AI Won’t Replace Marketers, But It Will Redefine Their Jobs

Ask a marketer about artificial intelligence (AI) and you’ll hear that it’s going to revolutionize everything overnight … or it’s overhyped technology that can’t deliver on its promises.

The reality, as with most transformative technologies, lives somewhere in the middle of those extremes. But understanding where that middle is and what it means to the way marketing works, however, is proving difficult to define.

The current AI transition reminds me of the early days of outsourcing. For centuries, businesses have always sought  to tap into the globe’s workforce to gain access to new markets and achieve greater efficiencies. But in the 1990s and 2000s, as the internet linked professional work and consumers, the usual gradual advancements with limited impact were swiftly replaced by a swell of workforce opportunities that forever changed all businesses, large and small.

A Different Form of Outsourcing

Now we are experiencing another sea-change in marketing. But with AIs embedded in business and society with even greater speed and impact, there’s more urgency to meet the AI revolution than there was to adapt to the outsourcing that emerged three decades ago.

When companies first moved operations offshore, the decision was binary: keep this function domestic or send it elsewhere. With AI, we’re seeing something a little more complicated. Instead of physically shifting labor and consumption, AI is enhancing existing roles; it is evolving the workforce rather than simply replacing it.

Matching AI with Human Skills

Yes, there are many parallel challenges. As with outsourcing, AI comes with switching costs, communication challenges, and uncertainty around implementation. And, as with building offshore teams, there’s a real dollar cost to deploying an AI strategy. Both global and AI  teams introduce language barriers and cultural differences.

And the parallel between the outsourcing surge and the AI revolution extends to how organizations perceive these changes. From the perspective of a random boardroom, it’s easy to commodify work and assume wholesale replacement makes financial sense. Executives looking at spreadsheets can convince themselves that entire departments can simply be swapped out for AI.

But marketers working with these tools daily understand the limitations of that kind of thinking. They see where AI creates real value, and where the human element remains just as essential.

What AI Actually Does Well Right (Now)

The sweet spot for AI today doesn’t rest in replacing marketers, but rather in eliminating the repetitive, analytical tasks that consume anywhere from 20% to 60% of a marketing professional’s day. Typical assignments like achieving data analysis at scale or pattern recognition across customer segments take the blink of an eye for most AI programs. These are the kinds of rote tasks that humans aren’t particularly interested in doing anyway.

Consider a customer service scenario. Rather than replacing service representatives entirely as the old outsourcing model did, AI can help these workers do more things quickly. AI can provide these reps with real-time summaries of customer history, cross-referenced purchase data, and propensity modeling,  all while the human being maintains control of the actual conversation (and keeps the same job with the same role, but with fewer tedious aspects).

That representative might now know that a customer’s son just got his driver’s license, enabling a genuine human connection, but one powered by timely AI insights. Neither the human nor the AI could deliver that outcome as swiftly and efficiently alone; together, they create something genuinely better for everyone involved.

The Orchestration Opportunity

The most significant opportunity lies in AI orchestrating entire customer relationships rather than just optimizing individual campaigns. For B2B marketers especially, orchestration based on customer timing, identity, needs, and history represents a capability that exceeds what humans can manage at scale while still requiring human touches at personal moments.

AI can gather tremendous amounts of data on what content customers consume, their purchase patterns, how their organization compares to competitors, and the signals leading up to major decisions. It can learn and internalize all these patterns to trigger next-best actions for marketers. But the goal of all this intelligence should be to facilitate better human relationships with customers, whether that’s a more informed sales conversation, a timely customer service interaction, or a perfectly timed product recommendation.

Setting Realistic Expectations

An oft-cited MIT survey of executives has found that as much as 95% of generative AI pilots fail. It’s a stat that’s constantly misinterpreted.

The common response to that finding is hand-wringing about wasted investment. But flip that around. Are we saying that 5% of experimental AI implementations succeeded!? That’s remarkable for any emerging technology.

As with most things, the disconnect often comes down to expectations. Executives might evaluate AI success based on complete function replacement, while practitioners measure success by incremental improvements in efficiency or capability. Both perspectives matter, but the latter is probably more relevant to where we actually are in AI’s evolution.

Practical Steps for Marketing Leaders

So what should marketers do today?

First, stay flexible. This technology is moving too quickly to lock yourself into long implementation cycles or single-vendor solutions.

Second, be experimental. Look for low-hanging fruit where AI can deliver quick wins. This isn’t a moment for “perfect” transformations. But tangible improvements in specific areas? That’s doable.

There’s another obvious temptation to resist. Don’t try to make AI a little bit of everyone’s job. Instead, consider building an alpha team focused specifically on identifying and executing AI opportunities across your organization. This team can work with different departments to implement small wins and build momentum without disrupting everyone’s workflow simultaneously.

When deciding on AI vendors, focus on partners who can meet you where you are. These vendors should be able to easily work with your current tech stack and understand your specific business context. Every company’s relationship with customers is unique. Cookie-cutter AI solutions rarely account for that complexity.

The Moving Target

One more word about staying flexible. What works in AI today will be different from what worked in 2023, and completely different from what will be possible in 2027. The sweet spot is constantly moving. Smart marketers and brands will continuously identify where that sweet spot currently sits, deploy against it, and then evolve their teams’ capabilities as the technology advances.

The marketers who thrive won’t be those who resist AI or those who blindly embrace every new tool. They’ll be the ones who thoughtfully identify where AI creates genuine value, deploy it strategically, and remain humble enough to recognize when an experiment fails and humans remain the better option.

So, no, AI isn’t replacing marketers. It’s simply redefining what success looks like, and the best marketers are already figuring out what that means for their careers, their clients, and their businesses.

Patrick Shea has been instrumental in shaping AdDaptive into a forward-thinking, agile company that thrives in an ever-evolving industry. Since its inception, he has focused on building a company that not only adapts to shifts in technology and market demand but anticipates them. His strategic leadership has enabled AdDaptive to stay ahead of industry trends, delivering innovative solutions that meet the needs of brands, agencies and publishers navigating the complexities of modern advertising. Patrick is passionate about fostering a company culture that prioritizes both performance and professional growth. He takes pride in the development of AdDaptive’s proprietary technology, which has evolved into a dynamic, data-driven platform that reflects the expertise, creativity and dedication of the entire team. His leadership philosophy centers on empowering employees, setting ambitious goals and ensuring collaboration remains at the heart of AdDaptive’s success.