- AI
How AI is revolutionizing AdTech and MarTech: reality vs. hype
Before you invest in the next “AI-powered” tool, let’s dig into what’s real, what’s wishful thinking, and how you can make smarter choices.
AI Powered
Article partially generated by artificial intelligence.
Happy 2026. We were promised flying cars and autonomous stacks. Instead, we’re seeing “AI Strategy” roles that look suspiciously like VIP Babysitting. I recently saw a job description for a major enterprise that perfectly captures why most MarTech/AdTech transformations fail before they even start. It was filled with “Executive AI Enablement,” “Change Management,” and – my personal favorite -“AI Storytelling.”
Welcome to The Weekly Roast. Always on Wednesday.
Let’s burn the fluff. 🔥
1. The “executive AI hand-holding” crisis
If your enterprise AI strategy requires “1:1 coaching” for senior leaders, you don’t have a strategy – you have a literacy crisis at the top. Treating AI like a magic trick for the C-suite is a distraction.
The Sanddev Truth: We don’t build “approachable demos.” We build hard-coded AI middleware that automates decision-making before the VP even has to open a prompt. If a leader needs a personal coach to use a tool, the tool’s UX is the failure.
2. The “command & control” firefighting trap
The same company hiring “AI Storytellers” are also looking for engineers to lead “Command and Control” activities for “24/7 complex outages.”
The Sanddev Truth: If your “Command Center” is always busy, your infrastructure isn’t a service – it’s a liability. You aren’t “stabilizing services”; you’re a high-paid firefighter in a building made of gasoline. Real engineering focuses on prevention, not “rapid restoration” of legacy monsters.
3. Measuring “fluency” instead of “efficiency”
Most “Transformation” leaders are measured on “AI adoption KPIs” (how many people clicked the button) rather than “revenue per millisecond.”
The Sanddev Truth: In AdTech, “enthusiasm” doesn’t lower your QPS costs. We replace “AI Literacy” with System Architecture. We don’t track “learning effectiveness”; we track latency reduction and Opex savings. If your AI isn’t shrinking your headcount or your server bill, your transformation is just an expensive hobby.
3. The “standardization” myth
You’re “driving standardization” across back-office and customer-facing apps? Good luck. We know your “Standard” is actually four different legacy systems held together by duct tape, hope, and one Perl script written by a guy who retired in 2019.
The Sanddev Truth: Standardization isn’t a 200-page PDF manual. It’s code-driven architecture. If it’s not automated, it’s not a standard – it’s just a suggestion that everyone is ignoring.
4. The “break/fix” hamster wheel
Focusing on “resolving break/fix scenarios” is the opposite of an engineering culture. Why build a self-healing system when you can just hire humans to stay awake all night and fix it manually?
The Sanddev Truth: A “break/fix” culture is a survival loop, not an improvement cycle. You can’t tune the engine while the car is falling off a cliff. We build the “Circuit Breakers” that prevent the break so you can stop fixing and start building.
The Bottom Line: Stop hiring cheerleaders to talk about the future. Stop hiring firefighters to babysit the past. Hire engineers to build the bridge between them.
At Sanddev, we don’t tell stories. We ship code that works while you sleep.
