Mastercard's AI Brand Assistant Now Handles 75% of Routine Work

By Priya Raman

Mastercard's brand assistant now handles roughly 75% of routine brand questions that people once answered manually, according to Cheryl Guerin, the company's EVP of global brand strategy and innovation. She shared the figure live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, in conversation with Jenny Rooney, as part of a vidcast series presented in partnership with Tatari.

Her core argument cuts through the current AI hype. If every marketer eventually has access to similar tools, the tool itself cannot become the advantage. "AI cannot differentiate your brand," Guerin said. The win is not efficiency alone. It is giving experienced brand people time for harder questions around creativity, trust and the future of the brand.

What does this change for practitioners? It reframes where to point the technology. Mastercard uses automation to absorb routine work, not to make creative decisions. The freed capacity goes to higher-order thinking — the part of the job machines cannot yet do.

Why Priceless still works nearly 30 years later

Guerin has spent nearly 26 years at Mastercard, across regional marketing leadership, products and services, P&L responsibility and global credit, before returning to the area she describes as her heart: marketing. Over that time she helped evolve the Priceless platform through major shifts in culture, technology and the business, leading initiatives such as the True Name card and Touch Card.

The platform's origin, she explained, was a move away from material signs of success toward intangible experiences. Nearly three decades later, Gen Z's desire for belonging and in-person experiences shows the underlying truth has become more relevant, not less. Her operating challenge is simple: keep the brand relevant as the world changes without losing the human truth that made it matter in the first place.

What is still worth an agency premium?

Mastercard's relationship with McCann has lasted nearly as long as Priceless itself. Guerin calls that creative partnership essential, but she is equally clear that not every piece of work needs premium agency resources. As daily content, B2B marketing and full-funnel execution increase, Mastercard has expanded its own internal capabilities. The split is now deliberate: agencies stay close to the big creative thinking, while internal teams handle the volume and speed modern marketing demands.

Why Mastercard hires "passions experts"

The company does not rely only on generalist marketers to understand music, sports, esports or motorsports. Guerin described specialists who deeply understand those communities and know how to connect cultural knowledge back to business outcomes. That expertise helps Mastercard identify talent before everyone else does, balance globally recognizable names like Lady Gaga with emerging bets, and compete without necessarily being the biggest spender in the category.

Emerging talent, she added, can create different economics and stronger relationships than obvious superstar bets. Purpose-driven work, meanwhile, has to connect three things at once: brand ethos, constituent needs and business impact. And real agility sometimes looks like saying no.

For marketers weighing their own AI investments, the Mastercard position sets a clear test: automate the routine, measure whether the freed time reaches senior brand thinking, and spend the differentiation budget on culture, not tools.