• by Maarten Albarda , Featured Contributor, 6 hours ago

I am sorry to be writing yet again about AI. But it is the marketing word of the year, the developments appear to be unstoppable, and its impact is being felt in the real world.

In October 2025 alone, 31,039 AI-related job cuts were announced in the U.S. (per Challenger, Gray & Christmas). This accounted for roughly 20% of all layoffs that month. Occupations programmers, mid-level analysts and junior strategists are seeing the most exposure, with up to 50% of tasks being automated. IBM reported being on track for $4.5 billion in savings from AI and automation by the end of 2025, largely by replacing repetitive HR and contract-handling roles with AI agents.

C-suites across all industries are panicking because a shiny new technology has emerged, and their immediate reflex is to hire a "Chief [Insert Trend Here] Officer" to tackle the new unknown. We did it with digital. We did it with blockchain. And now, we’re doing it with AI.

Because AI promises to lower the cost of ad development and production to near zero, why pay an agency a markup or a six-figure production fee when a junior staffer and a "Chief AI Officer" can prompt a couple of AI content factory agents and call it a day?

The reality is of course that when you combine the hiring of a CAIO with a radical shift toward in-housing, you are actually not "optimizing." When you pull everything inside, you remove important third-party views that come from working across industries. You lose the outside-in perspective that, for instance agencies, for all their flaws, provide. Without them, your internal team becomes an echo chamber, and your brand might become deaf and produce repetitive AI slop.

What should you actually do?

First of all, don't hire a CAIO, but promote an orchestrator. This is someone in marketing ops who understands how to weave AI into the existing workflow, tools and practices. The goal isn't AI marketing; it's marketing that happens to include AI.

If you in-house your strategy development, media strategies or creative production via AI, you still need a few experienced specialists at the helm. This should also include employing a few juniors today (AI workflow coordinators) -- otherwise, you won't have seniors in 10 years. AI can generate a thousand variations of plans or content, but it lacks the ability to “feel” which one actually matches your brand. Don't let the efficiency of the "Pod" kill the quality of the "specialist."

And finally: Rent the tech, own the data. Don’t build a massive internal AI tech stack that will be outdated by 2027. Work with partners who own the complex tech stack but ensure you own the proprietary data feeds (and prompts) that make the AI smart.

So, go ahead and hire that Chief AI Officer if your board needs a security blanket to sleep at night. The reality, however, is that marketing remains a messy, unpredictable business of human connection and behavior. And as far as I can tell, an LLM has never actually drunk a beer, felt a spark of brand loyalty, or complained about inflight legroom. The most important "intelligence" in your department still walks on two legs, and so do the intended recipients of all their activity.