The proliferation of AI across every aspect of B2B and B2C marketing is having a deep and profound effect on traditional ways of working.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman has speculated that, once AGI arrives, AI could handle about 95% of the tasks marketers today hire agencies, strategists and creative professionals to do.The proliferation of AI across every aspect of B2B and B2C marketing is having a deep and profound effect on traditional ways of working.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman has speculated that, once AGI arrives, AI could handle about 95% of the tasks marketers today hire agencies, strategists and creative professionals to do.¹

The distinction between AI as a marketing transformation capability vs a tool to replace marketers is crucial but nuanced. While most industry professionals see infinite opportunity in this shift and consider it necessary and long overdue, many also acknowledge that making this business-critical transition involves significant complexity and uncertainty. A recent Canva report finds that 92% of marketing leaders consider AI proficiency essential in the coming years, while 75% of teams increased AI budgets yet still struggle to use tools effectively or measure results. ²

Transcending marketing into a growth centre of excellence

Organisations that delay adopting AI safely [AI unleashed - taking the first leap forward, safely], and that remain disconnected from the speed and force of this new reality, risk missing unprecedented opportunities that drive growth and market differentiation.

AI is moving marketing from a cost centre to a revenue engine and growth driver, delivering efficiencies, hyper-personalisation, and innovation.

A recent McKinsey report estimates that gen AI could contribute up to $4.4 trillion in annual global productivity. According to the analysis, marketing and sales is one of four functional groups that combined could reap an estimated 75 percent of that value.¹ The productivity of marketing alone due to gen AI could increase between 5 and 15 percent of total marketing spend, worth about $463 billion annually. “We estimate that generative AI could increase the productivity of the marketing function with a value between 5 and 15 percent of total marketing spending.” ³

This is just the beginning. When marketers combine AI’s capabilities – such as content generation, hyper-personalisation, predictive modelling, and automation - with their deep understanding of brand strategies, consumer behavior, and market dynamics, they drive revenue growth across the entire business. Companies are now acknowledging that given the right support and investment, marketing is evolving into a key driver of business strategy.

A dynamic phenomenon, to be understood and managed

Jevons' paradox⁴, named after economist William Stanley Jevons, is the observation that efficiency gains in using a resource often leads to greater total consumption of that resource, not less.

In marketing, the same effect applies with AI. As AI tools make it faster and cheaper to create content, launch campaigns, and personalise messaging, companies are able to run more campaigns and produce more content. AI efficiency gains often lead to increased overall activity rather than reduced effort.

The key insight here is that the Jevons paradox isn't a problem to be solved, it's a dynamic to be understood and managed. Companies that recognise this effect can better plan for growth, allocate resources appropriately, and harness the exponential engagement opportunities that AI efficiency creates. Those expecting AI to simply cut marketing workload may be unprepared for the greater overall activity and demand it enables.

63% of Chief Marketing Officers (CMO’s) cite a lack of AI knowledge as their biggest challenge⁵.

Despite AI’s undisputed transformative potential, the future of marketing lies not in using AI to reduce work, but in using it to do exponentially more, recognising that efficiency gains will enable increased customer engagement and marketing activity.

A Q4 2024 Forrester survey ⁶ found that the complexity of the martech stack is increasing barriers to delivering personalisation, scaling marketing efforts, onboarding AI and making marketing spend efficient.

An ever-growing tsunami of AI tools and platforms, rapidly evolving consumer expectations, and increasing accountability for revenue impact, means that an evolutionary shift in the way marketing functions are structured is inevitable. This shift is already underway and will accelerate as AI becomes central to marketing strategy.

Three Strategic Imperatives for AI-Driven Marketing

1. Prioritise authenticity over automation: Now that AI can do more, understand what humans should focus on.

Recognise that human wisdom and intuition are the differentiators, and that AI automation solves for speed and consistency, not meaning, emotion, or ethics.

Researchers have found that when humans and AI work together, they can achieve better results than when working alone, but this combination only works when humans and AI do what they do best6.

• Conduct a human-AI readiness audit
• Evaluate the existing data infrastructure, team AI literacy, and cultural alignment to inform AI adoption
• Design and test the practical application of an integrated market readiness offering

2. Start small and scale fast: Supercharge productivity

The combination of technology integration, data management shifts, outdated measurement models, and skills gaps, along with rising consumer expectations and hyper-personalisation, means traditional marketing structures are no longer viable.

• Reimagine a marketing function that delivers measurable revenue growth at speed, combining the analytical power of AI with human-led strategic judgment and creativity.
• Experiment with low-cost tools to identify how AI integration can increase top-line revenue and improve bottom-line efficiencies, making it an obvious high-value investment.
• Focus on scaling what works, removing outdated processes, and rethinking how augmenting marketing processes, products, services, and client interactions contributes to growth

3. Clarify human and AI roles for effective execution: Establish a mindset where humans are empowered, not replaced by AI

Understand the different human and AI roles, and how they can work best together. AI will inevitably replace certain aspects of traditional marketing, mostly routine and repetitive tasks⁷.

• Evaluate marketing responsibilities
• Create role clarity. Assign human–AI ‘roles’ and ‘responsibilities’
• Analyse potential AI automation cost savings and efficiency gains and agree on objectives and KPIs

In the new era of accelerated revenue focused marketing functions, CMO’s will become CGO’s (Chief Growth Officers), accountable for developing and leading skilled teams to effectively transform insights into specific, profitable actions and turning AI-generated concepts into tangible growth.

Emerging human–AI marketing role examples (large organisations)
The human roles below create multiplicative value when tightly coupled with AI systems –critical for revenue-accretive marketing functions. As AI capabilities grow, these human functions will increasingly focus on ensuring brands remain authentic, dynamic and competitive.