Jen Taylor on Building AI Strategy That Serves Your Mission

Monica Holt: Welcome back to CI to Eye. I’m Monica Holt. Today’s conversation tackles one of the most pressing questions facing our sector. How do we integrate AI into arts and culture work without compromising on our values? We’re living through what some are calling the fastest technology adoption in history. ChatGPT reached a hundred million users in just two months. Compare that to the 30 months it took Instagram or nine it took TikTok. And arts organizations aren’t immune to this rapid change. New data shows 43% of arts and culture organizations now use AI technology, which is a significant jump from 28% just a year ago. But here’s the thing, less than 10% of all nonprofits have policies governing AI use. We’re moving fast without guardrails in a space that demands we move more thoughtfully. What makes this even more complex is that while other industries worry about competitive risks and job displacement, arts administrators are uniquely focused on mission risk and protecting authentic brand identity.

Today’s guest is perfectly positioned to help us navigate this tension. Jen Taylor is Capacity Interactive’s director of AI strategy and integration, bringing both marketing expertise from her decade at A&E Networks as well as deep roots in the arts in the New York theater community. Jen recently surveyed over a hundred arts leaders across the country and what she found was a sector defined by what she calls a powerful tension. People desperate for more time and support who see AI as the potential solution, but who are also holding real concerns about what makes arts human. This conversation with Jen is about much more than tools and tactics. It’s about the future of how we create and how we connect in an age of artificial intelligence. Let’s dive in. Jen, welcome to CI to Eye.

Jen Taylor: Thank you so much for having me.

Monica Holt: You have been doing some really exciting work in the space, empowering arts organizations with the knowledge and expertise of how they can leverage AI and emerging tech, and we will get to all of that and I’m excited to dive in. But for the moment, what I’d love to talk a little bit about first is your career path, why the arts, how you got started, and so to really ground us in that, could you just tell me a little bit about what your personal connection is with the arts? Did you perform in plays as a kid or play an instrument or kind of what was the spark of creativity in your life?

Jen Taylor: Yeah. Well, as far back as I can remember, I’ve been connected to the arts. I was basically that kid belting Annie while everybody else was listening to Boys II Men.

Monica Holt: The red hair.

Jen Taylor: Oh yeah.

Monica Holt: There’s a straight affiliation there. Absolutely.

Jen Taylor: Yeah. So I remember going to New York to see Beauty and the Beast on Broadway or even to the local dinner theater where Singing in the Rain actually had it rain on the stage. So ever since I was little, I’ve been hooked by the theater. In college is when I paired my theater education with a business degree because I always knew that I wanted to work in the business end of theater.

Monica Holt: So after school you start at Signature Theater in New York, and I’m sure it feels a little bit like that kind of dream realized of where you were going, right?

Jen Taylor: Yeah, Signature really took a chance on me. In fact, my old boss will tell you that she tried really hard not to hire me because I lived out of town, but she says that I just would not take no for an answer. I remember being in that interview when she asked, okay, well when could you actually start? And I looked at my fake watch and I looked up at her and I said, tomorrow.

Monica Holt: That’s amazing. Oh, I love that. And so as you look at how your career grew from there and what experiences from Signature you took with you, what was the compelling reason to evolve past Signature and what were you looking for after that?

Jen Taylor: Yeah, that’s a great question. Being in a marketing department of two people at Signature gave me huge exposure. One day I’d be printing a mailing for our subscribers and the next day I’d be running a photo shoot with Chuck Mee. So that firsthand proximity to artists really taught me empathy, how marketing should elevate creative work and not distort it. That really drives my mindset as I work on AI today and it’s really what drove me from Signature to my next role at the Summer Play Festival. When I had the opportunity to essentially build out a marketing department for an organization that supported new artists, it was just a no-brainer and I couldn’t say no. I probably would’ve stayed there a lot longer than I did, but unfortunately the festival shut down, so Ari brought me in-house with her. Being in-house with a Broadway producer really helped me realize that I didn’t want to be in-house with a Broadway producer. I wanted to be at the agency that was doing all the work. So that was my jump over to AKA.

Monica Holt: Can I ask, watching the festival shut down and just what folks I’m sure are experiencing now, I obviously was at — the opera company that I was at before it became part of the Kennedy Center, Washington National Opera, also faced this kind of deadline moment of will we continue to exist or will we have to evolve? What was that like to watch and what impact do you think that’s had on you since then shaping the way that you’re viewing the arts, particularly as you are being helpful from outside of organizations rather than inside them?

Jen Taylor: Yeah, that’s a great question. I would say it was really devastating. Even today, I text with the other people that worked there with me. Anytime we see an SPF actor, director, or playwright show up across the industry, when you look at the organizations that exist to support new talent, they’re really limited. I think NAMT does a great job with musicals and the fact that we had this festival that really championed non-musical work was unique to be outside of an institution and just give people a chance to get out there.

Monica Holt: It’s interesting just to hear about how experience like that, like traumatic experiences with arts organizations early in one’s career, can kind of stick with you and also deepen your connection to purpose in the arts and particularly as we’re in this moment where change and evolution is so key to everything we’re discussing, to have been part of a moment early on where you saw that not happen in a way that could ultimately serve the mission and the financial needs of the organization… I’m sure that that sits with you as you’re looking to the future. So as you move through working within arts organizations, then you kind of had a transition working with an independent producer, and then moving into AKA and working from the other side, as we say, of the equation… Can you talk a little bit about what that was like and ultimately how that led you to your transition into A&E?

Jen Taylor: Yeah, AKA was an amazing place to work. It was the early days of their New York office, so it really functioned like a startup and that’s where I really honed my digital marketing skills. I owned kind of the full digital strategy for our clients: the website, the social media, the online advertising. And I loved it, but ultimately my shift from AKA to A&E was really about scale. With Broadway, people had to be live in New York to come to the theater. A&E let me reach anyone with a screen. So with each move, I really considered will this role let me grow audiences in a bigger and smarter way.

Monica Holt: You were at A&E then for so long, and I guess I’m curious what kept you motivated and challenged to stay in that space throughout all of your different roles? Obviously I can relate having stayed in an organization that I really cared about for a long time, and so I’m curious hearing from a different angle and at a network position like you had, captivating, cultivating, growing audiences… What was that motivating factor? What were the challenges? What did you love digging into?

Jen Taylor: Yeah, at A&E, we took digital revenue from tens of millions to well over a hundred million by reinventing constantly. I had to learn a new industry and A&E is where I really came to understand the business impact of marketing. When I started, television was at its peak. We had almost 90% penetration across US households and digital was just starting to be a thing. We had a website and had just launched mobile apps. So I was there as we expanded digital onto the television screen and eventually launched subscription products. So each shift really meant rethinking the entire strategy. A&E is really where I learned the importance of tying marketing efforts directly to business goals. And again, that discipline really influences how I think about AI. You don’t want to just do something for the sake of doing it. You want to make sure there’s a reason and an impact to the bottom line.

Monica Holt: So that’s a great segue into really getting to the meat of what we’re going to talk about today and as we start to think about AI in the field, your transition back to working with nonprofit culture and arts, you’ve kind of touched on this a little bit, but what sparked your curiosity around AI specifically? Were you developing those skills initially in-house or was this something that you were kind of researching, looking at yourself, doing some self-teaching on as it kind of sparked into the greater public interest in the past five, 10 years?

Jen Taylor: Yeah, my curiosity really started through work. I went to a conference, I think it was back in 2022, where I heard for the first time, AI won’t replace you. The person using it will. I was so inspired that I put together a five page presentation on everything that I learned to share with the full consumer marketing team. That evolved into testing out small ways my team could use AI. Little things like tweaking email tone or expanding brainstorming. Then I started going deeper; listening to The Marketing AI Show, which is now The Artificial Intelligence Show; taking classes; trying tools. I really just kept following my curiosity and found that being an expert in my field mixed with AI helped me to start moving faster and with all these new perspectives.

Monica Holt: That’s great. I love what you were saying sparked it as AI won’t replace you, but the person using it will. I’m curious then, as you were experimenting with this at A&E, why come back to the nonprofit arts and culture — Obviously I think it’s the greatest place to be, but what was the motivation and why was Capacity the place that you wanted to do this work?

Jen Taylor: Yeah, I reconnected with Priya —

Monica Holt: Priya Iyer Doshi, former president of Capacity Interactive.

Jen Taylor: Yeah. And I heard what CI was thinking about, and it really helped me realize that this sector needs a translator, somebody who speaks both marketing and mission, and I just couldn’t say no.

Monica Holt: Translation is I think one of the most underrated skills in our industry, and whether that’s from tech to admin or from creative to marketing team, I think that role is so important and we’re lucky to have you sitting in it. So as you are bringing to Capacity this new approach and expanding our set of tools, how are you thinking about the values in this space and the ethics of AI while you’re simultaneously working on empowerment of a sector that cares a lot about that kind of tie between the values of the work and the work itself?

Jen Taylor: Yeah, I think that’s a really good question and it’s been really important to me that I listened to the sector and the people and their concerns. Part of that was going back to past Boot Camp sessions to get feedback from that. Part of that was a study or a survey that we fielded into the wild. Look, I think the reality is that the ethical concerns are all valid and ultimately we have to be thoughtful about when and how and where we use AI. Each organization is going to have different guidelines and guardrails, and part of this journey is figuring out what those lines are for you. I don’t pretend that I can solve all the problems, but I do like to try to mitigate risk. So for example, when we do literacy training, we practice ethical prompting. I walk you through things like if you wouldn’t pay for it in the wild, don’t prompt a tool to output it for you. If you are in a conversation and you are done, don’t say thank you or prompt it with other things that are unnecessary. It doesn’t need to process all of that compute. It’s all little things that can make a big difference, but ultimately we are responsible for the input and the output. So if we are aware of things like bias and hallucination as we’re working with these tools, we can help mitigate some of the risk.

Monica Holt: Tell me about an example of this practically in the field.

Jen Taylor: Yeah, I think a good example is we were working with a museum who identified that one of the main reasons people come to museums is to spend time with family. And I was digging into kind of who those people were and the reasons that they were there and the benefits of the experience for them. But when I input the prompt, I didn’t just say ‘spend time with family’ because I was afraid that family within kind of the tool would be two parents and two children. So I said, family could be two parents and two children, could be one adult and one child, could be multi-generational, could be friends who are roommates. So it’s just as important to think about your input and the bias that you have.

Monica Holt: That’s great. You mentioned doing research and comparing research that is field specific to some of the research and standards that are being talked about at large. I know that when I am talking with folks across the industry at all levels of any organization, there is still some discomfort around the principles and the ethics as we chatted about just now, but there are also others who are gung-ho and want to incorporate as much as they can, but they don’t know where to start. I know that in the Marketing AI Institute and Smarter X State of Marketing Report that I think you were using in your research too, even in that broader wide world out there, we know that 80% of respondents say that AI is critically or very important to the success of marketing, but over 50% are also identifying that there needs to be more training, education, and awareness. So I’d love to hear what you were hearing from the field or how that compared to other sectors at large that you’ve been looking at. I think we’re all really interested to know the state of affairs from your point of view.

Jen Taylor: Yeah, we were really thrilled with the response we had to our survey. We heard back from over a hundred arts leaders and marketers across the country, and it wasn’t just one type of organization. We had a representative mix of disciplines and a near even split by budget size.

Monica Holt: Wow.

Jen Taylor: Most of the respondents were department head or manager level. So we really heard back from the people doing the work. What I’ve heard, which you alluded to, is that it is clear that everyone is really at the beginning of its AI journey, and that journey is defined by a really strong mix of curiosity and caution. The vast majority over half classify themselves in either curiosity or understanding. They’re just starting to explore or learn the fundamentals. Another quarter are actively experimenting. That leaves just a really small fraction, about 8%, who are truly integrating AI into their daily workflows. So for most, this is a period of initial, often unstructured experimentation — people trying out tools like ChatGPT for tasks like drafting copy, but it’s not yet part of their strategy.

Monica Holt: And do you think that’s where a lot of the focus was in the feedback around kind of gen AI and content creation, or were people thinking also in other buckets and more broadly?

Jen Taylor: That’s exactly right. So for half of the teams who are using AI, the number one application, like you said, is content creation and copywriting. I think this really shows a task-based approach, kind of using the tool to plug a hole rather than a broader strategic implementation. It points directly to the biggest challenge that these teams face, which is resourcing. It’s a direct response to that most common refrain we hear: teams are a one-person show or they have a high volume of work and not enough staff, so they’re using AI as a way to claw back time.

Monica Holt: It’s not surprising to hear that, but it is a little heartbreaking. Can I say that? That we are still stuck in that scarcity mindset that I feel like has persisted in the field for quite a bit of time now. So hopefully as we emerge with these new tools, still staying people-centric but further empowered by the tools in front of them and a new way of thinking that can help us emerge out of that and thinking more abundantly on the whole. Were your assumptions before the survey in alignment with what you received or was there anything surprising that came out of the survey feedback?

Jen Taylor: I expected a lot of skepticism, and I did see that, but ultimately what really stood out was how many people were curious or even excited. When we asked about general attitudes, we found that 50% more respondents expressed positive sentiment than skepticism. I was really excited and surprised to see that.

Monica Holt: That’s surprising, but that’s wonderful to hear. I love hearing people being open to the kind of next steps and evolution. I am curious if there was one top takeaway from the survey specifically, what would that be for you?

Jen Taylor: I think ultimately what stood out to me was that really powerful tension. People are desperate for more time and support, and they do see AI as a potential solution, but they’re also holding these real concerns about what makes arts human. So there’s a tension that we have to navigate about getting the most value out of something, but also being true to your values and your mission.

Monica Holt: How do you think the marketing use cases align beyond nonprofit arts and culture? So obviously we’ve talked about resources and I think we’ve always been aware of, is there a lag in nonprofit marketing culture versus corporate marketing culture? And that’s naturally going to happen just because of scale, but do you think there are other reasons for differences between those industries or do you think it’s more similar than we think?

Jen Taylor: Yeah, so you mentioned the 2025 State of Marketing AI Report earlier, and I did use that to kind of see where our sector fell compared to general marketers, and three things really stood out to me. The first is that general marketers have more guardrails. We found that 38% of them work at companies with formal AI policies, and that compares to just 14% in our art focused survey. That’s a really big gap in organizational readiness. The second thing I noticed is that each group is worried about a very different kind of risk. While arts marketers are focused on mission risk and protecting that authentic brand identity, general marketers are more concerned with competitive risk, being left behind by the rapid pace of change and the threat of job displacement. But interestingly, they both share the same practical barrier. Despite the different anxieties, both groups call out lack of education and training as one of the biggest hurdles to successful adoption.

Monica Holt: It’s really interesting to hear just that difference in the ethics values piece. Again, something assumed, but I think having the data back it up makes a lot of sense. But we all suffer when we aren’t getting the grounding and education that we need to move things forward in a sophisticated, thoughtful, and meaningful way for our companies and our field. So it’s exciting that we now have this data. And that kind of leads me to the big question, which is, you’ve processed this survey data, so tell us what’s next. What should folks, no matter where they are on an org chart, what should they be thinking about? How are they empowering themselves as they work to empower their organization?

Jen Taylor: There are a bunch of things, but the ones that really rise to the top, again, everyone across both our survey and the general marketing survey called out lack of training and education. So AI literacy, understanding what these tools are, what they can actually do, and figuring out how they can help you with your specific role. You don’t need to be a tech expert, but you do need to understand enough to be a critical, confident user. I also think it’s important to remember that you are the expert. AI is a really powerful technology, but you own the input and you review the output. Being the expert in your field gives you that advantage, even working with AI as a partner. But also because we’re in the arts, I think those guardrails are really important. So if your company doesn’t have a policy in place, I recommend pushing for that so that you understand what’s comfortable both for you and the organization that you’re working in.

Monica Holt: I think the policy piece is so important, and I’ll just share that that is something that last summer at the Center we started working on, and I think the reason I would also advocate for that is that it was a good way to also bring people together from different parts of the organization. So we had committed to, it wasn’t going to be a policy that was driven only through the IT department or only through the executive team. It was going to be an IT policy that was crafted by participants and stakeholders from across the organization so that we could really imbue the values, not just for one particular type of usage, so not just for marketing or development, but also incorporating some of those artistic values and tent poles that we wanted to see driving policy as well. So definitely share that encouragement for the field that folks should be as a team working together towards what that looks like.

Jen Taylor: Yeah. Well, it makes me think about how we thought about the AI vision for Capacity Interactive. I obviously did the first draft of the policy and I was really conscious about grounding it in Capacity’s mission. But rather than kind of take that first draft and say, ‘Okay, here we go,’ I sent a survey out to the entire internal team to get their thoughts and feedback on, what in this policy aligns with your beliefs? What do you agree with? What do you disagree with? And it did a couple of things. First, it meant that everybody had input, and it ultimately gave us a stronger, better policy that we can all get behind.

Monica Holt: That’s right. Always better to have more minds than just one, right? That’s always a way to win. So we’ve talked a little bit about what you think folks’ immediate next steps should be in terms of literacy and policymaking for their organizations. As you read the survey results, what did you then decide to start working on for the field in this role at Capacity?

Jen Taylor: Yeah, it really helped me think through two direct offerings to arts and culture marketers. Really administrators. I say marketers because I’m a marketer, but this offering is for anyone in the artistic world. One is a full consultancy and that really is the chance for me to come in and help make sure everyone is up to speed on literacy, help you shape your policy, we do a full evaluation of what the opportunities are — again, those day-to-day tactical opportunities and those bigger goal-driven opportunities — to output a list of 10 to 75 opportunities that all get tied to business impact, prioritized, agreed upon, and then implemented. We also have, for people not quite ready for that level of engagement or commitment, a toolkit. And that toolkit is available directly in ChatGPT on our landing page. Once you sign up, there’s links to each tool, and once you click and open it from that point on, it will be directly in ChatGPT where you use it.

These tools offer a myriad of different opportunities. Things like, I don’t know what my call to action should be. Here’s the one I’ve used in the last 15 times I sent an email. What can I try this time? And you can iterate on it. So unlike a standard tool that outputs one thing, you can then guide it based on tone, based on length, based on a myriad of different things, and we’re going to continue to expand the toolkit and hold regular AMAs so that people can ask me questions and I can help them with anything that they need.

Monica Holt: It’s so interesting. I’m excited to see more folks adopt those and what the outputs are. I heard you mention the other day that you were working on a project with San Francisco Symphony about voice and tone, and I’d love for you to share a little bit about that. I was very excited when you were talking about this.

Jen Taylor: Yeah, I think it’s a great example of a custom project. So the San Francisco Symphony has done some work with our content team around best practices and tone of voice for their brand. So I have this amazing output, which is a voice and tone guide for the San Francisco Symphony. So what I’ve done is I have built a custom GPT specifically for the San Francisco Symphony. This tool knows everything about the Symphony’s brand and tone, and within that document is also 11 target audiences that the organization should be speaking to regularly.

Monica Holt: This is so cool.

Jen Taylor: It’s really cool. So in addition to knowing the brand and tone of the organization, it understands marketing placements, so it knows what an organic Facebook post is. It knows what an email blast is, it knows what a web blurb is. So the people at the organization can go into the tool and do one of two things. They can click a button and say, okay, I want you to write me copy. You share background and context. It asks you if you have a target audience. It asks you what the platform is, and then it creates the copy for that specific placement or all of the placements. You can say, I want every placement you have, or if you have something that you’ve already written and you want feedback to make sure that aligns with the voice and the tone and speaks to the right audience, you can click give me feedback. You can share what you’ve written, what the platform is, what the target audience is, and it will give you all the details on, here are some things that are working really well, here are some things that you might want to consider and here’s why.

Monica Holt: I mean, that’s exactly the type of thing, and as you said at the end, it still will come from humans reviewing the output and making sure that everything’s in alignment, but what a nice efficiency and kind of that middle sector of doing some of the churning through the work to make sure that everything’s in alignment for the technical needs too.

Jen Taylor: Yeah, I like to think about them as accelerators. So I teach you how to prompt. You could prompt everything I build you fresh each time, but rather than thinking through all the needs of a prompt, I get to build these tools that accelerate the process. You understand how they work, you know what it knows, and then you add the piece that it needs to do the thing.

Monica Holt: I love that. What generally is one common myth or misconception about AI, particularly AI in marketing, that you love to just bust and say, that’s just not the case. It’s just been perpetuated by people saying it over and over again.

Jen Taylor: This is an easy one. The myth that I want to bust is that if everyone uses AI, all marketing will sound the same. The survey shows us that our field is already deeply concerned with brand voice and authenticity. So this is where your expertise is more critical than ever. If you use lazy prompts without a clear perspective or knowledge of your audience, you will get a generic response. But if your inputs are thoughtful, it will generate nuanced, non-generic outputs. The tool doesn’t replace your expertise, it amplifies it. So if you’re feeling overwhelmed, just remember the data shows that you’re not alone. Almost everyone is at the starting line. Just be thoughtful and try something. Evaluate what you get back and just try again. Keep on going.

Monica Holt: Remember this: Try. Right? That’s what we’re going for here. Well, before we get to our CI to Eye moment, I would love to just take a culture pulse with you for a quick second. One of the things that I’ve talked about coming on the podcast this season and hosting and introducing folks into the Capacity Interactive world and vice versa is also just finding joy in what we’re doing, what we’re learning, and what each of us might be identifying with at the moment. So I have a few quickfire culture questions for you. The very first of which is: what’s one piece of culture that you’re currently obsessing over?

Jen Taylor: Well, my answer is Monster from the Broadway version of Frozen because my three-year-old owns the dial and she is well on her way to being an arts and culture fan.

Monica Holt: So that’s obsessing by proxy, right? She is obsessing over it and therefore you are forced to obsess over it.

Jen Taylor: But I will say my favorite piece of theater that I’ve seen recently is definitely, it was just at the Donmar Warehouse, and I think it was called The Fear of 13. It was fantastic. Adrian Brody was in it, and it followed a court case that I was not familiar with. So not only did it have a really engaging, interesting story, but the way in which the story was told was extremely unique, and I was hooked from the beginning and in it the whole time.

Monica Holt: Sounds amazing. Who or what is inspiring you right now?

Jen Taylor: I’m going to pick a company, the company Punch Drunk. I’m a really big fan of Sleep No More. I saw it when it first came to New York, and I recently saw Viola’s Room. They are really masters at turning passive audiences into active explorers, and I’m here for it.

Monica Holt: Love that answer. Okay. What is one free resource that you think everyone would benefit from checking out?

Jen Taylor: Anthropic’s AI Fluency course. It was released about a month ago, and it is the clearest, most ethics-first primer that I’ve seen.

Monica Holt: Great. I’m going to Google that right after this. Okay, and here it is, your CI to Eye moment. If you could broadcast one message to executive directors, leadership teams, staffs, boards of directors across thousands of arts organizations, what would that message be?

Jen Taylor: AI isn’t a threat to your mission. It’s the next chapter of your toolkit. Train your team in ethical AI usage to find efficiency at the tactical and strategic level.

Monica Holt: Well said, and taken to heart. Thank you so much, Jen Taylor, for your time today.

Jen Taylor: Thank you for having me.

Monica Holt: Thank you for listening to CI to Eye with Monica Holt. If you enjoyed today’s conversation, please take a moment to rate us or leave a review. A nice comment goes a long way in helping other people discover the show and hear from leaders in the arts and beyond. If you haven’t already, please click the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. We’ve got some pretty incredible episodes coming your way, and I wouldn’t want you to miss them. This episode was edited and produced by Karen McConarty and co-written by Karen McConarty and myself, Monica Holt. Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are our incredible designers and video editors. Our music is by whoisuzo. Don’t forget to follow CI on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok for regular content to help you market smarter. You can also sign up for CI’s newsletter at capacityinteractive.com and you’ll never miss an update, and you can always reach out to let us know who you’d like to hear next from on CI to Eye.