AI and the Changing Face of Marketing

Ironically, I’m using AI to help me write this blog about AI. That might sound like cheating to some, but to me it’s simply progress. The truth is, AI isn’t replacing creativity; it’s reshaping how we approach it. And just like every new tool before it, once we get past the resistance, it becomes second nature.

Forty years ago, accountants started using calculators. Later, they moved on to spreadsheets. At the time, both tools were controversial. “That’s cheating,” some said. “You won’t really know the numbers if you let a machine do it for you.” But today, can you imagine an accountant without Excel? The same thing is happening in marketing right now with AI.

A Short History of Tools in Business

Every industry has gone through a version of this story.

• Designers once cut and pasted layouts by hand. Then Photoshop came along, and later Canva made design accessible to anyone with a laptop.
  
  
• Marketers once stored contacts in a Rolodex and sent letters manually. Then CRMs automated the process and email made communication instant.
  
  
• Writers once worked on typewriters, where editing meant starting over. Then Word Processors let them refine, revise, and polish without retyping the whole page.
  
  

Each innovation sparked pushback. “This will put us out of work.” “This isn’t real craft.” And yet, each tool ended up creating more opportunity, not less.

What AI Is (and Isn’t)

It’s important to be clear: AI is not a magic wand. It doesn’t replace human creativity, empathy, or strategy. When AI started to gain momentum in 2024 I enrolled on a course to accelerate my learning. The big take away for me was to treat AI as you would a new employee. What ever AI platform you use, it takes time to be 'inducted' and start to learn about you. One year later and I'm finding my new employee incredibly knowledgeable and able to produce valuable content.

What AI does brilliantly is accelerate the work. It helps with:

• Drafting content quickly.
  
  
• Analysing huge amounts of data.
  
  
• Spotting trends and patterns.
  
  
• Personalising communication at scale.
  
  

But just like spreadsheets don’t make accountants redundant, AI doesn’t make marketers irrelevant. Instead, it raises the bar. The people who thrive are the ones who can combine the efficiency of AI with the nuance of human judgment.

Where AI is Already Impacting Marketing

If you think AI is still in the future, think again. It’s already here in everyday marketing:

• Content creation: Blogs, email campaigns, and social media captions can all be drafted in minutes.
  
  
• Personalisation: Customers can now receive tailored messages and product suggestions based on their behaviour.
  
  
• Customer service: Chatbots answer FAQs instantly, freeing humans for complex conversations.
  
  
• Analytics: AI can sift through campaign data faster than any human, highlighting what’s working and what isn’t.
  
  
• Creative support: From headline ideas to image generation, AI sparks more options than most teams could create alone.
  
  

The key is knowing where to let AI take the wheel — and where human expertise needs to stay in charge.

The Misconception: Is AI Cheating?

Many copywriters I know say using AI is cheating. And I get their point. If someone simply copies and pastes AI’s raw output and calls it finished, that’s not craftsmanship.

But here’s the reality: AI on its own is often bland, generic, and soulless. It can’t fully understand a brand’s story, its tone of voice, or the emotions that drive an audience to act.

The real skill lies in using AI as a partner. Asking the right questions. Feeding it the right prompts. Then, editing, shaping, and polishing the raw material into something that truly resonates.

Think of it this way: AI is like an intern who works at lightning speed but lacks experience. Left alone, it won’t produce great work. Guided well, it can supercharge your output.

The Human–AI Partnership

The future of marketing isn’t about choosing humans or AI. It’s about combining the strengths of both.

• AI brings: speed, efficiency, consistency, and the ability to scale.
  
  
• Humans bring: judgment, creativity, empathy, storytelling, and cultural awareness.
  
  

When you put those together, you get the best of both worlds: smarter campaigns, faster execution, and more meaningful connections.

How I Use AI With My Clients

Clients often ask me, “Do you use AI in your work?” And my answer is, “Yes, but responsibly.”

Here’s what I mean by that:

1. AI as a productivity booster
   I use AI to speed up research and first drafts. That saves you money and frees up more of my time for strategy, creativity, and results.
   
   
2. AI as a brainstorming partner
   AI helps me generate more ideas, faster. I then refine those ideas to match your brand and audience.
   
   
3. AI as a data interpreter
   AI spots patterns in your campaigns that might otherwise take hours (or days) to notice. That means quicker, smarter decision-making.
   
   
4. AI as a quality enhancer
   I never hand over AI’s raw output. I edit, adapt, and infuse it with human insight so the final product feels authentic and on-brand.
   
   

This approach means you get the benefits of AI — speed, scale, cost savings — without losing the human creativity and experience that makes marketing effective.

Conclusion: A Mindset Shift

AI is not the enemy of creativity; it’s the evolution of it. The best marketers won’t be replaced by AI — but they will be replaced by marketers who know how to use AI.

Just as accountants can’t imagine life without spreadsheets, I believe marketers in the near future won’t imagine life without AI. It’s not about replacing humans; it’s about enabling us to do our best work faster, smarter, and with more impact.

So the question isn’t “Should we use AI?” The real question is “How do we use it responsibly, creatively, and strategically?”

And that’s where the future of marketing lies.

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