AFL’s bold leap into AI-driven marketing

When you think of the digital economy’s backbone, you might not immediately picture AFL. Yet, for over 40 years, AFL has powered the invisible networks that keep our world connected—from data centres to broadband, from the cloud to the infrastructure that underpins modern life. At Symposium 2025, AFL took to the main stage to showcase how it’s bringing the same precision and reliability that built the digital age to the fast-evolving world of marketing.

Partnering with Sitecore, AFL is rewriting its own playbook by unifying data, content, and collaboration to build more intelligent, connected experiences. Rob Davis, Interactive Marketing Manager at AFL, shared exclusive insights into how the organization drove its digital transformation forward.

AFL’s journey began with a slow, uncertain start. “Like a lot of companies out there, we didn’t really have any governance, no real corporate support, no executive buy-in,” Davis admitted. The irony? AFL was already making the products that drive AI in the data centre and hyperscale market, yet internally, AI adoption was lagging.

The turning point came not from top-down mandates, but from grassroots momentum—a “community of practice” that brought together 180 people across the organization. This wasn’t just a marketing initiative. It was a cross-functional movement. Some participants were building AI agents, others were focused on content, and many were simply curious, wondering if AI was more “Terminator” than teammate.

It was an important lesson that showed how real transformation starts with community, not command. By fostering collaboration and curiosity, AFL unlocked a wave of buy-in and ramped up its AI journey.

The next phase of AFL’s transformation was driven forward by the Sitecore AI Innovation Lab. Davis was candid about his initial hesitation. His team was already stretched, and the idea of taking on more seemed daunting. But the visionaries in the room, including AFL’s VP of IT, saw the alignment with the company’s new corporate strategy that prioritized integration, innovation, and partnership.

Sitecore’s approach was hands-on. Teams from Sitecore and partners like Altudo flew in for a full-day session, grilling AFL on everything from go-to-market strategies to campaign mechanics. The pivotal moment? A deep dive into customer personas. AFL had already developed detailed personas as part of earlier exercises, but Sitecore’s team took it further, building AI agents based on those personas and generating content tailored to each segment.

The result was more than just faster content creation. It was smarter, more targeted, and more testable. By running campaigns with multiple content pieces and using AI agents to test and refine messaging, AFL could push only the best-performing content to market. For Davis and his team, this was a “big eye opener” and a tangible demonstration of AI’s practical value.

With proof points in hand, the next hurdle was adoption. Davis was refreshingly honest: “We’ve had some hesitancy with our marketing team, really across the whole organization. People worried maybe about their jobs or what it’s going to mean to them.”

But the business case was clear. AFL’s growth meant the company either needed to hire five more people or make three people three times more productive. AI, leveraged through partnerships and new tools, was the answer. The impact? Greater effectiveness, faster response to customers, and more agile content delivery.

Davis’s vision for the future involves driving adoption and measuring impact. “I’d love to see some quantifiable data—how are we using these tools, and how can we equate that to analytics? Where are we succeeding, where aren’t we, and how can we shift resources based on that?” It’s a call for data-driven marketing, powered by AI and grounded in real-world results.

AFL’s story is a blueprint for any organization looking to lean into AI for marketing transformation. The key ingredients?

By embracing AI, breaking down silos, and focusing on measurable impact, AFL is going beyond keeping the world connected. It is setting the pace for the next era of marketing.