Can AI replace your entire marketing department?

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I spend my December holidays doing two things:

Stress—I wait for the new year to start because I find it nearly impossible to relax when the whole world is unavailable, and the economy is at a standstill. I’m at my most relaxed when I work.

Read—I catch up on the numerous podcasts, videos, and articles I have bookmarked throughout the year but haven’t had time to read or listen.

One of the things I laboured through, not because it is so long but because it is so dense—is a video by the celebrity-ex-professor Mark Ritson on the history and future of brand management. I’ll spare you the details, but here’s the key part for me, seven minutes from the end:

That’s right. According to Mr Ritson, in about ten years from now, AI will do all your marketing, from devising a marketing strategy to conducting market research, defining a communications plan, designing ads, and managing the roll-out—the whole shebang.

Granted, we see a lot of fancy - and fanciful - predictions, especially when it comes to the overlay between marketing and technology. But somehow, Mr Ritson’s prediction hits home. He’s not bullshitting (his presentation is littered with colourful language), and he has his ear to the ground.

So I’m writing to tell you that your greatest (business) fantasy is about to come true. Soon, you’ll be able to automate all of your marketing, and the burden will be off your shoulders. You can already see this happening - try briefing your preferred AI tool to do the following:

  • Market research: Describe your typical customer to your AI, and then ask it some questions about how it would think and behave. It will answer them almost exactly like a real customer - it’s called synthetic research.
  • Marketing plans: Tell it who your target market is, describe your marketing objectives and value proposition, and ask for a marketing plan. The result will be pretty close to the mark.
  • Marketing communications: Ask it to recommend a communications campaign, complete with the script for a billboard, radio advert and magazine article, and voila!
Of course, as a marketer myself, I could try to soften the blow by peppering you with “ifs and buts”, but this is unnecessary. In short, I agree with Mr Ritson’s prediction. AI will take over. There will be only two reasons you’ll need a real-life marketer in the not-too-distant future:

You’ll need someone to tell the AI what to do—a kind of AI administrator- any (human) marketer worth their salt should learn how to use AI as a matter of urgency. It’s no longer “Have you used AI to do this?” but “How well have you used AI to do this?”. All marketers must obsess over AI and have a professional subscription to one.

As a business owner or executive, you’ll need someone to help you ask the right questions. This is the critical part and the biggest future role for human marketers. They must be able to guide the discussion around the customer, look for competitive gaps, interrogate assumptions, and generally wrestle with the matter before prompting the AI. In short, a strategic thinker.

Marketing will become less about “doing” as AI will “do it” and more about soft skills—the sensemaking that should happen before AI gets to work.


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