Autodesk, AI and me: Dara Treseder on life as B2B’s MVP

Such is Treseder’s standing (she was named the world’s most influential CMO by Forbes in 2022 and continues to be a mainstay of such power lists), the intended one-on-one encounter is now something more akin to a public panel, with our shoulder-to-shoulder companions breaking off from their own conversations to eavesdrop. But unlike this interviewer, Treseder is unfazed and unflustered by the attention. Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising for a former Peleton, Apple and GE marketer who brushes off the intense demands of being a modern CMO with the expression “Pressure is privilege.”

Forged in the image of its CMO, Autodesk is a B2B brand that doesn’t really behave like one. The Californian company started life in 1982 as the maker of AutoCAD, the definitive computer-aided design software for architects and engineers, but today its tools are used by creatives of all stripes to (in Treseder’s words) “design and make a better world for all.” Visual effects for the hit TV show The Walking Dead, restoration of the Notre-Dame Cathedral and venue design for the company’s hometown 2028 Olympics are just some of the projects that owe a debt to its broad suite of services.

The Olympics is worth lingering upon since it symbolizes both the scale of Treseder’s ambition and influence three years into her Autodesk tenure. The company is the “official design and make platform” of the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games, meaning it is both a high-profile sponsor and an enabler of its construction. “This was an NBDB [never been done before],” says Treseder, explaining how, until it inked the deal in August last year, Autodesk had never so much attempted a sports partnership of this magnitude.

As this isn’t a mere sports sponsorship badging exercise, Treseder had to call upon colleagues in architecture, engineering, construction and even legal departments across the 15,000-strong organization to justify “the leap of faith.” She was emboldened by the knowledge that Autodesk software had been used in previous Olympics, including to design and make the Olympic village at the most recent Paris games. “This is a strategic brand partnership, but to actually get it all the way through, it had to be a cross-functional initiative, right?” she says. “I knew there was authenticity there.”

While a team effort, Treseder ultimately had to front up for the partnership. “When you’re taking these risks, I always give the credit to the team, but you have to be willing to say, ‘Who’s the executive sponsor? Who is this hanging on?’ And you have to be willing to say, ‘Hey, this is all me.’ And so having that courage gives the team permission. Because when you show that you’re willing to take a risk, you’re willing to go out on a limb, that’s where great things happen, because you unlock the creativity of your team. But if you create a culture where no one wants to take any risks, you don’t get any reward.”

Finances around the partnership have not been disclosed, but with the LA Olympics’ ‘official supporter’ deals estimated to be in the $50m region, this undoubtedly represents Autodesk’s biggest brand activation to date. So, in a world where we keep being told of CMOs’ diminishing influence among the C-suite, not to mention the constant narrative around budget pressures, how did Treseder get the boardroom buy-in?

Naturally, she praises chief executive Andrew Anagnost and chief operating officer Steve Blum for their backing. “Having that support and trust from our C-suite executive team was huge.” But ultimately, she believes she has earned their trust by speaking their language. “It’s not even 2028, it’s 2025, and we’re already seeing the ROI. One of our biggest customers, Aecom, is now the venue infrastructure partner for the LA28 Games. And to do all that infrastructure work, it’s going to be relying on our Autodesk design and make software.”

This brings to mind the “big question” Treseder says she keeps being asked by panel moderators and eager networkers: What are your marketing metrics? “I say my marketing metrics are my CEO’s metrics, my CFO’s metrics, my COO’s metrics, the business metrics, right? Everything that I’m doing in marketing needs to ladder up to our core company objectives and key results. Needs to ladder up to, ‘How am I driving revenue growth?’ Needs to ladder up to, ‘How am I doing it in a profitable way? How am I helping with margin?’ That’s how we think about it.”

Characterizing herself as a “pragmatic optimist,” Treseder accepts that the role of the CMO is becoming more “challenging” in a time of global uncertainty and technological transformation. Since 2022, demand for AI skills across 3m design and make job postings has skyrocketed by over 640%, according to Autodesk’s own 2025 AI Jobs Report. The rapid ascendance of AI in creative fields is upending both how its customers behave and Autodesk’s own marketers. “I use AI now almost every hour of every working day,” Treseder says. “I want to become… I’m not going to be so bold as to say an expert, but I want to make sure that I know enough to be able to make good decisions. I know enough to be curious. I know enough to allocate resources in the right way.”

Treseder says she is on a mission to make all her marketers “AI proficient,” but stresses that doesn’t just mean making them more productive but also figuring out how they can improve the effectiveness and quality of their work. “What I say to my team is that AI is raising the floor and the ceiling. You have to be AI proficient, but that’s just the floor, right? How do we crack and break through the ceiling?”

Given Treseder’s marketing fame, she is frequently on the receiving end of industry peers using AI that’s closer to the floor than the ceiling. “Here in Cannes, I’ve been meeting a lot of people. They say, ‘Hey, Dara, I want to connect with you.’ I get an email from them [that goes like this]: ‘Dara, I hope you are well.’ How about you actually edit that email, you know what I mean? There’s a big difference between someone who took the time to personalize that for me and someone who just took what ChatGPT sent them and spit it out.”

It’s a simple example, she admits, but indicative of what she describes as a rise of “lowest common denominator” marketing. “You cannot just use AI at a basic level. You have to treat it as additional horsepower. If my seven-year-old could use a gen-AI tool to make a movie and if you, as someone with 20 years of experience, produce the exact same thing, then yes, we have more content, but more isn’t necessarily better.”

This mindset informs how Treseder thinks about the composition of her worldwide marketing team, which she has reorganized over the past three years to bring the brand, creative, performance and product functions under one roof.

“I want people who are swimming, not skimming,” she says. “Too many people skim – they read a 50-word post on LinkedIn and now they think they’re an expert. I need people who are actually curious, who ask questions before they jump to judgment, people who listen to understand, not just to respond. I’m looking for people who have courage… when there’s tension, that’s when you have great work. You have to find people who have the courage to take risks.”

As we wrap up in the Carlton lobby, with a slightly larger entourage now than when we started, Treseder remains as composed as she is on stage or in the boardroom. Her approach to marketing is the same whether the audience is one or a million: deliver results first, then tell the story. Or, in her words: “The walk track is the talk track. We do the work, then we talk about it.”

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