• by Maarten Albarda , Featured Contributor, 5 hours ago

Remember when "digital" was a department? Many companies are now trying to apply that same thinking to managing the many challenges that AI brings.

It reminds me of watching the industry scramble when the internet went mainstream, then again when the iPhone gave everybody a connected screen and receiver in their pocket. Back then, we treated new tech like a new tool, and with it came a new set of marketing skills. Radio gave us ears; TV gave us eyes; mobile gave us locations.

Each new technology was a massive pivot for sure, impacting one aspect of the marketing ecosystem directly -- “how” or “where” we spoke to the target audience.

AI isn't such a new tool. For the first time in my many years in the industry, we’re facing a technology that doesn't just influence one aspect of the marketing ecosystem and indirectly impacts others in that aspect’s direct orbit. AI swallows all of it whole.

AI mines data to predict consumer needs faster than consumers feels the itch. We use AI to design and sometimes even build the product or service the consumer desires. Communication strategy used to be a three-month slide deck cycle. Now, AI builds the touchpoint plan and optimizes the spend in the time it takes you to check your email.

And dynamic creative isn't just a buzzword anymore. It’s the reality of reaching millions of people with millions of *different* versions of the offer, all optimized on the fly.

Search is changing forever: here comes answer engine optimization. When the consumer is ready to buy, one-click becomes a zero-click. When an AI orders your laundry detergent because it knows the jug is light, the "moment of purchase" disappears. AI also solves for obstacles between you and your consumer to deliver the product, turning "how it gets there" into a math problem, not a logistics nightmare.

Finally, the data from that delivery and the consumers’ use feeds right back into step one. The circle closes instantly -- potentially in seconds, not weeks or months. AI will be involved in just about every aspect of the marketing and advertising process.

Many marketing leaders find themselves paralyzed because they’re trying to "implement AI" as a line item. You can’t. It’s like trying to implement electricity in 1920. (Actually, I read somewhere that some hotels had to put up signs telling guests not to be afraid of the lightbulbs. AI is in the lightbulb-fear stage right now.)

The frustration I’m seeing is that we’re trying to use a 2010 approach to manage a 2026 reality. You can't have "silos" when technology is horizontal, omnipresent and omnipotent.

Rather than putting a department in place, focus your AI energy on solving your biggest pain points. If they’re not sexy, even better. Optimizing and solving pain points that are persistently annoying will generate a far bigger pay-off than launching a cute AI answer bot on your website.

And don’t rely on AI too much, too soon. Do not follow the herd and fire large numbers of “doers” in your organization. Instead, empower them to improve their doing with AI. That way, people who have time/volume challenges in their work will find doable solutions rather than being replaced with disconnected, engineered monstrosities.

The marketing ecosystem isn't breaking; it’s evolving into a nervous system. You can be either the brain or the byproduct.