MarketingOps 3.0: Building a Hybrid Operating Model for Growth in a Machine-Mediated Market

What happens to Marketing Operations when customers, competitors, and brands all begin operating through autonomous agents? Marketing leaders need an operating discipline that aligns with a market shaped by machine-mediated decisions, hybrid teams, and continuous customer interactions.

MarketingOps 3.0 presents a practical framework for redesigning Marketing Operations as the orchestration layer of the modern enterprise. Drawing on Greg Kihlström's work with global brands facing the need to transform the way they work to harness the power of AI and other advancements, the book traces the path from MarketingOps 1.0 and 2.0 to a hybrid operating model in which humans and agents share defined roles, accountability, and decision rights.

This book introduces Commercial Operations Orchestration (CO2) as the structural answer to enterprise fragmentation, while examining the role of humans and the agents they will manage in the Business-to-Agent-to-Consumer (B2A2C) economy. It formalizes Return on Agent (ROA) as the economic measure of the hybrid workforce. A running case study, supporting toolkits, and a one-page scalable operating model illustrate how to apply the framework for your business. The book also addresses governance, ethics, talent design, and the roadmap to a unified Commercial System spanning marketing, sales, and customer experience.

Chief marketing officers, Marketing Operations leaders and practitioners, RevOps, and digital transformation practitioners will benefit from MarketingOps 3.0’s operating model that they can use to govern autonomous work, coordinate decisions across the customer lifecycle, and compete in a machine-mediated market.

Greg Kihlström is a MarTech futurist, best-selling author, speaker, entrepreneur, and advisor who helps leaders understand where marketing technology, customer experience, and AI-mediated execution are heading next. His work focuses on the operating conditions enterprises need to turn customer insight into coordinated action across marketing, service, product, data, and technology. Greg has written more than 25 books on marketing and marketing technology and hosts the award-winning podcast The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®. He earned his MBA, is pursuing a doctorate in Business Intelligence, and teaches as a member of the School of Marketing Faculty at the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). He has been named #1 on Thinkers360's list of Top Global Marketing Thought Leaders.