Mars' Snickers AI Bet: 8,000 Blocked Words, Ten Tech Partners

Mars ran its 2023 Snickers agentic AI experiment with roughly ten tech partners, legal and security leadership, and a list of 8,000 blocked words — at a point when the safety and reputational risks looked far less understood than they do today. Mars Snacking Chief Brand Officer Rankin Carroll called the project "potentially crazy" at the time, speaking live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026 in conversation with Jenny Rooney.

The vidcast, presented in partnership with Tatari, covered how M&M's, Snickers and Skittles stay culturally relevant without treating boldness as an excuse for chaos. Carroll has spent more than 20 years at Mars across marketing, advertising, general management and global and regional leadership roles, moving from Toronto to the UK and running an ice cream business along the way.

His takeaway from the Snickers AI bet is bigger than "take more risk": ambitious experimentation becomes possible when the organization commits to solving the risk together.

How does Mars separate bold ideas from stunts?

Carroll draws a hard line between calculated cultural risk and performative brand behavior. The best creative risks should make you a little nervous, he says — but they should never make you ask why your brand is taking them.

Skittles could maintain its relationship with the LGBTQ+ community during a more volatile period because the brand had spent years building credibility there, according to Carroll. His filter for every big swing is simple: "Why us? Why this brand?" If there is no strategically convincing answer, the idea does not deserve the risk.

He frames his job as the stewardship of distinctive, iconic brands: protect what makes them valuable, make them stronger than when you received them, and still create enough tension to keep them culturally relevant.

Why does he warn against "a thousand pilots and no progress"?

Carroll believes leaving AI adoption to disconnected enthusiasts across an organization is a recipe for chaos. CMOs need to own the agenda alongside technology leadership, bringing top-down clarity to investment, priorities and what the company should build, buy, rent or borrow.

His warning is simple: just because you can use AI somewhere does not mean you should.

He also believes transformation now has no end state — and Mars is learning to loosen control in creator-led marketing after its own creator learning curve.

What happens to junior marketers?

Carroll raised one of the more uncomfortable questions from Brandweek 2026: what happens to junior marketers when the profession changes around AI? He expects the practice of marketing to look completely different within three years.

He openly says he does not yet have a satisfying answer for how marketers entering the industry should be trained. For him, that makes talent development a leadership responsibility, not an HR afterthought.

That stance sets the agenda for the next three years: CMOs who own the AI agenda and invest in their youngest talent will be the ones who can afford the boldest creative bets.

By James Calloway