The tech world has been whispering sweet nothings about AI for years. But it isn’t just “in the future” anymore - it’s arrived, dressed in buzzwords and reshaping everything from how you find the best local pizza place to how global brands court your wallet.
As AI promises to equip marketers with superpowers, its long-term value remains a puzzle. It's often hyped, sometimes delivered, but largely undefined and yet to be fully realised.
It might feel like we’re all stuck, partaking in a game of AI bingo, with all the buzzwords, breakthroughs and bold claims being checked off our sheets. And while it’s sometimes hard to tell what’s helpful and what’s hype, for some it feels like the future of marketing hangs in the balance.
As GenAI tools like ChatGPT dominate headlines and keen tech-disciples preach their religiosity, promises of its evangelised potential to revolutionise everything from customer service to content creation (and turning water into wine) continue to spread. Whispers of artificial "superintelligence" are heard. Fancy terms like "hyper-personalisation" and "predictive analytics" abound and suggest the marketing world has been handed a crystal ball.
But beneath the jargon lies something real, actively shifting the tectonic plates of technology and society, with implications for consumer behaviour, expectations, and much more.
Marketers are leaning into AI for good reason. The promise of ultra-targeted & data-driven campaigns anticipating consumer needs is intoxicating. The idea of delivering the perfect ad to the perfect consumer at the perfect time is only part of the dream that AI and its disciples are selling (and many marketers are buying). The tools, capable of everything from analysing massive datasets to aiding in creating bespoke consumer experiences, make it hard to resist.
But the potential isn’t without its caveats. For all its predictive brilliance, AI can’t replicate the human touch – at least not convincingly, yet. And while the excitement of transformative power continues to grow, it risks overshadowing questions about privacy, power dynamics and control within the tech industry.
Who owns the data fed into these systems? How much control do users have over their personalised experiences? What about AI's “alignment” to human values, ethics and goals? And what happens when the consolidation of AI tools and development by a handful of tech giants entrenches their power even further, with some threatening to prioritise profit over public interest?
The stats shed a sobering light on AI adoption.
A HubSpot study found that over 85% of marketers are already influenced by generative AI in their strategies. In terms of search, in October 2023 alone, 13 million U.S. adults reported using AI as their primary online search tool – a number projected to swell to 90 million by 2027. And as for personalisation, McKinsey’s study revealed 71% of consumers expect brands to deliver personalised experiences and messaging.
For further evidence of how our behaviours are changing, look no further than Gen Z. A reported 46% now treat TikTok and Instagram as their de facto search engines. Forget the dark ages of Google’s familiar little search bar - this generation is wading neck-deep through personalised algorithm-driven feeds for news, reviews and everything in between.
It paints the picture of an evolutionary shift in the way we now find information and the experiences that stem from that, largely driven by AI and social media in a new digital age.
For marketers, this trend has been on-going for years. These studies confirm what many predicted - the tides have shifted. Platforms that excel at user-generated content and AI-powered recommendations are now eating into traditional search engines’ territory, forcing brands and strategies to pivot or perish.
Yet, again, the broader implications are murkier. Concerns loom surrounding capability ceilings as well as the sustainability of such expensive, data-hungry and power-intensive systems. And while its use in marketing is undeniably efficient, there’s a big difference between "tailoring experiences" and creating interactions that feel truly meaningful.
Unsurprisingly, the big players aren’t sitting on their hands.
We're seeing rival LLM's developed at rapid pace to compete with one another in benchmarks ranging from writing and creativity, to coding, to mathematics and more. DeepSeek R1, the latest disruptor to perform exceptionally well at a much lower overall cost, has produced a tremendous wave and share price wipeout amongst AI and tech companies like Nvidia. And as competition in the sector grows, big tech companies increasingly integrate AI further into existing product offerings.
With social media proving that users’ information-seeking habits aren’t as dyed-in-the-wool as once thought, Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) is a notable attempt to integrate AI into its traditional search engine, reshaping how billions of users interact with information. You’ve probably noticed it yourself. But there are concerns around the quality of what is served to users in searches and the undeniable decrease in user attention below the SGE results.
Meanwhile, across the road, Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI has fuelled Bing’s AI-powered revolution with the integration of GPT-4. The partnership has recently raised concerns with the shift away from OpenAI’s original non-profit model to a for-profit benefit corporation. And speaking of OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman has stated we'll likely see AGI (artificial general intelligence) very soon, predicting AI agents will enter the workforce by the end of 2025.
Even Meta, beleaguered for its privacy controversies due to its enormous trove of user data (with which many have taken umbrage at, particularly in its collection and use), is leaning heavily into AI to strengthen its grip on social search against rivals like TikTok. The collective strategy is clear for social media platforms: adapt or become obsolete in a market increasingly dominated by AI-driven platforms.
The integration of AI into marketing feels both inevitable and incomplete. On the one hand, it’s a tool capable of elevating personalisation and efficiency to unprecedented levels. On the other, it’s a double-edged sword that risks reducing interactions, insight and information-seeking to “mechanical” transactions. For AI to truly revolutionise marketing, it needs a human hand to guide it - someone to infuse authenticity into the algorithms. AI can generate content and automate targeting, but it still struggles with true brand storytelling and nuance.
For marketers, progress brings change, and we're seeing it unfold in real-time. Some will chase automation at all costs, hoping machines alone can crack the code of consumer connection. But the victors will be those that harness it as an enabler, not a replacement; those that use the advantages of speed and data to build deeper, more effective experiences and leverage its power to enhance creativity, not erase it.
As the AI wave crests, marketers face a challenge: how best to adopt and embed this new technology effectively. There's no doubt that some will blindly ride the tide, but it's worth reminding ourselves that for all its potential, AI isn't a magic bullet. It’s a tool, and like any tool, its value depends on how it’s wielded.
Who knows what the next 2 or 3 years will look like (cue the whispers of superhuman AI and SkyNet-like fantasies, or the reminiscing of existential questions like “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”). But the big picture does sound promising, and it wasn’t generated by AI... well, kind of.
Interested in further exploring how our digital world is changing? Check out our short series called “Future of Search”. You can find Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.
