Ep. 142 – Measuring AI ROI and Turning Adoption into Business Outcomes with Denis Scott - Part 2

General Episode Description:

In Part 2 of this conversation, Denis Scott continues the discussion by exploring what AI accountability looks like inside boardrooms, executive teams, and private equity backed organizations. He explains why leaders must move beyond tracking AI adoption and begin measuring how AI investments contribute to business performance, operational efficiency, and long term enterprise value.

The conversation also examines what separates AI mature organizations from those still experimenting with adoption. Denis shares why AI fluency is becoming a competitive advantage, how organizations can build stronger measurement frameworks, and why the future belongs to companies that combine human judgment with AI driven execution.

What You’ll Learn:

• What boards expect to see when evaluating AI investment
• Why AI measurement is becoming essential during due diligence and company exits
• How AI maturity differs from simple AI adoption
• Why AI fluency creates stronger business outcomes
• How marketing leaders can measure AI performance inside their teams
• Practical ways organizations can improve AI adoption across departments
• Why adaptability is becoming one of the most valuable leadership skills
• How to balance AI efficiency with human creativity and decision making

Key Topics:

• AI governance
• AI measurement
• Private equity and AI
• Board reporting
• AI fluency
• Enterprise AI strategy
• Marketing leadership
• Business outcomes
• AI adoption
• Organizational change
• AI ROI
• Executive leadership

Guest Spotlight: Denis Scott

Denis Scott is the Chief Marketing Officer at Laradin, an AI execution intelligence company focused on helping organizations measure AI adoption, productivity, and business impact. Prior to Laradin, Denis held senior marketing leadership roles at OpenTable, Lyft, SurveyMonkey, Fanatics Betting and Gaming, CharterUp, and other leading technology companies, where he built data driven marketing organizations and enterprise growth strategies.

Resources & Mentions:

• Laradin
• AI execution intelligence
• AI fluency
• AI ROI
• Enterprise AI measurement
• Private equity advisory

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Mark Petruzzi (00:00)

Welcome back to Selling Intelligence. I'm Mark Petruzzi.

Alan Rudolph (00:03)

And I'm Alan Rudolph. This is part two with Dennis Scott, CMO of Laradin. Be sure to go back and listen to part one fascinating discussion. this broad, you know, where are we today in this in this AI world? But if you want to start here, let's bring you up to speed. Dennis Scott spent over 20 years in marketing at firms like Open Table and Lyft, SurveyMonkey, Fanatics, Betting, and Gaming before becoming CMO of Charter Up. In part

One, he told us what brought him into Laradin, an AI execution intelligence company built to answer the question most enterprises cannot answer today. Is the AI spend actually working? He walked us through why 72% of enterprises call AI adoption their biggest challenge. I mean, just fascinating data. And how does Laradin Scott platform reveal when companies finally see their own

AI usage data.

Mark Petruzzi (00:59)

So in part two, we get into the boardroom where we love to be. What this means for private equity bac pr private equity backed companies staring down an exit, and what it actually looks like on the other side once an organization gets measurement done right, whether they are a private equity portfolio company, other s medium sized organizations, or even the enterprise ones. We're all stressing and

being challenged by the same things. Dennis, welcome back.

Denis Scott (01:28)

Thank

you for having me back. This is great. Yeah, I really enjoyed the conversation in the first one.

Alan Rudolph (01:32)

You know, Dennis, as I sit in board meetings where AI spend is being, addressed at a line item level, and sponsors are asking about measurement, about business value, and management teams are trying to defend what they did, why they did it, where where is my expense? Where's my capital allocation, etc.? What should a portfolio company CEO be able to show a board today that most simply cannot?

Denis Scott (01:58)

Yeah, this is exactly where our product lands often is in board conversations, right? And so we are finding that teams are leveraging our Larid and data to have those conversations. And so what they're really trying to show the board is is really the two thing, well, three things I should say. One, how has our organization adopted AI, So is it is it only engineering? Is it across functions? What what does it look like AI within within the the company?

The second thing is, what does our spend look like on AI? And

Alan Rudolph (02:30)

Mm.

Denis Scott (02:31)

that number, whatever that number may be, naturally that leads to, well, I don't know, is that good or bad? Are we spending enough or are we doing too little? so then that naturally leads to, well, what are the business outcomes from that investment? And so as a marketer, I think about you ask those same questions around a marketing budget, Like, wow, this is an investment. What are we getting for that?

How is it looking?

Alan Rudolph (02:52)

Mm.

Denis Scott (02:52)

How is it impacting the business? And so really leaders should be able to go into those boardrooms and have that conversation. And that's exactly why we find a lot of organizations coming to us and saying, I have this problem. I don't know how to answer these questions. Right.

Alan Rudolph (03:07)

Got

it.

Mark Petruzzi (03:07)

So Dennis, with the world class companies that you have been the marketing leader of and the rooms you have been in with executive teams on board having to defend your budgets and proving impact, what's the difference between a CMO who can walk into that conversation with data and the one that who's still working off of andotes?

Denis Scott (03:29)

I think it's the a piece, and I'm glad you asked that, Mark. It's a piece that's really helped me define my own career. I actually learned early on that senior marketing leaders that were really successful actually are are able to speak to data and look at things like ROI and investments and budgets and forecasts.

I think now marketing leaders are actually facing this new question, which everybody's facing, which is not only what is your marketing investment, but how are you leveraging AI with that? And being able to speak to those, I think is really starting to separate the the CMO world in many ways. I've always realized going into a conversation with CEOs and CFOs,

The creative is great and they love to see that and that represents the brand, but they're naturally going to ask you, what are the outcomes? Right. And so I think AI is the same way for marketing leaders. What are the outcomes? What are you seeing from that? so I just think I've seen it all over LinkedIn that the the role of a CMO has changed to sort of almost like a part data analyst slash engineer in some ways, right?

Alan Rudolph (04:35)

awesome. So put your put yourself in the seat of a portfolio company six months before sale. What would you tell them to start measuring right now so that when AI adoption gets discussed during the due diligence process, you can drive the conversation versus, sort of s you know, the blank stare what as the questions get asked.

Denis Scott (04:57)

Yeah, I think the the idea here, Alan, is you want to be concrete, You want when posed that question, you want to be able to say, this is how we're using AI. This is how much it's costing us, and this is what we're using it for. And that's how this drives the business, right? And if you think about a conversation where you walk in and say, Hey, we have great AI adoption. we think the costs are this. I don't know exactly

Alan Rudolph (05:20)

Mm-hmm.

Denis Scott (05:21)

what it's doing.

It's going to be tricky because as on those exits, a lot of that is the a lot of the due diligence is around the numbers, And so the more concrete you can be across all of those numbers, the more confidence you're gonna build in and be able to close that deal. I just think we we can't avoid that these questions are coming around AI for everybody,

Mark Petruzzi (05:42)

Yeah, and just to remind everyone that we use these examples around private equity for two reasons. One is we have a very successful private equity group that Alan leads for us at AGS. but even Alan is not a private equity own only guy. He's been in in in many publicly traded companies and other types of companies throughout his career. So Dennis, when you when you look at that, again

when you're dealing with a public company, you have a very, very distinct process where everything is being analyzed of every quarter of every year. is is this a good analogy that we're doing with private equity? Because now private private equity has has built those kind of processes. They look at it very similar to what what needs to happen for a public company from a reporting perspective. Is there any

Are there any differences or is it just a nice setup that just allows you to work with companies, whether they are, private equity owned or whether they are public organizations as well?

Denis Scott (06:43)

It's good question, Mark. I think about it in terms of of of one of the words I love to use for marketers as well is accountability. And I

Alan Rudolph (06:50)

Mm-hmm.

Denis Scott (06:51)

I think that's really the idea behind the process. every three months, when I worked in public companies and I worked in prepping for their earnings calls and even joining their earnings calls, marketing was always a big topic, And it was because, outside of salaries and if you were in a retail company leases.

Marketing was one of the larger line items. So naturally analysts would push on that, right? And say, Well, how's this working? And I used to think to myself after we got off the call, okay, I've got three months until I have to be able to say something again of what we've done. Right. And it sort of it creates that sense of urgency. Like I can't go back

Alan Rudolph (07:23)

Right.

Denis Scott (07:27)

and say, Well, I didn't do anything the last three months, And I think in a world where AI is changing.

not weekly. I mean, it's changing daily, if not hourly, To to wait three months feels fair because three months from now, who knows what AI is going to look like, what models are out there, how teams are using

Alan Rudolph (07:44)

Mm.

Denis Scott (07:45)

it. And so I think private equity adopting that notion of that kind of quarterly check-in and what's changing what is completely fair in a world that's moving this fast. so yeah.

I liked the model that held me accountable as a CMO for sure. and so I think adopting that, I just think the complexity of it might be doing that across a whole portfolio of companies is is obviously more complex, You have to be the

Mark Petruzzi (08:06)

Yes. Yeah.

Alan Rudolph (08:07)

Yep, yep.

Denis Scott (08:08)

analyst for a lot of earnings calls, if you will.

Mark Petruzzi (08:11)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Alan Rudolph (08:11)

Yeah.

Mark Petruzzi (08:12)

And the good news with private equity firms, almost all of them are managing very tightly to each quarter. So it's really no different than a public approach. Matter of fact, some of them are are really looking at every one of those numbers monthly as well to make sure they don't find themselves behind the eight ball. Okay. So the next topic, the path forward, what AI mature organizations actually look like. These are the

the ones that you described that have really built up their acumen versus, a lot of companies that are still just trying to get a feel for AI. So when

Alan Rudolph (08:48)

Mm.

Mark Petruzzi (08:49)

you look across organizations already using Laradin's data well, what do AI mature ones actually do differently day to day? Not just what shows up on a dashboard.

Denis Scott (09:00)

Yeah, it it's interesting. I think the the even the idea that organizations are are coming to Lariden shows that they are very aware of of this AI challenge, the the ones that may not be thinking about this yet. And we have conversations with companies that are very frank and say, Hey, I haven't we haven't really even started our AI journey yet. Can you can you help us here, That that does still exist. But

If you think about it, we have clients across so many different verticals, We have healthcare,

Alan Rudolph (09:29)

Mm-hmm.

Denis Scott (09:31)

tech, travel, construction, right? AI is one of the most interesting things in our lifetimes of how it's really across every industry. I mean, doctors are using like it's just so interesting, the adoption of it. And I think those that are embracing it and what we see in our data is.

Some of our early customers are actually some of the most proficient, users of AI and really driving value out of it. And it in some ways it was almost like a gut check, Like I'm doing this right. and so I think those organizations that have been embracing it, open-minded to it, and also finding pockets where it could be better or I'm not using the right tool, those sort of things, those companies are actually seeing a tremendous amount of value.

not only in understanding their data, but also just in knowing where they're at. And the horizontal nature of our product, there's also usually an opportunity, you'll find a function or a team where it's like, as much as w these teams are using it, this team is maybe lagging a little bit. Right. And so it also gives you a little a sense of focus. And I think that's what really separates them is that all teams are are leveraging AI across the organization to drive more of those business outcomes in their areas.

Alan Rudolph (10:42)

Got it. Great Dennis. so as you're talking

Mark Petruzzi (10:43)

Before we

Alan Rudolph (10:44)

about these with these different, pros customers today across all these industries, you track something called AI fluency, different than just adoption. What's the difference, Why does the leadership team need to care about fluency versus adoption?

Denis Scott (10:59)

So the easiest way to describe this is adoption. And I'll go back to a world that I lived in. And when we had to report to our private equity owners on on that quarterly basis, I would generally just ask my teams, are you using AI? And it was a yes, no, right. And then,

Alan Rudolph (11:16)

Hmm. Yep.

Denis Scott (11:17)

generally it was a survey, and then I would say, Is it working? And a hundred times out of a hundred, everybody would say, Yes, right, because

were set, were told, hey, you gotta adopt AI, and you don't want to say, no, it's not really working for me. Right. and so adoption tends to be yes-no type question throughout teams and functions. And you you always find there are teams not adopting it, and there's reasons why, or maybe it doesn't make sense.

Alan Rudolph (11:40)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Denis Scott (11:42)

or maybe they don't even have access to tools, I mean, and so it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a yes-no question. Fluency for us is really

How are you using these tools? Right. Are you just using the tool to do research that you could potentially do through search that, is now costing the company money that, you know, doesn't have to?

Alan Rudolph (12:04)

Used to be free,

Denis Scott (12:05)

free. That's right. Yeah. Or, the advertiser paid for it. Now it's your company's paying for it, right? And so do I need to be using AI for this? Is that the right tool?

versus all the way up to like, hey, we're actually creating great code at a faster rate and we're using it for code review in this way. Like that's how we start to score what are the types of prompts, what are people doing with it, And we score those prompts and we put those those folks into categories or groups. I should say we don't do it individually, we do it at the the sort of manager level as long as the team is big enough.

Alan Rudolph (12:37)

And that's all driving back to business outcomes, I mean what

Denis Scott (12:38)

That's right. about the business.

Alan Rudolph (12:40)

a fascinating example of, it was free yesterday and now I go to my favorite AI tool today and it cost me money. That I mean, every CFO that's listening to that comment is is ready to pull their hair out and or call you, Dennis. I mean, one or the other, right?

Denis Scott (12:54)

I'm smiling

because I've done, search marketing. I won't say for how long, but it's it it's over it's got a two in front of it. but I always thought about search. I kind of started early in the digital side on the SEO side and got into paid and was like, I'm then the advertiser. And so like I really want to optimize those free clicks, but then I'm paying for it. And now folks are using AI and it's like, well, now the company's incurring the cost of that search.

And pe I don't think people think of it that way, It's like when should you be using search and when should you be using AI is really interesting.

Alan Rudolph (13:25)

He was a sure.

Absolutely. Mark, bring us home.

Mark Petruzzi (13:27)

And ca and com

yeah, and can companies wanna spend money, especially CFOs, only on what they want and they've analyzed and they've decided to spend money on. Not money that they they they don't either have to or know they're going to. So Dennis, that's very insightful the whole session, but even some of those final points there.

So last question before we move on to the our lightning round. If a revenue or market marketing leader listening today wanted to go from flying blind to AI mature in the next two quarters or so, what's the recipe you'd recommend?

Denis Scott (14:08)

Yeah,

I'm gonna shamelessly say that the Laridan data would really help you understand even your starting point where you're at. I think that's one of the hardest things. You know, if I was to say to a marketing leader, you know, how is your team using AI? And you were to say, we're, we're doing it for I don't know, image editing or that sort of thing. It's like, well, if I was to say how much does that cost?

Not many people are able to answer that, And so to be a really effective marketing leader, it's like, I really want to kind of understand my cost structure, how people are using it, where there are opportunities to use it more, and are we are we seeing business outcomes? And I think the the way I think about AI is how can I use these tools to speed the process up so that I spend my human time doing these quality elements, like, reviewing the content.

editing into the voice, the right voice, that that sort of thing where you're really putting that that that human stamp on what's going out to the world about your brand about your business. And so I think marketing leaders that kind of balance that AI usage with the human aspect and the quality of people on

Alan Rudolph (15:13)

Yeah, yeah.

Denis Scott (15:14)

their team is where you're going to see those. That's to me world class now. and so people probably don't know where they're at on that curve sometimes. I know as a

marketing leader in prior roles, I sure didn't know exactly that equation. And now obviously I sit in a in a biased seat where I see that more. But that's really what we're seeing the best marketing leaders do.

Alan Rudolph (15:35)

Got it.

Mark Petruzzi (15:35)

Excellent. Let's move to rapid fire. So Dennis, what was the first product or service you ever sold throughout your life?

Denis Scott (15:43)

Yeah, when when I was fifteen years old, I walked down to the mall in San Francisco. I grew up in San Francisco by my house called Stonestown. I walked into a Nordstrom's and I applied for a job and they asked me if I could start that day. And I was I was stocking shoes in the back for the half yearly sale. And then

Alan Rudolph (16:02)

Mm.

Denis Scott (16:03)

the sale started on my day three, and our two salespeople were late and didn't show for the sale to start. So my

My manager asked if I wanted to be a shoe salesperson, and I said yes. and I sold shoes on and off at Nordstrom's for six years.

Alan Rudolph (16:19)

We're not gonna go down

Mark Petruzzi (16:19)

Very cool.

Alan Rudolph (16:20)

that path, but we could ask you a lot of discussions there. So we'll

Denis Scott (16:22)

Okay.

Alan Rudolph (16:23)

leave we'll leave that one lying. Who is your favorite CMO or marketing leader that you follow? One name.

Denis Scott (16:30)

One name. I would go with Veneet at Chime. I love following what he says. I love what that team has done. I think they push AI in really interesting ways. yeah, I

Alan Rudolph (16:39)

Awesome.

Denis Scott (16:39)

great follow on on on LinkedIn.

Mark Petruzzi (16:42)

Great. So what is a leadership or go to market practice you think every sales and marketing leader should adopt?

Denis Scott (16:48)

I think it's really trying to understand the solutions for your customers, right? Whether that's a B2C product or a B2B product, the the the human element of why do they need my product is really

Alan Rudolph (17:01)

Mm.

Denis Scott (17:01)

powerful. Or what does my product do that makes them more successful and where they're at, Or more confident in who they are. so I think

Alan Rudolph (17:08)

Yep, yeah.

Denis Scott (17:10)

that notion of not marketing to people, but really trying to understand the solution you're providing, right?

is really powerful for both sales and marketing to be aligned against and do that in your go to market motion together.

Alan Rudolph (17:22)

Yeah. Great Dennis. Okay, here's here's a little teaser. You're now twenty one years old, or you were twenty-one years old at what point? What advice today would you give that twenty-one year old self?

Denis Scott (17:34)

So it's a really interesting one. I think the data piece I feel confident that I kind of embraced early on. The

Alan Rudolph (17:40)

Yeah.

Denis Scott (17:41)

piece I think I'd advise myself and I tell this to all marketers is really being adaptable, The business

is always gonna change, the tools are gonna change, everything's gonna change. I know we talked about every three months reporting to the board. Well,

That's because everything changed in those three months. Right. I mean, we used to joke in tech that six months was a long time. Now three months in AI feels like a really long time. right. And so just being adaptable. And I think my my 21 year old self would have walked in and said, I know how this works. I'm going to do it this way. Right. And it's like, no, just know it's going to change.

Mark Petruzzi (18:15)

Amazing stuff. great. Well, Dennis, th thanks for bringing real data to a topic that is mostly running on very qualitative processes right now, not quantitative ones. Where should people go to find your work and Laradin's? and also I'll I'll put it out there, anyone, of course, going directly to Laradin, great. But anyone who wants to reach out to me, Alan or KK,

please do that as well because we have we have really grown very fond of the product and the product set and can help you figure out the way to really turn it on as well.

Denis Scott (18:52)

Yeah, that's great. I mean, I'm thank you all. This is this has been fun and it's it's really exciting topics and work that's going on. happy for anybody to to visit us at Laridan, visit our website. I think our leadership team are are some really interesting follows on LinkedIn as well. we are sitting on data that that in many ways nobody is sitting on, and so

We're doing research and we're sharing that as well. We're producing white papers. so there's a lot more coming that I think is gonna be really helpful for people to read and kind of understand on a lot of these trends and what we're seeing, even there's a new model out every day. Well, we're testing it and using them all. so yeah, that's great.

Alan Rudolph (19:32)

Great.

Thanks, Dennis. We'll make sure all that data's in the show notes. And if what Dennis said about measuring the AI impact sits with you, that's exactly the conversation we're having inside our PE advisory practice. Tying AI adoption directly to an EBITDA multiple at exit. Learn what it learn more about this. Come visit us at getags.com and learn about the PE advisory practice.

Mark Petruzzi (20:00)

And if this conversation conversation was useful for you, send it to your leader or another member of your network who you think may need it most. I'm Mark Petruzzi.

Alan Rudolph (20:11)

And I'm Alan Rudolph and this is Selling Intelligence. We'll see you next time. Thank you.

Mark Petruzzi (20:16)

All the best.

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