We had the pleasure of sitting down recently with a client finding success in the thick of the AI boom, John Kreisa, CMO at Sema4.ai (and formerly of B2B tech brands Couchbase and Hortonworks). In a candid conversation, John shared what it takes to stand out as an AI brand in a very crowded marketplace: What’s working, what’s not, and how he partners with his team (and with Sköna) to move fast without creating the wrong kind of noise around his brand in the process.
If you’re a CMO, VP of Marketing, or AI startup CEO trying to stand out without wasting budget, these are the things John is doing right now at Sema4.ai to keep his brand both sharp and scalable.
1. Make your story so simple, your mom can understand it
When we asked John how he knows when Sema4.ai’s story is sticking, his benchmark was simple: “If my mom can’t explain what we do after one sentence, we’re not done.”
In AI and B2B tech, all the complexity – the models, agents, use cases, architectures – may seem like the selling points, but in reality, features and insider talk often just create noise.
Instead, his team works toward short, crisp lines that give buyers a memorable hook:
- One clear problem
- One clear promise
- One clear way they show up
They don’t dumb their offerings down. Instead, they deliver something that sticks after a long day of demos (and that’s so clear, sales doesn’t even need to translate).
2. Treat marketing as test-and-learn for a faster product-market message fit
John’s product is evolving constantly: moving roadmaps, new use cases, pricing experiments. Trying to build a rigid annual marketing plan on that foundation would drive anyone insane. Instead, John treats marketing as a lab – a place to experiment, and most importantly, learn. At Sema4.ai, they…
Start with real customers
John and his team begin by focusing on who is already successful with the product, then ask, “Who are these people? What problem were they trying to solve? What words did they use?”
Build a focused audience
Once they’ve gathered that information, they put it into action. Rather than targeting everyone interested in AI, they home in on people who look like their best customers.
Test messages quickly
They’ll try messaging different pain points, fresh angles, new ways to describe the same outcome – small tests that deliver fast lessons.
Watch the journey, not just the clicks
Rather than focus on “Did they open this email?”, Sema4.ai looks at a more holistic picture:
- Who took action?
- Who asked for a demo?
- Where do they stall?
Then they iterate, refining until they get to what works. As John put it: “We basically crawl through glass to get to the message that really hits. But once you find it, everything else gets easier.”
3. Brand is a multiplier, not a line item
At some point, someone asks the question: “Can’t we just show the product instead of investing in our brand?” John gets it, especially when budgets are tight and everyone’s staring at pipeline numbers. But he’s seen the effect of anonymous-looking booths, homepages that look like everyone else’s, and sales decks all telling slightly different stories that run contrary to creating a consistent experience across channels and touchpoints. He’s a believer that a strong brand becomes a multiplier for everything else, because he’s experienced the results.
In Sköna’s brand work with Sema4.ai, that means:
- Making sure marketing materials, website, and campaigns feel like they belong to the same company
- Building a visual and verbal system that can flex globally without losing the core identity
- Keeping the brand just bold enough that it stands out in a feed full of identical gradients and AI stock imagery
4. Don’t just hire an agency – treat them as part of your extended leadership bench
We also asked John what he expects from a B2B creative agency in this kind of environment.
It is less about deliverables, more about how we work together. A few things mattered most:
Speed, with guardrails
With his less rigid approach, John needs to move quickly. Our job as an agency is to help him do that without blowing up the brand with every shift.
Perspective from across the market
Because Sköna works with multiple AI and B2B companies, we can offer an outside view to keep his team from reinventing the wheel in isolation. We can offer insight, like recommending using a different phrase to a common one in a saturated market, or explaining what we’re seeing resonate with buyers in their space.
Room for honest conversations
Some of the most useful sessions John feels we’ve had together are the ones where someone says, “This just isn’t working,” or “We’re overcomplicating this.” A strong working relationship (and long-term partnership) means having those conversations early, while there’s still time to pivot.
Having someone to guard the through-line
Internally, it’s easy for one exception to turn into three; pretty soon, you’re asking, “Wait, what do we even look like anymore?”John leans on Sköna to be the ones asking, “Does this still feel like us?”, so he doesn’t always have to play brand police himself.
In short: we’re in the work with him, not just sending deliverables over the wall.
How you can stand out in a crowded AI market
You don’t need the same org structure or product to apply these takeaways to your own business. If you’re running marketing at an AI company right now, ask a few simple questions that go a long way:
- Could someone outside tech repeat what your company does in one sentence?
- Is marketing helping you learn and refine, or is it just content creation?
- Does your brand make you easier to recognize, or does it create confusion?
- Do your partners know you well enough to be truly helpful?
The market’s not getting less crowded anytime soon. But as John reinforced, with a clear story, a test-and-learn mindset, and partners who are genuinely in it alongside you, it’s absolutely possible to build an AI brand that gets heard – all without shouting louder.
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