But, not because of the technology itself.

Throughout history, people have proclaimed technological advances to be the death toll for any number of industries. However time has proven that is rarely, if ever, the actual case. Electricity didn’t completely blow away candle sales. The car assembly line didn’t deconstruct the auto worker’s job market. The internet has yet to kill print media. Trade shows haven’t been doomed by virtual meetings. COVID, and hence remote work, did not in fact bring an untimely demise to office building work. And of course, video did not in fact kill the radio star. New technology forced industries to adapt, ultimately finding a balance. Companies that failed to adapt eliminated them, while the remaining ones continued to profit, with many seeing increasing profits. That’s how the business world has generally worked. Until AI Marketing.

Quick aside.

I have been in marketing most of my life. I have been thrilled to grow in an ever-changing industry that has continually challenged me to adapt. So, for the purposes of this article, I am focusing on the marketing industry. I am quite certain that many of the points I will be making can apply to other vocations, but I am sticking to the reasoning that applies here.

And back to your regularly scheduled article.

When you look back through time, technological advances within industries always follow a simple rule: make it easier for workers to do things in order to increase profits. In the case of new technologies, such as electricity or music television, people essentially created new verticals, but the same principle applied. These innovations and new verticals required a similar number of people to run them. And, industries could adjust and continue to thrive.

However, AI is fundamentally different. Because of how we live and our reliance on technology for work, AI can be used to replace people. In fact, it might truly annihilate the marketing industry. Though, as previously stated, the reason isn’t the technology itself. 

It all comes down to CEOs.

The main drive for CEOs is revenue. That isn’t a criticism or commentary, that is their job. They are supposed to run the business profitably while maintaining quality. If the company is publicly traded, it constantly faces pressure to increase revenue and profits for shareholders. So if a new technology comes around that increases employee productivity, or makes production or the product cheaper to manufacture it makes sense for them to leverage that innovation to improve revenue. That is fundamental business logic.

Generally speaking there is a symbiotic relationship between the technology and the employee. The same applies to innovations in the marketing industry. Whether it was the invention of the computer which allowed for an improved writing platform (over the type writer.) Or, the creation of incredible products like Adobe’s lines of products which eliminate the need for time consuming paste up or magazine layouts. These innovations, among so many others, absolutely revolutionized the industry to be more efficient and more effective. Each and every one of them needs a person to continue to do the thinking and creative management of the process. But people with no skill in marketing, photography, or copy writing can use AI. Any person can go to ChatGPT type in some instructions and the AI marketing machine goes and cranks out a result.

AI Marketing MAGIC!

Let’s realistically follow how businesses will likely use this kind of technology. And, we’ll use writers as our example punching bags. (They are an incredibly vital part of any marketing team and often thought of as the easiest to replace. Which they are not…but that is an entirely different article.)

Remember those people I mentioned earlier? CEOs? Remember what their fundamental job is? So, if their job is to maximize profits, AI presents a meaningful opportunity to eliminate the need to spend money paying a human writer(s). If Artificial Intelligence only costs a bit of money a month and does the same work it makes sense as a business to cut the cost. Especially when it automatically increases profits. But, CEOs are CEOs for a reason, they’re smart. They know if they just wholesale replace their writers with AI run by people who don’t know a thing about what they are doing, quality will suffer. Words can be hard. And, what is a short term gain in profits will become long term losses. So we can’t get rid of all of them.

So what do they do?

The simple answer is to replace lower/entry level writers with AI marketing technology. You know, the ones who do extremely rough drafts. That loss of personnel shouldn’t have any real impact on the workflow right? The company will still have editors, seasoned copywriters, and English experts around to make sure things are still solid from a marketing and messaging standpoint. Problem solved.

Or is it?

It might seem like a pretty simple and direct solution. But that simple maneuver ultimately leads to the death of an industry. Entry-level writers who get replaced are the ones who would move up the ranks. They will replace the middle tier people as they move up the ranks themselves. All the pieces move up a level. Those mid-tier writers/editors replace the senior writers and editors that retire out of the industry. It is one of the magically wonderful features of the marketing industry. Generations pass on years of knowledge, making the industry even better. Each tier learns incredibly valuable information as they grow. Nuance. Technique. Strategy. The “cutting teeth” process passes all these lessons up the ladder. It’s how we work and grow in marketing.

The first tier of employees, the fresh from school crowd, only know what an educational environment has taught them. So no big loss. From the outside looking in, a seemingly easily replaced piece of the puzzle with AI marketing. And, admittedly, not much would immediately change.

But time gets us all.

The basic process for an article in a multi-tiered marketing department goes something like this. An entry level team member writes an article about a chosen topic and hands it up the ladder. The next level team member runs a round of edits on it by pointing out some grammar, or basic writing errors, and adds some suggestions on direction or voice. Since changes need to be made anyway, they might as well flesh out the article more. The entry level person goes through the suggestions and makes some changes to the article. After a round or two the second tier person will make changes  themselves before sending it up the ladder. This way the entry level person learns things about the process they probably didn’t learn in school.

Introduce AI marketing to the process and it changes.

They hire someone who leverages AI to create articles rather than someone who researches and writes them. AI avoids a number of pitfalls like grammar or readability mistakes. Now, the second tier writer/editor gets a hold of it. And, because the article doesn’t have any fundamental mistakes and just needs tweaks to voice and messaging they go ahead and make those changes. They then send it up the ladder. The original back and forth no longer exists.

This simple shift means that the new recruits won’t learn those subtle skills and tweaks as they move through the process as they move up the ladder. As the initial group advances through the ranks, more knowledge is lost. Leading ultimately to the death of creative marketing.

All that being said…

I hope this doesn’t happen, though I am fairly confident in how this will play out, because AI has the potential to be a truly valuable tool we can add to our toolbox as marketers. It can speed up processes and help get us out of creative slumps. But, unfortunately, we only have so much influence over the direction of a company. Ultimately, someone outside our control decides how it is used. I simply hope they take our advice when making this particular decision.