There are no dumb questions when it comes to AI, says Accenture Song’s CTO

“You just look at the timeline of AI, right? It’s like a rocket ship. It was established as an academic discipline in 1959, but when Google released the Transformer algorithm in 2017, that changed everything. OpenAI began releasing product in 2021. Then, in November 2022, ChatGPT shocked the world. Since then, the acceleration has been absolutely nonstop.”

As the Detroit-based chief technology officer at Accenture Song and president of the Digital Experience judging panel at The Drum Awards Festival this year, Garrison exists at that critical intersection of tech innovation and business transformation.

Garrison, who joined Accenture almost three decades ago as a developer, says he has stayed the course not by playing it safe but by constantly evolving. His career has spanned from delivery roles to leading major client engagements and now overseeing both customer tech and delivery as CTO of one of the largest agency networks in the world, working with global brands such as Vodafone, Gatorade, HBO, Spotify, Prada and many more.

“I could be talking deep tech in the morning and then giving a primer on AI or quantum computing to a C-level client in the afternoon,” he says, highlighting the breadth of his role today. “That means being able to communicate to a bunch of very different audiences. Having a degree of cognitive empathy to say, ‘OK, we need to do a primer for this client who admits that they have been tracking, but do not understand the tech to the degree that they need to.’ And so I will do everything from presenting to entire client teams – 30 or 40 people they pulled into a session – or I might have a one-on-one with a C-level exec who just wants to ask what people might call ‘dumb questions’. There are no dumb questions. This stuff is complex.”

So, what makes a good CTO in 2025? Garrison believes the role demands agility, empathy and the ability to fuse creativity with technology.

“You can’t go after CMO challenges simply as a tech project. You can’t even just look at it as a marketing project. You need someone who majors in technology but minors in creativity. That is a huge differentiator. It’s why Accenture created Interactive in the past and why Song exists today. Because we fully recognize that the fusion of creative, strategy and technology is absolutely essential. And when that chemistry exists, whether in a single person or across a team, it results in work that is truly different.”

Within Accenture Song, that fusion is driving how teams are built, tools are selected and workflows are reimagined. Garrison is particularly focused on how AI agents and human staff can work in tandem.

“We’re asking questions like, do our practitioners have the right AI tools to do their jobs? What do the workflows look like that string these tools together? How are we building hybrid teams with agents participating in new and exciting ways to amplify the work of humans? And beyond that, how are we changing methodologies, tools, structures, roles and the skills themselves? It’s all in motion. We’re rewiring how we deliver and the velocity at which this is happening is unlike anything I’ve seen during my career.”

Culture, he says, is ultimately what allows Accenture Song to keep up with today’s pace of change. And Accenture is certainly no stranger to change.

“We actually get real jittery if we don’t have a major organizational restructuring every few years,” he jokes. “I used to kind of poke fun at our company for being like that and then I realized that it’s just part of our muscle memory. We preach to clients that they need to pivot, innovate and change. We use different brandings over the years to describe these concepts, but the idea is consistent – no organization can afford to become stale and static right now. The world is changing too fast. So that includes Accenture, that includes Song.”

As the president of the Digital Experience jury for The Drum Awards Festival 2025, Garrison says he is excited to see work that reflects the pace and creativity of this evolving moment.

“Those ‘I wish I’d thought of that’ moments are huge for me. They’re emotionally resonant. I’m excited to see unconventional approaches, new ways that teams are solving business problems. Especially when they’re doing it quickly. I want to see what teams with constraints have come up with. I want to see small upstarts and risky work for big brands. Both are challenging in their own ways. And I want to see defensible results. Like, is the business value of this thing super clear? That’s the kind of work that excites me.”

Beyond judging, he sees judging awards and the many hours invested reading and appraising the submitted case studies as a personal and professional learning opportunity.

“It helps me as a CTO to see the challenges that are universal and timeless and also those that are uniquely specific to this moment. Sometimes I see entries and they’re solving problems I didn’t even realize the world had. But once I see the solution, I’m like, ‘Yeah, that makes perfect sense.’ It’s a chance for me to take a breath, step back and look at things through a different lens. And it sparks my imagination not just for today, but for where things are headed. And that’s critical, because now it’s no longer about what the world will look like in 12 or 24 months. It’s what it will look like in three.”

Garrison’s message to agencies is clear: if you’re not blending creativity, strategy and tech with curiosity at the core, you’re playing catch-up.

“The fusion of creativity, strategy and tech isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s the difference between being a follower and being a leader.”