This is how Marketing & Advertising looks after going through the AI blender.

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There are plenty of people trying to downplay AI because they look at what it can do right now and think, “I can still do it better”. They’re probably not wrong.

But burying your head in the sand because you’re focused on current output, rather than what’s around the corner will have serious consequences given how fast AI is moving.

Consequences rarely show up lubed.

Marketing, Media & Advertising is a poster child for the AI revolution. Below are my two cents on AI’s impact across four key areas, and what I’d recommend doing about it.

Disclaimer/s 

1. AI will change specialist industries in specialist ways but its biggest impact will be how it takes care of all basic, admin tasks. I won’t include those points, but it’s where the most changes are happening.

2. The below only scratches the surface. Do your own digging and let me know what you’re seeing because it's impossible to be across everything.

IDEAS - AI still won’t be able to give Health Insurance a “viral moment”

TLDR? AI can take an endless supply of ideas from 0 - 80%. The creative process starts with better raw materials and you can focus on the “magic” everyone is always looking for.

How? 

• All research is now instant and better than anyone could do previously with “Deep Research” from LLM’s.

• Creative organisation eg brainstorm notes auto recorded, organised and circulated as soon as the meeting is finished. 

• Via products like QLD start-up Springboards AI.  Just plug in a brief and get back unique concepts and angles ready to build on and craft. 

PRODUCTION - Think of how big it could make the logo!

TLDR? Production is being hit hardest, first. The list of things humans can produce better than AI is shrinking steadily. The list of things humans can produce better, faster and cheaper is evaporating before our eyes. Soon production and ideation will be effectively the same thing. 

How?

• Dedicated copywriting, animation, graphic design specialisation now unnecessary.

• Usable standard quality audio and static “photos” can be generated easily.

• High quality video generation only months away.

• Companies like Runway are creating incredible standalone video already and the ability to augment real footage creates vision you can’t distinguish between AI or organic.

PLANNING + BUYING -  AI would buy ads in Kyle & Jackie O.

TLDR? Programmatic trading is already thriving. AI is able to understand all metrics. So with more and more inventory available digitally, any that aren’t live, or an integrated/talent partnership, will be planned, bought, activated and optimised all by AI. 

How?

• AI able to effectively apply all available metrics and combine for any objective.

• Instantly generate any media plan across all channels.

• Via Agentic AI, campaigns will be activated across multiple channels/publishers including any “Walled Gardens”

• Platforms like Albert AI already exist giving you all-in-one access to a claimed “90%+ of biddable inventory online”. This includes across Search, Social and Programmatic.

PUBLISHING - Would AI generated MAFS be more or less real than the original? 

TLDR? AI generated content is a can of worms I won’t open yet. But as covered in Issue 4, Google alone is shifting the entire industry with AI Overviews (impacting Search) and things like Android XR Glasses (new ways people interact with the world).

How?

• Search Engine Optimisation shifts to AI Optimisation. All efforts are focused on trying to show up in generated answers across Google's “AI Overviews” as well as in the results of LLM’s like ChatGPT and Gemini.

• Without the safety blanket of Search, brands need to diversify as much as possible to capture maximum audience and increase likelihood they show up in LLM results.

• Completely new formats becoming available through AI, eg. AR + VR.

SO WHAT DO I ACTUALLY DO?

• Don’t ignore things because they don’t look good right now.

  • At the speed AI is improving, focus on what it's trying to do, not the current output. 

  • If that’s a good idea then presume output will be there very quickly and you need to be ready.

• Build an AI Stack.

  • Breakdown your business/team/role into tasks and find which tasks you can automate. 

  • Build an AI product stack for those tasks. 

  • Then get busy learning how to use your stack and focus on the tasks that still need your attention.

• Human quality control 

  • Use AI, but don’t only use AI.

  • Make sure all output has some human input otherwise your competitive advantage is gone.

But I mean what do I know right? I’m just an idiot with a newsletter and a need to give my unsolicited opinion. 

If that’s what you’re into though, and you haven’t already, subscribe to Token Effort at tokeneffort.io