AI Is Changing How Marketers Respond to Social Signals

Social signals are scattered across a fragmented media landscape, and the brands that win know how to find them—and put them to work.

During a Brandweek 2026 fireside chat co-hosted with Hootsuite, Ryan Joe, editor-in-chief of ADWEEK, sat down with Christina O’Reilly, CMO of Hootsuite, to discuss how marketers are using AI tools to build effective social strategies.

A double-edged sword

As technology has evolved, O’Reilly explained, so has the social media manager role. Instead of writing, designing, publishing, and testing the content itself, today’s social media managers are more “architects or directors of AI agents” that autonomously manage the production workflows.