Member since August 2026
Lisa Peyton helps communicators use AI responsibly, creatively, and with purpose. She is full-time faculty at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication, where she developed and teaches the school's first AI fundamentals course for communications students, and she teaches AI-powered social media strategy at Wake Forest University. She authored "Embracing the Future: Generative AI's Transformation of Strategic Communications Education and Practice," an industry report funded by the Dean's office that examines how AI is changing both professional practice and how the field is taught.
Outside the classroom, Lisa advises CMOs and marketing teams at B2B tech and SaaS companies, runs the Strategic AI Marketing & Communications Lab on Maven, and hosts a monthly advanced AI meetup for content marketers. Her client work includes AI-driven strategy for Intel and Microsoft, including the Art of AI Experience, a hybrid virtual and in-person exhibit that engaged thousands of Microsoft Ignite attendees.
She writes for Forbes and MarTech.org as a Forbes Communications Council member and has spoken at PRSA ICON, Cannes Lions, Augmented World Expo, and the MarketingProfs webinar series. She holds a Master of Arts in Media Psychology and a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Professor. Practitioner. Pioneer.
I'm equal parts technologist, educator, and strategist, and the topic that lights me up sits where those three meet.
I've always leaned into the next frontier, from AR and VR at Intel to the AI art exhibit we built with Microsoft that drew thousands of people at Ignite. Right now that frontier is AI, and what I care about most is what it does for the humans on both ends of a campaign. Technology at its best educates, entertains, and connects us, and AI can help communicators understand their audiences and reach them with something that feels human.
I love teaching. Watching a student or a working professional go from wary to fluent in a single session is the best part of my week. And I'm a data person at heart, so the strategies I get most excited about are the ones that start with research and end with a number that moved.
AI brings the knowledge. We bring the wisdom.
At Intel I was handed a persona named Small Business Sofia, a $250,000 budget, and a mandate to make the brand relevant to women running small businesses on Intel laptops. It was right after the 2016 election, and the message in the air was that women weren't built for business. I wanted Intel to say the opposite, out loud. That became #SheOwnsIt.
We filmed cinematic interviews with four women business owners across the country, paired each with a long-form story by an award-winning writer, and ran one of the first B2B influencer programs on Social Native. Real women posted their own stories with their Intel laptops in frame, and we republished the best of it on Intel's channels. Instagram was the community hub, and since nobody had budget to respond to the women sharing their stories, I answered every one myself.
The fight was over a second track. Leadership wanted one campaign aimed at women. I pushed for another aimed at the sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers who were proud of the women in their lives. Plenty of people questioned it. Then a son posted a photo of his mom at her desk on Mother's Day, grinning, and it became the most shared post of the whole program. We had it on Intel's channels within 48 hours.
The campaign reached millions of women. Tens of thousands created their own content. Cost per click came in below every Intel benchmark to date, and it drove to a landing page that sold laptops, which was the point.
I pushed hard to ship it when I did, over a lot of "why the hurry." The next quarter, a mandate came down that would have made a campaign like this impossible. If I'd waited, it never would have existed.
The window for meaningful work is almost always narrower than it looks. Conviction and timing are the whole job.
I was a shy kid with real social anxiety. Then AOL chat rooms arrived, and I took to them the way a duck takes to water, because for the first time I had a safe place to connect with people.
That's been the engine of my whole career. Find the newest technology and use it to bring people together. It started with chat rooms, moved through websites and the first wave of social media (I was getting clients onto Twitter before most agencies had heard of it), ran through AR, VR, and the metaverse, and now it's AI. Thirty years, one throughline.
Teaching found me sideways. I started leading Pilates and spin classes because I thought I could do it better than my own instructors, and I fell in love with teaching on the spot. That led me to Portland State's digital marketing program, where I audited the cornerstone course, befriended the instructor, and eventually inherited the class. I taught in that program for nearly a decade and picked up branding and marketing workshops at the University of Oregon along the way.
A fellow Portland State instructor, Brian Rhodes, called one day to say he had a job for me. It was global social media strategist at Intel. Best decision of my life. That's where #SheOwnsIt happened, where I traveled the world doing the work, and where I became a better strategist and a better teacher.
Today I'm full-time faculty at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication and I teach AI-powered social media strategy and visual content production in Wake Forest's digital marketing master's program. Everything I learn in industry goes straight to my students.
The shy kid who found her voice in a chat room now teaches marketers how to use AI to connect with people. The technology keeps changing. The reason for using it never has.
Best for: PR, communications, and corporate reputation teams. Format: 45 minute virtual session or panel.
AI engines describe your organization by pulling from a short list of sources they trust: news coverage, review sites, industry publications, community threads. Communications teams already know how to earn coverage in those places. This session shows how to see which sources the engines cite in your category, where your organization shows up and where competitors do, and how to fold that source pool into the media and content plan you already run. Built from Lisa Peyton's client research and her years leading global social strategy at Intel.
Takeaways:
Best for: marketing and communications leaders. Format: 45 to 60 minute virtual session.
When a buyer asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Copilot for a recommendation in your category, the engines already have an answer about your brand. This session gives marketing and communications leaders a method for reading that answer and turning it into a plan they can take to leadership. Lisa Peyton walks through three reads she uses with clients (buyer journey, market maturity, and citation source pool) using real prompts and real engine responses. Attendees leave with a way to size what AI search means for their brand this year and a roadmap template they can start on the same week.
Takeaways:
A free monthly session where Lisa tests the newest AI models and tools against real marketing tasks, live. Model bake-offs, workflow demos, and open Q&A with a community of practitioners. Third Friday of the month, 60 minutes, recorded.
Learn More
The self-paced course for content marketers who want to use AI strategically, from research to results. 45 lessons, hands-on projects, and one live event. Gain access to all learning content immediately. Embark on a transformative journey that wil
Enroll Now – Limited SeatsAt Intel I was handed a persona named Small Business Sofia, a $250,000 budget, and a mandate to make the brand relevant to women running small businesses on Intel laptops. It was right after the 2016 election, and the message in the air was that women weren't built for business. I wanted Intel to say the opposite, out loud. That became #SheOwnsIt.
We filmed cinematic interviews with four women business owners across the country, paired each with a long-form story by an award-winning writer, and ran one of the first B2B influencer programs on Social Native. Real women posted their own stories with their Intel laptops in frame, and we republished the best of it on Intel's channels. Instagram was the community hub, and since nobody had budget to respond to the women sharing their stories, I answered every one myself.
The fight was over a second track. Leadership wanted one campaign aimed at women. I pushed for another aimed at the sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers who were proud of the women in their lives. Plenty of people questioned it. Then a son posted a photo of his mom at her desk on Mother's Day, grinning, and it became the most shared post of the whole program. We had it on Intel's channels within 48 hours.
The campaign reached millions of women. Tens of thousands created their own content. Cost per click came in below every Intel benchmark to date, and it drove to a landing page that sold laptops, which was the point.
I pushed hard to ship it when I did, over a lot of "why the hurry." The next quarter, a mandate came down that would have made a campaign like this impossible. If I'd waited, it never would have existed.
The window for meaningful work is almost always narrower than it looks. Conviction and timing are the whole job.
I was a shy kid with real social anxiety. Then AOL chat rooms arrived, and I took to them the way a duck takes to water, because for the first time I had a safe place to connect with people.
That's been the engine of my whole career. Find the newest technology and use it to bring people together. It started with chat rooms, moved through websites and the first wave of social media (I was getting clients onto Twitter before most agencies had heard of it), ran through AR, VR, and the metaverse, and now it's AI. Thirty years, one throughline.
Teaching found me sideways. I started leading Pilates and spin classes because I thought I could do it better than my own instructors, and I fell in love with teaching on the spot. That led me to Portland State's digital marketing program, where I audited the cornerstone course, befriended the instructor, and eventually inherited the class. I taught in that program for nearly a decade and picked up branding and marketing workshops at the University of Oregon along the way.
A fellow Portland State instructor, Brian Rhodes, called one day to say he had a job for me. It was global social media strategist at Intel. Best decision of my life. That's where #SheOwnsIt happened, where I traveled the world doing the work, and where I became a better strategist and a better teacher.
Today I'm full-time faculty at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication and I teach AI-powered social media strategy and visual content production in Wake Forest's digital marketing master's program. Everything I learn in industry goes straight to my students.
The shy kid who found her voice in a chat room now teaches marketers how to use AI to connect with people. The technology keeps changing. The reason for using it never has.
Best for: PR, communications, and corporate reputation teams. Format: 45 minute virtual session or panel.
AI engines describe your organization by pulling from a short list of sources they trust: news coverage, review sites, industry publications, community threads. Communications teams already know how to earn coverage in those places. This session shows how to see which sources the engines cite in your category, where your organization shows up and where competitors do, and how to fold that source pool into the media and content plan you already run. Built from Lisa Peyton's client research and her years leading global social strategy at Intel.
Takeaways:
Best for: marketing and communications leaders. Format: 45 to 60 minute virtual session.
When a buyer asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Copilot for a recommendation in your category, the engines already have an answer about your brand. This session gives marketing and communications leaders a method for reading that answer and turning it into a plan they can take to leadership. Lisa Peyton walks through three reads she uses with clients (buyer journey, market maturity, and citation source pool) using real prompts and real engine responses. Attendees leave with a way to size what AI search means for their brand this year and a roadmap template they can start on the same week.
Takeaways: