The Future of Digital Marketing & AI
I came across this trip by chance on LinkedIn sometime in winter. So yes, the platform can still do something other than pastel-colored self-congratulation. I signed up quickly, because the program included pretty much all the hyperscalers with their European home base, and in Dublin.
The trip was organized by Advantage Austria and the Austrian Embassy in Dublin, with a great deal of commitment from Lukas Hetzendorfer of OTAGO. I flew in on the early flight on Sunday and was able to experience Dublin in surprisingly good weather. That alone was probably the first surprise.
On Monday morning we met at the consulate. Lukas gave us a short introduction to Dublin. Having spent several years at Google himself, he was able to share quite a bit first-hand. I found his assessment of who will win the AI race particularly interesting. Also because I share it.
There we also met Laura Bitterlich from Advantage Austria, who accompanied us over the following days. And we met the host at the consulate, Marco Garcia. Then we got started.
Microsoft: „It's not about the model — it's about your process“
I am really not a Microsoft fan. Since leaving Siemens in 1997 and my work as a programmer in the PSE, I have not had a Windows workstation, let alone a server. In Dublin, however, Microsoft presented itself surprisingly strongly.
Martin Cullen showed us Microsoft’s vision of the future, and it was considerably more interesting than my bias had allowed for.
I took three statements away with me:
Agents are increasing the value of people.
Infrastructure is more budget than people.
It's not about the model — it's about your process.
These are sentences I would sign immediately. Hearing them at Microsoft, of all places, was not something my worldview had accounted for. You really can hardly rely on your prejudices anymore.
Trinity and Meta, which preferred to stay away
Meta had cancelled the appointment with us. At first I did not think much of it. Later I understood: maybe that was the most honest presentation of the trip.
We visited Trinity, a university-affiliated innovation hub where companies meet academic research. That is very interesting, but not entirely my approach. I am convinced that research needs to be embedded deeply within companies.
That may not always be the best business. But it forces a company into a sustained and deep engagement. And in my view, that is exactly where the difference lies between companies that apply technology and those that truly understand it.
Why Google in Dublin was disappointing
Did I mention that Meta cancelled? Google should have done the same.
The two young staff members were visibly making an effort, but the experience was simply missing. In the end, it was a Google Ads product pitch. You can do that. But an audience sitting in the room because of AI, infrastructure and the future of digital systems cannot seriously be fobbed off with campaign automation.
It was nevertheless interesting that support for traditional Google agencies is apparently being scaled back massively. This business will continue to be automated, with customer support increasingly handled in-house. I am curious to see what happens when agencies with 20 years of experience are replaced by processes, tools and juniors.
What was unfortunately missing: DeepMind, infrastructure, agentic systems, research, strategy. In other words, all the things I would have been interested in. Instead: Pomelli, a product from Google Labs. Scrape websites, create visuals, automatically push campaigns into Google Ads. A few audience attributes, a budget, done.
Perhaps that is because, for Google, this is mainly about the latter. The atmosphere in the office was remarkable. While we moved around Microsoft and Amazon relatively relaxed, Google felt like a high-security wing with an attached cafeteria. Oppressive, controlled and stressed.
A positive note was my personal meeting with our account manager for STRG.AT, Katharina Beck. That immediately made me feel like a premium partner again. Ah yes, we are a premium partner for Google Cloud Solutions. Still, the thought that remained was: do it like Meta next time. If it is not worth anything to you, just cancel.
Our beautiful embassy
The Austrian ambassador to Ireland is an impressive personality. I had the opportunity to sit next to her at dinner. We spoke at length about technology, the development of the tech world, the problem of the tech bros, misogyny and the relapse of once-liberal milieus into NRx fantasies.
I found her view of the arts scene in Dublin particularly interesting, as well as her almost tragic attempts to find good food in the city. In any case, I am very pleased that Austria is so worthily represented in Ireland. Many thanks to Ms. Mag.a Melitta Schubert for this conversation.
Salesforce, HubSpot & TikTok between AI hype and product pitch
Salesforce began with a nice sentence: „We are an agentic company.“
That could also have come from a STRG.AT presentation, I thought. So I made myself comfortable. Unfortunately, it did become a product pitch after all. The discussion around „AI eats SaaS for breakfast“ was interesting. I know a little about software and product development and I know: it is not that simple.
Of course, a lot can be built with agentic systems today. But operating, maintaining, securing and further developing a stack yourself over the long term remains work. A great deal of work, and therefore costs significantly more money than the subscriptions. In return, I was able to show the colleagues at Salesforce my new CLI (command-line interface) for Slack. They had to laugh at ideas like that.
Everything at Salesforce sounded positive, everything on track, everything exactly as one would want to hear it. Only this perfect narrative did not quite fit the massive loss in valuation over recent months. It looks very similar at HubSpot. But fair enough, I probably would not put that on the first slide in a meeting like that either.
I do not like TikTok, but the colleague who gave us the presentation was very personable. Again, there was little about the future and little about the culture, and a lot of product pitch.
However, I really do not understand at all how anyone arrives at statements like this:
„TikTok is the only company among the major platforms that complies 100 % with the GDPR. All the others constantly have violations, we do not.“
Perhaps transparency is difficult to deal with in China, and perhaps it is impossible to imagine that figures like this are simply made public on a website. In 2025, TikTok paid around 530.000.000 euros in fines for very clear privacy violations. They could simply have said nothing about it.
Amazon AWS showed how AI presentations really work
Incredible. This is exactly how you do a delegation trip like this. Amazon put Richard Jones in front of us, someone who really knew something, had experience and wanted to share it. Of course, he too was Amazon-brainwashed, but at a level that made you happy to listen. I could have continued the discussion for hours.
Among other things, I took away:
AI since 25 Years
Powerpoint is prohibited.
No weasel words in documents.
If you can imagine it, we can build it.
Good intentions don't work.
Driven by process, not by human.
The most interesting statement was: In five years, no one will be talking about AI anymore. Not because AI will disappear, but because it will be everywhere. Built into every system, every interface, every process. So self-evident that it disappears as a topic in its own right.
It was an open conversation about Amazon’s culture, its rigors, its advantages, and the question of what it is like to work in a company like that. It seemed as if there were no secrets. Except perhaps one:
Amazon is also working on providing the world with satellite internet. Similar to Starlink, similarly expensive, similarly ambitious. Goal: directly on smartphones, permanent connectivity, everywhere. A colleague asked what role telecom providers would then have. Richard Jones did not provide an answer to this, for lack of time …
„In five years, no one will be talking about AI anymore. Not because AI will disappear, but because it will be everywhere.“
And what was Dublin like?
Mixed. Exciting. Sometimes illuminating, sometimes tiring. The trip was carried above all by an extremely pleasant group I had the privilege of travelling with. Thank you to Advantage Austria for this opportunity. Thank you to everyone who accompanied us. And of course, the pub time should not be forgotten.
„The hangover lasts for a day. The memories last forever.“
In short: many surprises, much that was unexpected, a lot of future and little boredom!