• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

Not that we want to ruin anyone’s day, but a new study specifies just which marketing jobs are most at risk from artificial intelligence. 

And if you work in email, you'd better find a new line of work. 

Email is one of those “rules-based, repetitive disciplines” that face the highest disruption, according to the American Marketing Association (AMA) State of Marketing Careers Report. 

In general, the study advises that “AI fluency is becoming a baseline expectation, not a differentiator” and that “influencer marketing is the fastest-growing marketing job.”

But here’s the bad news about email.

The AMA used the Human Agency Scale, a tool developed by researchers at Stanford. 

This scale ranges from  H1, in which an AI agent fully performs a task on its own, to H5, where the chore cannot be done without continuous human involvement. The result is that: 

Most disrupted (H1-H2): Email marketing, SEO, paid media, performance analytics, copywriting, lead generation, market research, graphic design.

From there, the scale moves on to:

Equal partnership (H3): Content marketing, data literacy and storytelling, customer experience, consumer behavior, influencer marketing.

Least disrupted, human-led (H4-H5): Marketing strategy, brand management, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, leadership, emotional intelligence, ethical decision-making, adaptability.

It’s a mistake to take this report at face value, especially regarding the most disruptive work areas. It’s bad enough to relegate email marketing to a robotic task, but copywriting, which powers email marketing, and graphic design?  

Businesses, especially small ones, may need AI’s help in these areas, but they risk their brand and compliance standards if they let it happen without human supervision. 

“The signals are there, and the data in this report makes them hard to ignore,” says Bennie F. Johnson, CEO of the AMA. “The gap between what marketers think matters and what the evidence says is one of the most striking findings in this research.”

That may be, but this report seems based on what marketers fear, not totally on scientific evidence. The AMA surveyed 1,412 marketing professionals, analyzed job postings, and interviewed industry leaders.

Still, you may ignore the findings at your peril. 

“Marketing jobs remain down 27% from pre-pandemic levels, but the number of employers hiring has increased,” a study synopsis states. “Senior and strategic roles are holding steady while execution-focused roles decline. The World Economic Forum projects net positive global job growth in the market overall through 2030, but 39% of existing skills will be obsolete by then.”