How many times have you read that marketing is dead in the last year?
How often have you come across articles with headlines such as 'AI will replace all specialists by 2030'?
And how many of your friends have sent you links to neural networks that 'write better than any copywriter' with a triumphant smirk?
If you're a marketer, this is an especially painful experience. After all, it is our profession that regularly takes centre stage in these technological obituaries. 'You will be the first to die.' 'You are no longer needed.' Then, algorithms will take over budgets. Next, they'll probably start doing stand-up comedy and handing out Michelin stars. Thank you — this is exactly what I wanted to read over my morning coffee to make me feel surplus to requirements!
But let's be honest, we've been here before. The internet was supposed to 'kill' marketers. Then, social media was supposed to do the same. Then came big data. The same headlines appeared every time: a new technology meant the ‘end of the profession’. But marketing didn't die. It transformed. It adapted. Then it found itself back at the heart of the action, but with new tools.
As I wrote in my book AI Essential: How Algorithms Are Changing Our Daily Lives, artificial intelligence is not taking away our jobs; it is taking away the illusion that we are the sole authors of our own lives. Algorithms have long been writing music, recommending films, and suggesting routes, as well as guessing our desires with the accuracy of coffee foam. However, no algorithm knows why you chose this particular coffee shop or song on your playlist. People don't buy text, pictures, or 'buy' buttons. People buy meaning. Stories. Emotions. As long as algorithms remain just a tool, marketers remain in control.
The problem is not that AI will replace us. The problem is that it exposes mediocrity too quickly. If your work boils down to copying other people's ideas, creating dull banners, or launching advertising campaigns using ready-made templates, then congratulations — ChatGPT can now do all of that faster. Faster. Cheaper. And without taking coffee breaks.
And that's where the panic begins. Not because AI is taking jobs away from marketers, but because it's taking them away from lazy marketers. Those who have forgotten that marketing is about understanding people, not buttons. It's not about tools, but about meaning. It's not about reports, but stories.
So it's time for marketers to stop fearing robots. They should fear their laziness.
Algorithms vs. laziness: a discussion of why marketers haven't died out yet
Let's start with the basics: yes, artificial intelligence can generate content. It can produce texts, images, slogans, music, and reports, among other things, more than the average outsourced digital agency. However, there is one small detail: it cannot feel. It cannot create meaning. It can imitate emotion, but it cannot experience it. It can arrange words in the 'right' order, but it cannot understand what that is for your audience at a given moment.
At least, not yet. Who knows? Maybe in ten years, we won't be discussing whether AI will replace marketers; we'll be discussing whether it's appropriate to invite a neural network as a keynote speaker at the Cannes Lions festival. But today, everything is much simpler: the algorithm remains a tool. Whether the result will be a masterpiece or an advertising disaster depends on who holds it in their hands.
Take Nike, for example. The company actively uses AI for personalisation: the app tracks users' habits, selects workouts, and predicts when it's time to buy new trainers. Yet despite all this, Nike continues to hire creative directors. Why? Because no algorithm can come up with 'Just Do It'. While an algorithm can count your steps, it cannot capture a cultural moment and transform it into a global slogan.
From my own experience, I could see this very clearly: between 2019 and 2020, I was involved in sports marketing, working with the Ukrainian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation. We collaborated with Nike. It was then that I realised how the company works with meanings, not just technologies. Their technologies are flawlessly integrated, but the key remains the story, values, and emotions. It is the people within the brand who decide how to present all this to the audience.
Take Coca-Cola, for example. In 2023, they launched the 'Create Real Magic' campaign, inviting users to create brand visuals using MidJourney and DALL·E. The campaign received millions of mentions and was highly publicised. However, it wasn't AI that came up with the idea for the campaign. People figured out how to incorporate AI into the brand strategy to make it appear innovative. The algorithm drew the pictures, but people set the meaning and positioning.
In my book AI Essential, I wrote, 'Algorithms deprive us of the illusion of authorship, but they do not deprive us of the ability to create stories.' This is where the difference between humans and machines lies. A marketer is not just a set of tools. It is the ability to understand what a person wants before they realise it themselves.
So no, the profession will not die. Only the aspects of the profession that have become dull and repetitive will disappear: creating banners, rewriting press releases, and setting up targeting. AI can do all of these things — and, frankly, it does them better. However, strategic marketing is not just about pressing buttons. It's about meaning. And no matter how you look at it, meaning is still created by people.
AI does not replace strategists. It replaces those who simply press buttons
Artificial intelligence will not replace marketers. It dispels the idea that you can do nothing and still call yourself a 'specialist'.
If your entire career has consisted of nothing but rewriting press releases, running targeted campaigns based on ready-made checklists, and copying other people's ideas from Pinterest, then yes, you should start panicking. Because ChatGPT does it faster. MidJourney creates better banners. Google Analytics is now smarter than half of the 'digital departments' in large companies. On projects, I've seen this dozens of times: some people ask questions and dig into the meaning, while others just wait for a checklist. The former always find their place. The latter disappear because they can easily be replaced by a tool.
Consider the following examples:
A few years ago, BuzzFeed dismissed some of its editors and began experimenting with AI-generated content. The result? Automated articles that lack meaning, emotion, and vitality, and which no one reads. This led to a drop in traffic and a reputation crisis. But who was affected? Not the people who created ideas and meaning, but the people who ‘filled content’ with things like ‘10 best toast recipes’.
Unilever is actively implementing AI to analyse trends and optimise campaigns. However, it also continues to invest in creative agencies and talented individuals. Why? Because, while algorithms are sufficient for calculations, they are not capable of coming up with campaigns like 'Dirt is Good' or 'Real Beauty'. On the other hand, people who have spent their entire careers copying and pasting banners are not needed there.
I have also seen this in practice: in projects where we worked with major brands, the distinction between those 'making strategy' and those 'pushing buttons' was always clear. The former always found their place. The latter disappeared because tools easily replaced them.
As my book says, 'AI doesn't take away jobs, it takes away mediocrity.' This is especially noticeable in marketing. Machines can easily perform boring, repetitive tasks. However, they cannot answer the question, 'Why are we doing this in the first place?' How will it change the brand's perception? How will it make people feel?'
Lazy marketers should be afraid — not because AI hates them, but because it makes their redundancy all too clear.
Marketers of the future, who will remain in the game, is the question
While lazy marketers are frantically searching for the 'unsubscribe from reality' button, proactive, inquisitive, and adaptable professionals are entering a golden age. This is because artificial intelligence is not a threat, but a tool. The only question is who knows how to use it.
The 'non-lazy' marketers of the future will be more like campaign directors than advertising operatives. They will be valued for asking the right questions, building a strategy, and understanding context, rather than simply copying someone else's banner.
We are already seeing examples of this today.
Heineken, for example, used AI to analyse global beer consumption trends and created the 'Cheers to All' campaign — a striking example of how AI can help to identify and break down stereotypes. However, they came up with the idea, set the tone, and chose the cultural angle — people.
L'Oréal is introducing AI into the beauty industry with personalised recommendations and virtual try-ons of cosmetics. However, without strategists and creatives, all that remains is a 'smart mirror'. The magic of the brand lies in how it incorporates technology into its narrative: 'Beauty is about you, not an algorithm.'
In my experience, projects where AI was used as an accelerator — for example, in audience analysis or visual generation — always won. However, the key remained — who formulates the idea and why? An algorithm cannot tell you how to touch on cultural pain points or seize the moment. That is done by people.
The marketer of the future will be someone who can combine analytics and intuition, and use data without losing their sense of humour or their understanding of human weaknesses and irony. This is why strategists and visionaries will remain key players. AI will become their assistant — fast and smart, but still just an assistant.
So, artificial intelligence has not come to replace us. It has come to eliminate our excuses.
Lazy marketers who built their careers by copying other people's ideas and producing endless reports are indeed out of a job. But let's be honest, they would have been out of a job even without AI — just later and with more fuss. Their work has long lacked strategy, meaning, and a real understanding of people.
Real marketers have nothing to fear. On the contrary, AI makes us stronger. It removes routine tasks, speeds up analytics, and suggests hypotheses. However, it is people who decide which hypotheses to turn into campaigns and which stories will endure.
Here's the main paradox: algorithms don't kill marketing. They simply remove the rose-tinted glasses and reveal who has been the passenger and who the driver all this time.
So the question is not whether artificial intelligence will replace you.
The question is different: What did you actually do for your profession today? Did you create meaning, or did you just press buttons? If the former, you can sleep peacefully. If it's the latter, well, ChatGPT has already taken your place.
The choice is simple: you can either direct the campaign or become an assistant to the machine.
Guess who will be fired first?
