We Don't Need Faster Horses

Thoughts on the Marketing Jobs of the Future

 

“What is the marketing job of the future?” It was an unexpected question from a friend and former colleague that arrived in my inbox recently.

I had recently shared an article on my LinkedIn feed by the Marketing AI Institute that quoted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as saying “AI will do 95% of what marketers use agencies, strategists, and creative professionals for today." (I've come to think of this as the quote that launched a thousand panic attacks.)

My friend then said something that most of us probably thought when we heard that: “This quote had a pretty profound impact on my already concerned mind about the marketing industry…”

Seriously. Thanks Sam Altman.

Her note got me thinking: What are the marketing jobs of the future? It’s easy to get into doom-cycle mode and imagine our entire industry wiped out by these new technologies because they’re fast-growing, highly capable and hard to understand.

But what’s the reality? What does all of this mean for marketers – and every other profession on the planet? The AI crystal ball is murky and fast-swirling, so I don’t know the answers (I’m not sure anyone really does), but I’ve made some educated guesses below.

To get there, I had to take a step back and ask myself a simple question: At its most basic, what is the job of the marketer? To me, it’s to promote something (a car, a vacation, a doctor’s appointment, a college education, etc.) with the goal of convincing someone to buy it when they have other options, including not buying anything at all.

Put simply, marketing is the art of persuasion.

Now you might be saying to yourself, “Persuasion! That sounds like a uniquely human capability. Marketers’ jobs will be fine.” Not so fast. Back to doom-and-gloom Sam Altman, who believes AI will soon be capable of “super-human persuasion”.

Great.

So what’s left? Coding? Nope. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says humans don’t need to learn how to code anymore. In fact, the marketing-related activities that AI can (or soon will be able to) handle is pretty sobering. Here’s a non-exhaustive list:

• Creating novel ideas
• Developing strategy
• Identifying market opportunities
• Creating personas
• Conducting market research
• Copywriting
• Creating images and videos
• Personalizing and automating communications
• Developing and producing ad creative
• Deploying and optimizing advertising
• Measuring and reporting on performance

So, back to the marketing jobs of the future.

We know people buy things they need and want, but why they buy is complex; wrapped up in our decision-making are basic human needs, ego, self-image, societal expectations, and many other complicated things.

It’s the inherent humanness of buying something that makes me bullish on the forever need for humans at the center of marketing.

It’s the inherent humanness of buying something that makes me bullish on the forever need for humans at the center of marketing.

Will the skills needed change? Without question. Will some types of marketing jobs disappear altogether? Absolutely. Will humans disappear from the equation? No chance.

Even though he apparently never actually said it, Henry Ford is often quoted as having said “If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” The basic idea behind this widely misquoted quote is that when major change happens, people don’t – and can’t – truly know what will be needed in the future because it’s outside the scope of their knowledge and experience. In other words, people couldn’t have told Ford that they wanted a Model T when all they were used to were horses.

When it comes to the future of AI and human employment, we’re having a faster horses moment. We don’t really know what all of this means for the future of marketing, so many people are focused on how we can make current jobs better, faster and more efficient.

But the reality is that mainstream AI is too new, too hard to understand (just ask Google) and too far outside of our current context to know anything for sure, which, to me, is exciting because it means we can help define those jobs. We can ensure that the there’s always a humanness to everything we do.

While many people are understandably concerned about what AI will mean for the field of marketing, I believe the role of humans will be far more important in the future than it is today.

I believe the role of humans will be far more important in the future than it is today.

If technology can handle all of the tasks I shared above, it leaves the humans to handle the things that make marketing powerful and impactful – the things that make it possible to connect with another human being. And the good news? You don’t have to get trained on any of the skills you’ll need to succeed; they’re inherent to who you are:

• Empathy
• Understanding human nature and motivation
• Gut instinct
• Creativity (as stunning as Sora is, I would argue that it’s only as creative as the prompts the human gives it)
• Ambition
• Soul, which I might define as a distillation of our inherent humanness
• Encouragement
• Intuition
• Trust, which is not something people have a lot of when it comes to AI

With all of that in mind, we’ve come down to it: What do I think are the marketing jobs of the future? I’ve decided to make it harder on myself and not just throw out vague declarations; I’ve written some job descriptions.

In each instance, I’m assuming that an individual human is paired up with a custom AI model to create human/AI companion sets. And at the core of all of them is the assumption that relationship-building and maintenance are critical.

Personal CMOs

If AI tools will be able to handle the majority of the “block-and-tackle” marketing activity, they will need to be guided by a human being who knows the market, the brand, the company’s goals, the capabilities of the technology, the motivations of the target buyer, etc., and can ensure that what’s produced, marketed, iterated and evaluated is meeting the human needs of the business owner.

This idea, which I think of as a personal CMO, becomes a company’s strategic, creative and technology partner – the human thread that runs through all marketing decisions.

Qualifications:

• Strategic thinkers – people who can connect the dots and keep the client focused on the big picture.
• Right-tool-for-the-job orchestrators – someone who can use the AI tools for what they’re best at while knowing when it’s the right time to involve a human.
• Human connectors – relationship-building will become even more important the more we rely on computers to do the daily work of marketers.
• People managers – They will need to guide the people who manage the tech, keep them engaged, motivated and focused.

Creative Co-Pilots

As I noted above, human creativity can’t be replaced by AI. It can create an approximation of creativity based on its inputs, but I don’t think AI will be able to develop truly creative things. The Creative Co-Pilot will work for the Personal CMO and be responsible for partnering with the client and the AI to make the marketing as powerful, effective and efficient as possible.

Qualifications:

• Sea-of-sameness seers – We all know that marketing in an industry can all start looking like everything else – the “sea of sameness”. I would argue that separate AI models operating at scale will also start to produce things that are similar to one another. It’s the job of the human to understand this and keep challenging the client to push for new ideas and keep prompting the AI to produce novel things.
• Creative data-enthusiasts – The AI will be able to track whether a marketing campaign is working or not, but it will be up to the Creative Co-Pilot to understand the data and prompt the system to make changes based on the client’s goals.
• Idea optimizers – they can get the most out of the AI (and the client) by knowing when creative is “tired” and it’s time to change things up. They’re also master prompters who help the AI create something truly creative.
• Humanity advocates – In all things, the human thread needs to be present, and the Creative Co-Pilot is where the rubber hits the road. Does the marketing reflect the motivations of the people it’s targeting? Does it make them feel something? Does it compel them to do something?

 

Custom Experience Curators

Why do we buy mementos when we go on vacation? I think it’s because we want something tangible that connects us to that experience and those memories. Souvenirs are a very human thing and AI tools won’t replace the human need for connection to something they’ve enjoyed – and to the people and cultures they experienced.

So while AI agents will soon be able to plan and complete tasks on our behalf, they won’t be able to replace our need for personalized experiences that create a lifetime of memories. The Custom Experience Curator is a world traveler and savvy marketer who works one-on-one with people (and their AI agent) to plan trips that will change a person’s life, mind, etc.

Qualifications:

• Travel lovers - The Custom Experience Creator knows where to get the most authentic local food, see the sights that no one else knows about, etc.
• Culture aficionados – Language differences are less of a barrier to cross-cultural connection every day. The Custom Experience Creator will know something about lots of cultures and help find the places that will bring the most joy to their customers; no language classes required.
• Curious connectors – They’re curious about the world, and have the ability to connect quickly and meaningfully with other people to learn more about them, their culture, their lives, etc. They then translate these experiences into recommendations for others seeking adventure.

These roles might end up being faster horses. I might re-read this article in five years and see that they were just an iteration of where we are today and that I could never have imagined the marketing jobs of the future. But that’s OK; to me it’s less about whether specific predictions are right or wrong and more about how we embrace – and shape – the change that’s happening today.

 

So what about you? What do you think the marketing jobs of the future will look like?