# Inference

> A marketing practice for the AI rebuild. Publication, products, and consulting from Thom Cummings — strategy and systems for teams serious about scaling what actually works.

Base URL: https://thisisinference.com/
Founder: Thom Cummings (Brighton, UK)
Contact: hi@thomcummings.com

---

## Home — https://thisisinference.com/

### Hero

# inference.
*build smarter marketing systems*

### Substack CTA

Follow along with weekly annotations. (Substack subscribe form: https://annotationsbyinference.substack.com)

### The thesis — Marketing is being rebuilt from the ground up.

AI didn't add a layer to marketing. It's rebuilding every layer underneath, faster than ever. But faster isn't better — it just scales whatever you already had. Good strategy scales beautifully. Bad strategy scales — and compounds. Most teams are bolting Claude onto a stack that was never designed for it.

Inference is a practice for that rebuild at the intersection of strategy and systems. Craft and speed, combined with pattern matching you can't prompt for. I help companies build marketing systems that are worth scaling — positioning, growth architecture, operational infrastructure — so when AI accelerates everything, it's accelerating something good.

Built on 20 years of building marketing engines at some of Europe's fastest-growing startups — SoundCloud, Grover, Pitch, Prolific. Now collaborating with teams rebuilding their strategy and GTM into systems that hold up to what's coming next.

— Thom Cummings, Founder, Inference

### The publication — annotations

Weekly guides, tool breakdowns, and field notes from the frontline of implementing smarter marketing systems.

- Weekly writing on AI-native marketing in practice
- Guides and tool breakdowns you can actually use
- Paid subscribers unlock the Blueprints library

→ Read: https://thisisinference.com/annotations

### The products — blueprints

Standalone marketing systems that rebuild each layer of an AI-native stack. Use them one at a time, or combine them into a full system.

- Real, working systems — not templates or playbooks
- Multi-layered workflows tested in live environments
- Buy individually, or subscribe on Substack for the full suite

→ Browse: https://thisisinference.com/blueprints

### The consulting — collaborations

You need a CMO... just not every day. Fractional or project-based collaborations to get your marketing up to speed.

- Fractional CMO — embedded marketing leadership
- Blueprint Implementation — adapt Inference modules to your stack
- Sprints, coaching, and workshops for targeted wins

→ Work together: https://thisisinference.com/collabs

### Trusted by

Prolific · Pitch · Grover · SoundCloud · Radicle · CareerFoundry · Betfair

### CTA — let's talk.

We'll dig into where your marketing stands, where the gaps are, and whether working together makes sense. No pitch, no pressure.

→ Book a call: https://calendar.app.google/x4srBeZZxPu5jGkLA

---

## About — https://thisisinference.com/about

# Hi, I'm Thom Cummings

I've spent 20+ years building and leading marketing at tech companies — from early stage through to scale. SoundCloud, Grover, Pitch, and most recently Prolific, driving 10-100x growth and building world-class brands.

Inference is my practice. It sits at the intersection of marketing strategy, systems thinking, and AI — the three things I believe will define the next era of how companies grow.

I write about what I'm learning as I rebuild my own practice with AI (annotations), build marketing systems as products (blueprints), and work directly with companies navigating this shift (collaborations).

Based in Brighton, UK.

### Say hello.

Always happy to meet people thinking about marketing, AI, and systems.

- Email: hi@thomcummings.com
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/thomcummings

---

## Annotations — https://thisisinference.com/annotations

# annotations

*The publication.*

Weekly guides, tool breakdowns, and field notes from the frontline of implementing smarter marketing systems. Subscribe on Substack for exclusive writing and access to the Blueprints library.

### Featured writing

**A central hub for AI-native teams** — *April 2026, coming soon*
Teams using AI are often dealing with fragmentation, context drift, and version control issues. The missing piece of the puzzle is a centralised context hub, powered by a private MCP server. This is the guide to the latest Inference Blueprint.

**Positioning is a system, not a statement** — *April 2026, coming soon*
Positioning work used to be a workshop and a set of slides. Often it stopped there. Here's what it looks like when you treat it as living infrastructure that actually influences product, sales, and marketing.

**AI didn't change marketing. It exposed it.** — *April 2026, coming soon*
The gap between teams that had real strategy and those that had volume dressed up as strategy? AI made that visible overnight.

### Don't miss one.

New annotations land every week. → Subscribe: https://annotationsbyinference.substack.com

---

## Blueprints — https://thisisinference.com/blueprints

# blueprints

*The products.*

Each blueprint is a standalone marketing system rebuilding a specific layer of an AI-native stack. They work as individual modules or combine effectively as a complete system.

Available to buy one-off or subscribe to my Substack for access to the full suite.

### Available systems

**01. Marketing Audit** — *Coming soon*
A full-system assessment of your marketing maturity across 6 broad categories and over 25 sub-topics — from brand and positioning through to demand generation, content, analytics, and team capability. You'll get a scored breakdown of where you are today, a clear view of your biggest gaps, and a prioritised roadmap for what to fix first. Built so you can re-run it quarterly and track progress over time.

**02. Positioning Stack** — *Coming soon*
A complete system for discovering, validating, and operationalising your market position. Starting with competitive landscape analysis and customer research, through to a messaging architecture that gives every team — sales, marketing, product — a shared language for talking about what you do and why it matters. Includes interview guides, positioning canvases, and a testing framework so you can validate before you commit.

**03. Custom MCP Server** — *Coming soon*
A bespoke Model Context Protocol server purpose-built for your team. It encodes your brand guidelines, tone of voice, product context, competitive landscape, and institutional knowledge into a structured tool that any AI assistant can query. The result: your team's AI tools stop giving generic answers and start giving answers grounded in your reality. Includes setup, documentation, and a maintenance guide so your team can keep it current.

**04. Get Your Team Claude Ready** — *Coming soon*
Most teams adopt AI tools and hope for the best. This blueprint takes a different approach: it helps you collate your team's collective context — processes, brand voice, strategy docs, templates, tribal knowledge — and structures it into a clean, Claude-optimised hub of markdown files. The result is an AI that actually knows how your team works, what your standards are, and what good looks like. Includes a context audit framework, file structure templates, and a rollout guide for getting your whole team onboard.

**05. Brand Strategy** — *Coming soon*
Stop paying agencies six figures for brand strategy. This multi-step, multi-stakeholder model walks you through the entire process — from internal alignment workshops and audience research through to a brand platform, visual identity brief, and messaging framework your whole company can use. It's designed to involve the right people at the right moments, so what you build actually sticks. No fluff, no 80-page decks that sit in a drawer.

**06. Competitive Intelligence** — *Coming soon*
A monitoring and intelligence system that keeps your team informed without drowning them in noise. It sets up structured tracking across competitor websites, product updates, pricing changes, hiring patterns, and content strategy — then surfaces only the changes that actually matter. Includes alert frameworks, analysis templates, and a cadence for turning raw signals into strategic insight your team can act on.

**Bespoke — Need something different?**
Like what you see but need something tailored to your specific challenge? Let's build it together. → https://thisisinference.com/collabs

### Get early access.

Be the first to know when new blueprints ship. Subscribe for updates: https://annotationsbyinference.substack.com

### Frequently asked.

**What exactly is a blueprint?**
A blueprint is a module in a marketing system. It's not a template, not a playbook, but a real, working example that you can plug into your stack. It codifies best practice marketing strategy alongside AI-native workflows.

**Do I need technical skills to use them?**
Yes and no. Blueprints are designed for marketing leaders and operators and are built to be plug and play. However they require some knowledge of the AI-native marketing stack (Claude Code, Github, MCPs) but are easily learnable and come with implementation guides.

**Why are the blueprints not free?**
There are lots of skills and plugins available for free on Github or LinkedIn, true. Many are great and have become indispensable parts of my stack. Blueprints are a little different — they are complex, multi-layered workflows (almost mini apps) that have had hundreds of hours build time and, crucially, already tested in real world situations. They're available to buy individually but the best way to get them is to subscribe to my Substack.

**When will the first blueprints be available?**
Soon. The Marketing Audit and Custom MCP servers are in final polish mode.

**Can I use blueprints alongside a collaboration engagement?**
Absolutely. In fact, that's often the best way. Blueprints give your team the system; a collaboration engagement gives you the strategic guidance to implement it.

---

## Collaborations — https://thisisinference.com/collabs

# collaborations

*The consulting.*

You need a CMO... just not every day. Fractional or project-based collaborations to get your marketing up to speed.

### Four ways to collaborate.

**01. Fractional CMO** — *3-6 month engagements · 2-3 days/week*
Embedded marketing leadership for companies that need senior strategy without a full-time hire. I work inside your team — not as an outside consultant, but as your marketing leader.

**02. Blueprint Implementation**
Like what you've seen in the Blueprints but don't know where to start? Short-term projects to embed and adapt the Inference modules to your environment.

**03. Sprints** — *2-4 weeks · Fixed scope*
Intensive 2-4 week engagements focused on one specific pain point: nailing positioning, auditing your growth engine, hiring/team assessment.

**04. Coaching & Workshops** — *Ongoing or one-off · Remote or in-person*
For founders and marketing leaders navigating growth challenges and AI transformation. 1:1 coaching and workshops with someone who's been in the trenches multiple times.

### Frequently asked.

**What does fractional CMO actually mean?**
It means you get a senior marketing leader embedded in your team part-time. I attend standups, run strategy, and own outcomes — without the overhead of a full-time executive hire.

**How does the Blueprint implementation work?**
Using one of my Blueprints (such as custom MCP servers, content operating systems) as a starting point we'll work together to educate your team on how to work in this new way, adapt the context and workflows to your setup, and ensure a fully working system is in place for you to build upon.

**What kind of companies do you work with?**
Mostly B2B tech companies — from Series A through to growth stage. I've spent 15 years in the space across companies like SoundCloud, Pitch, and Grover, so that's where I do my best work.

**What's the minimum engagement length?**
Sprints and Blueprint implementations tend to be 4-6 weeks. Fractional CMO engagements start at 3 months. Coaching and workshops can be one-off or ongoing, whatever fits.

**How do I know which option is right for me?**
Book a call and we'll figure it out together. Most conversations make it obvious within 15 minutes. There's no pitch — just an honest assessment of whether and how I can help.

### Start with a conversation.

We'll dig into where your marketing stands, where the gaps are, and whether working together makes sense. No pitch, no pressure.

→ Book a call: https://calendar.app.google/x4srBeZZxPu5jGkLA

---

## Agent teams — https://thisisinference.com/agent-teams

# Marketing teams, rebuilt for the agent era.

*A new collaboration format under collabs — agent team design.*

A complete marketing team, designed and deployed in weeks — with agents in the right roles and humans where it counts. Built for founders who need a marketing team and marketing leads who need a bigger one.

Setup from £10k.

### The shift

The ground has shifted. Most marketing teams haven't caught up — not because the tools don't exist, but because nobody's designed the team around them. Agents aren't a layer you bolt on. They're a new kind of colleague, and they need the same thing any new hire needs: a role, a brief, a workflow, and someone who knows where they fit.

The gap isn't tools. You've heard of Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, Perplexity. But a tool isn't a team — and most companies are using these individually, without any architecture holding them together. The gap is knowing which agent handles what, how they hand off work, where the human stays in the loop, and what "good" looks like when an agent produces it.

That's org design. Every build draws on a tested library of agent configurations, skills, and workflow patterns — refined over hundreds of hours of real use. You're not paying for someone to figure this out from scratch. You're getting proven architectures, customised to your business.

### Who it's for

**The founder — your marketing team, off the shelf.**
For founders at seed to Series A who need a full marketing function but can't justify three hires. Full function from day one, a fraction of the cost of a single hire.

**The head of marketing — a force multiplier for your existing team.**
For marketing leads at scaling companies who need more output without more headcount. Hybrid org design — humans where they matter, multiplied output, same headcount.

### The process

**01. Deep immersion** — strategic intake of business, goals, market, and how people actually work day-to-day.
**02. Org design** — defining agent roles, skills, and handoffs, drawn from a library of proven configurations.
**03. Build and deploy** — choosing and configuring the right platform (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, or custom) and integrating with your existing tools (Slack, email, CMS, analytics).
**04. Test and iterate** — running the team on real work, identifying failure modes, tuning agent behaviours.

### What you get

- Fully configured agentic team — defined roles, briefs, and live workflows, operational from day one.
- Org architecture documentation — clear map of who does what, how agents interact, where humans stay in the loop.
- Integrations with your existing stack — Slack, email, CMS, analytics.
- Handover session — full walkthrough so you can operate and expand the system yourself.
- Human vs. agent clarity map.

### Pricing

A three-person marketing team costs £150–200k/year in salary alone — before tools, management overhead, and the months it takes to hire. We build yours in weeks.

- **Core — from £10k.** 3–4 agent roles (content, social, email, SEO), integrated with your existing tools, full org documentation and handover, 1 month post-launch support.
- **Scale — from £20k.** 5–7 agent roles with inter-agent workflows, hybrid team design with human/agent handoffs and escalation paths, platform selection and full stack integration, 1 month post-launch support.
- **Custom — let's talk.** 8+ agent roles, complex hybrid design with compliance/approval workflows, multi-platform architecture, stakeholder alignment.

### Ongoing support

An agentic team isn't set-and-forget. Models improve, tools evolve, business needs change. The retainer covers ongoing tuning and performance review, new agent roles as needs emerge, and a human eye on what agents produce.

→ Book a call: https://calendar.app.google/x4srBeZZxPu5jGkLA

---

## Links

- Substack (Annotations): https://annotationsbyinference.substack.com
- LinkedIn (Thom Cummings): https://linkedin.com/in/thomcummings
- Book a call: https://calendar.app.google/x4srBeZZxPu5jGkLA
- Email: hi@thomcummings.com