Discover how Brand Networks uses AIMY to power AI-driven learning—turning every marketing action into a smarter, faster, more connected experience.
In today’s hyper-digital world, technology alone doesn’t drive results understanding does. That truth sits at the heart of Brand Networks’ success and forms the focus of the latest Training Impact Podcast conversation between Jeff Walter, CEO of LatitudeLearning, and Josh Gelfat, Vice President of Marketing at Brand Networks.
The discussion is a fascinating look at how one of the industry’s most innovative marketing technology companies is using education, empowerment, and empathy to help organizations navigate a complex digital landscape.
Gelfat’s career has taken him from creative agencies like Dentsu to major media players like BuzzFeed and Twitter. Each stop deepened his appreciation for the one element that never changes: people learn best when they understand why something matters. At Brand Networks, he’s applying that philosophy to marketing technology itself transforming software into a teaching tool that builds both capability and confidence.
When Brand Networks was founded in 2007, it was among the first to tackle the chaos of multi-platform social advertising. Global brands needed a better way to manage campaigns across Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and beyond. The company’s early mission was to simplify that complexity to make digital marketing scalable and measurable.
But as the platforms matured, the challenge shifted. It wasn’t just about managing campaigns anymore; it was about helping people understand them. “Tools can automate tasks,” Gelfat explains, “but people still need to know why those tasks matter. Our goal is to teach them to think like marketers.”
That perspective reshaped the company’s design philosophy. Instead of separating software from training, Brand Networks began embedding learning directly into the product experience. Every tool now comes with contextual guidance, explainers, and AI-powered coaching that turns each action into a microlearning moment. Users don’t just do marketing they learn it as they go.
One of the podcast’s standout moments is Gelfat’s description of how learning happens “in the flow of work.” When a user sets an audience radius, the platform explains why geography affects cost. When they adjust budgets, it visualizes how results might change. Each click becomes a lesson in cause and effect.
Jeff Walter draws a clear connection to the LatitudeLearning Training Program Roadmap, where Stage 2 (Knowledge Acquisition) and Stage 3 (Skill Development) emphasize building understanding through practice. Brand Networks’ systems follow that same pattern turning every workflow into a training experience.
For organizations trying to scale capability across thousands of learners or locations, this model is gold. It removes friction, builds fluency, and accelerates adoption of the same principles that underpin effective extended enterprise learning.
Beyond the platform itself, Brand Networks has built one of the most creative internal learning frameworks in the marketing industry.
Their “Be an Influencer” program, which began as a project with Walmart, allows employees to become authentic brand advocates. Using preapproved templates and creative guidance, team members create content that reflects both the brand’s voice and their personal perspective.
The outcome isn’t just more local content, it’s more confident employees who learn the fundamentals of storytelling, communication, and design. As Walter notes in the episode, it’s a striking parallel to “learner-generated content” in training programs, where employees teach and reinforce lessons for one another.
Brand Networks uses automation and AI to ensure that all content stays compliant with brand standards, turning the platform into both a learning environment and a governance system.
Gelfat sums it up well: “When people understand the story behind the brand, they tell it better.”
One of Brand Networks’ most exciting recent innovations is AIMY, a conversational AI assistant built to help small businesses and franchise operators run digital advertising like seasoned professionals.
AIMY guides users step by step through creating and managing ads across Meta, Google, YouTube, and streaming channels. But unlike most AI tools, AIMY doesn’t just execute tasks it explains them.
Ask how to promote a weekend event, and AIMY not only creates an ad but also teaches why a particular audience or format will work best. For small business owners without a marketing background, AIMY becomes a personal tutor, translating enterprise-level strategy into everyday language.
“Our mission,” Gelfat says, “is to give every business the power to advertise effectively without needing to be a marketing expert. Education is how we level the playing field.”
That sentiment aligns perfectly with the Training Impact philosophy: that technology and training are inseparable when it comes to sustainable growth.
The most effective training programs don’t stop at the customer level they begin inside the organization.
At Brand Networks, learning is as much an internal discipline as an external feature. Gelfat describes weekly “cross-pollination” meetings where marketing, data, and engineering teams share insights from client challenges. Those conversations often spark new training content or product improvements.
New hires experience a learning journey that blends company history, product simulation, and storytelling practice. The result is a workforce that speaks a shared language — where creative teams understand analytics, data teams understand brand voice, and everyone sees their role in the bigger mission.
The company’s culture embodies the Surefire Training Impact™ principle that “everyone teaches, everyone learns.”
Walter and Gelfat’s conversation holds deep implications for training professionals. Brand Networks’ model demonstrates how learning can become part of the product itself not an add-on or afterthought.
Instead of asking users to leave their workflow to find answers, Brand Networks brings the answers to them, embedded in the moment of need. It’s a design philosophy that L&D leaders can apply to everything from onboarding to franchise certification.
As Walter notes, “Brand Networks doesn’t just automate marketing it builds confidence.”
That mindset mirrors what the best extended enterprise training programs strive for: empowering partners, employees, and customers to perform with clarity and purpose.
At the end of the conversation, Gelfat offers a reflection that ties marketing and learning together beautifully: “Your technology should never replace curiosity it should reward it.”
It’s a reminder that the goal of both marketing and training isn’t just to deliver outcomes; it’s to build relationships. Whether those relationships are between brands and consumers or between trainers and learners, they thrive on understanding.
Brand Networks proves that the future of business success lies in turning information into education and transactions into transformation.
🎧 Listen to the full Training Impact Podcast episode with Josh Gelfat to hear how Brand Networks is reshaping digital marketing through human learning. “Creating Connection Through Content: The Brand Networks Approach”
📘 Read the companion case study, “Creating Connection Through Content: The Brand Networks Approach,” for a deeper look at how their learning framework aligns with the LatitudeLearning Training Program Roadmap.
🌐 Learn more about Brand Networks at https://bn.co/
See for yourself what makes LatitudeLearning stand out. Free 30-day trial includes:
