Unlike traditional hyperscalers, Vultr focuses on giving enterprises the freedom to deploy AI workloads with greater flexibility, predictable costs, and global accessibility. Kevin Cochrane, Chief Marketing Officer, Vultr explains exclusively to Bhavya Bagga, Business Reporter, CXO Media that AI is also changing how we approach marketing from a technology conversation to a business transformation conversation.
As CMO, what metrics matter most to you when evaluating marketing success in a cloud and AI-driven business, brand recall, enterprise adoption, developer engagement, or revenue attribution?
The reality is that in today’s cloud and AI market, no single metric tells the full story. Brand awareness creates consideration, developer engagement creates advocacy, and enterprise adoption creates growth. As part of my role at Vultr, I focus on ensuring that our marketing efforts effectively build customer trust and drive meaningful business outcomes across every stage of the customer journey.
In the AI era, buyers are making strategic decisions that will shape their organizations for years. Marketing’s role has also evolved and it is not restricted to only demand generation; it is helping customers navigate complexity and make confident decisions. Ultimately, I measure success by our ability to build lasting market credibility, and contribute directly to customer acquisition, retention, and long-term revenue growth.
You have spent over 25 years building digital experiences. In a highly competitive cloud market, what’s the biggest challenge in building a global tech brand, and how do you differentiate Vultr?
The biggest challenge today is not visibility, it is relevance. Every cloud provider is talking about AI, innovation, and transformation. The question customers are asking is: “Why should I trust you with my future?”
Building a global brand requires clarity of purpose and consistency of execution. At Vultr, we have positioned ourselves around customer choice, openness, and simplicity. We believe organizations should have the freedom to build where they want, deploy how they want, and avoid being constrained by closed ecosystems.
As AI adoption accelerates, that message becomes increasingly important. Our differentiation is not simply about infrastructure; it is about empowering customers with flexibility, transparency, and control in a rapidly evolving digital world.
As AI reshapes cloud infrastructure demand, how is Vultr positioning itself differently from hyperscalers, and what role does AI play in your marketing strategy today?
AI is driving one of the biggest transformations in technology since the rise of cloud computing. But what makes this moment different is that businesses are not just looking for compute capacity. They are looking for flexibility, choice, and the ability to innovate without being constrained by a single ecosystem.
At Vultr, we see our role as enabling an open and accessible AI future. Unlike traditional hyperscaler models that often encourage customers to stay within closed ecosystems, we focus on giving businesses the freedom to deploy AI workloads with greater flexibility, predictable costs, and global accessibility. We believe innovation happens faster when organizations have the ability to choose the right infrastructure, tools, and models for their needs.
AI is also changing how we approach marketing. It is no longer just a technology conversation, it is a business transformation conversation. Our biggest priority is helping customers understand how they can move from AI experimentation to real-world deployment by making AI more practical, scalable, and economically viable.
With generative AI accelerating rapidly, where do you see the biggest opportunity for cloud platforms over the next 3–5 years—AI infrastructure, edge computing, or enterprise transformation?
AI is the biggest opportunity that we see driving enterprise transformation and India is on a growth path to drive this transformation. AI infrastructure and edge computing are critical enablers, but customers do not invest in technology for technology’s sake, they invest to create new business value.
Over the next few years, we will see organizations move beyond AI experimentation toward operationalizing intelligence across every function. That requires scalable infrastructure, distributed computing models, trusted data environments, and the ability to deploy AI closer to where decisions are made.
The winners would not necessarily be the companies with the largest models. They will be the organizations that make AI accessible, practical, and measurable. Cloud platforms have a unique opportunity to democratize innovation and accelerate that transformation for businesses of every size.
Do you believe AI will reduce the dominance of traditional cloud giants and create room for independent cloud platforms like Vultr to lead the next wave?
History shows that every major technology shift creates opportunities for new leaders to emerge. AI is no exception.
What we are seeing today is a growing customer desire for flexibility, sovereignty, and choice. Organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the risks associated with overdependence on a single platform, particularly as AI becomes core to business operations.
I do not view this as a battle between hyperscalers and independent providers. Rather, it is the evolution of a more diverse cloud ecosystem. AI is accelerating demand for multicloud strategies, open-source innovation, and workload portability. That creates meaningful opportunities for independent platforms like Vultr to play a larger role by delivering the openness, transparency, and agility that modern enterprises increasingly value.
