It feels like just about a year or so ago we were pleased as punch with how AI was automating content creation, dealing with social media management, improving customer interactions through chatbots and virtual assistants. Not anymore. We remember, of course, when AI went from curious novelty to companion for productivity. Today, marketers, once again, find themselves at an inflection point with AI. A point where AI clearly has potential to co-pilot marketing with us all. The questions too have shifted dramatically – no longer asking how or how much AI is boosting productivity but rather exploring the boundless frontiers of what else this transformative technology can deliver for us. The ask now is nothing less than for AI to fundamentally reimagine marketing possibilities. And here are some of those asks.
AI, can you give me an idea?
Marketing – before AI – in many ways, solved yesterday’s problems. Decision making was based on examining demographic trends and surveys, along with assumptions based on past performance. Algorithms are now analyzing customer interactions in real time and predicting consumer behavior. From here, AI then goes a step further. When prompted, it develops and demonstrates ideas quickly for execution later – for example, narrate something, visualize an idea, or even chart a plan to solicit feedback, iterate multiple times quickly and personalize marketing solutions. This does so much more than making marketing efficient— AI is now making marketing prescient. It’s bringing the function the strategic advantage of not just doing the same things faster, but in doing entirely new things that were previously impossible. Take what the well-known pet food brand did with a 2024 campaign for example. They transformed amateur dog photos, captured by busy shelter workers, into professional-grade AI doubles which then had the emotive pull to better engage animal lovers and cut down on the time it takes for shelter dogs to be adopted.
AI, can you make a million customers feel like one in a million?
Ever dreamt of having consumers co-create your campaign for you? AI can make that possible – it can democratise creativity at scale, something unimaginable in the past. AI can also analyse millions of datasets, both structured and unstructured, to reach consumers where they are and how they want to be engaged. Marketers are embracing two powerful pathways: AI-powered targeted promotions, and gen AI to co-create and scale highly relevant messages with personalized tone, imagery, message, and experiences – practically on the fly. For example, the organization that I represent ran a campaign, powered by gen AI, allowing fans to create a personalized artistic rendition of a tennis legend to celebrate his legacy. Within days of its launch tens of thousands of artworks were co-created by fans.
AI, can you help me measure what matters?
As marketing’s capabilities expand through AI, how we track its value needs to evolve in tandem. Traditional metrics, focused exclusively on campaign efficacy and channel performance, provide an incomplete picture of marketing’s strategic value. Forward-thinking marketing teams are developing new KPIs that capture quality of customer experience, depth of engagement, trajectory of their preferences, and the like to better inform campaign construction. In fact, AI is also throwing light on microcultures – for example ‘girl dads’ or ‘tennis fans’ - within the target audience that can sometimes help identify a new market segment or reveal unexpected customer behaviors; It’s important to trace where the transformative value of marketing can emerge from — and not just track the efficiencies of current marketing tactics.
The path forward
For marketers, the mandate is clear: recalibrate strategies to harness AI’s full potential. This means:
- Shifting from viewing AI as only a productivity tool to embracing it as an innovation partner
- Redesigning workflows and processes to capitalize on AI’s creative and predictive capabilities
- Developing new measurement frameworks that capture AI-empowered marketing’s strategic contributions
- Building teams that combine technical AI literacy with strategic marketing sensibilities
We marketers bring value to the business at a time when AI isn’t just changing how marketing works – it’s expanding what marketing means. The most successful marketers will be those who use it not merely to augment their existing work but to fundamentally reimagine what’s marketable, measurable, and meaningful in an AI-first world.
