to hold back, who have watched customer reactions shift, who understand that the real challenge is not adoption but integration—how to embed AI into daily marketing activity without losing the human judgment, the ethical clarity, and the customer relationship that made the brand valuable in the first place.
The breakfast will run on Tuesday morning. By the end of it, no one will have solved the AI question. But the conversation will have moved from the abstract to the actual, from the hype to the hard work of figuring out what this technology is really for.
Notable Quotes
The session will move beyond the question of whether marketers should be using AI and focus instead on how to use it effectively— WAMA panel description
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does a panel about AI in marketing need to happen right now? Isn't this conversation already everywhere?
It is everywhere, but mostly at the level of "should we use it?" This panel is asking the harder question: where does it actually work, and where does it break things? That's a conversation that requires people who have already made the bets and lived with the results.
What's the difference between a healthcare marketer's relationship with AI and, say, an insurance marketer's?
In healthcare, you're managing trust around something that affects people's wellbeing. In insurance, you're managing trust around something that affects their financial security. Both require the same thing: proof that the technology is serving the customer, not just the company. That's what Dimitrijevic and Richardson will bring—the real constraints they work within.
The panel mentions "balancing efficiency with customer expectations." Are those two things in conflict?
They can be. AI can make marketing faster and cheaper, but customers can tell when they're being treated like data points instead of people. The balance is figuring out where efficiency actually improves the experience—where it makes things faster or more relevant—versus where it just makes things cheaper for the company.
What skills are marketers going to need that they don't have now?
The ability to work alongside AI without letting it make the decisions that require judgment. Understanding what the algorithm can and can't see. Knowing when to trust the data and when to trust your instinct about what a customer actually wants. Those are skills that take time to develop.
Is there a risk that this panel becomes another cheerleading session for AI adoption?
That's why Hussain is there. His research focuses on ethical governance and consumer confidence—the things that push back against the hype. A good panel needs someone asking the skeptical questions.