• by Nik DeBenedetto , July 24, 2025

According to Ascend2’s “The Evolution of AI in Marketing 2025” report, 76% of marketers agree that brands must adopt AI within the next five years or risk falling behind. That statistic signals that the old top-down storytelling playbook is no longer enough.

Generative AI is upending brand dynamics, not by replacing marketers, but by unlocking an era where audiences become collaborators, remixers, and co-creators. Jasper’s “The State of AI in Marketing 2025” report finds that 63% of marketers already use generative AI, with 79% planning to expand adoption in 2025. Brands are using AI to streamline ideation, pull from approved content libraries, and soon generate audience-tailored content in real time.

Today, it’s about efficiency. Tomorrow, it’s about empowerment.

At the heart of this shift is a new mindset: relinquishing creative control not as a risk, but as a strategic advantage. Marketers who treat co-creation as chaos will miss out. Those who see it as a feedback loop that fuels cultural relevance and deepens connection are positioning themselves to thrive.

The Internal Shifts That Unlock Co-Creation

Scaling co-creation is more than a technological challenge. It demands organizational change. Teams need to recalibrate their roles, from sole content producers to orchestrators of collaborative ecosystems.

This starts with rethinking workflows. CoSchedule’s “The State of AI in Marketing 2025” report found that 84% of marketers say AI improves the speed of delivering high-quality content. By automating the repetitive updates and routine variations that bog down creative teams, AI frees up bandwidth to focus on big-picture strategy and bold experimentation.

Equally important is a shift in mindset. Embracing AI isn't about surrendering brand integrity but meeting the surging demand for personalization. That same report found that 42% of marketers cite enhanced personalization as one of the top advantages of AI adoption. With content demands expected to rise dramatically, AI enables brands to respond nimbly to local nuances, micro-segment insights, and real-time trends without sacrificing consistency.

The Evolving Role of the Marketer

The marketer's role transforms as AI takes on more production grunt work. Once, they were primarily creators --  but now they are emerging as curators, facilitators, and strategic guides. One of the most critical new skills? Learning how to prompt AI effectively.

Prompt engineering is no longer a niche technical ability; it's become a core marketing competency. Marketers who understand how to guide AI tools, set clear parameters, and evaluate outputs will be the ones who turn automation into a genuine competitive edge.

However, perhaps the most exciting evolution is how marketers navigate brand-audience relationships. In a co-creation era, the marketer's job is to design the frameworks and guardrails that invite audience participation safely and meaningfully.

Building a Brand Story That Thrives

The next chapter of brand-building isn’t about clinging to new tools or tightening control. It’s about creating scalable, traceable, brand-safe collaboration.

Generative AI is the engine making that possible, but its true power lies in how marketers wield it -- not to churn out more content, but to invite audiences into the narrative itself. For those ready to embrace this shift, the reward is clear: deeper loyalty, richer cultural relevance, and a brand story that thrives in the hands of the many who help shape it.