Last week, my friend, Kevin, proclaimed he was going to “learn AI.” Like how to build it. He’s a product guy who loves crafting complex things from the ground up, so it didn’t surprise me that he was jazzed to take on such a daunting project. But what did surprise me was where our conversation took us.

Kevin told me he predicts AI is going to completely upend every facet of our lives and replace the way humans work and even engage with one another. No industry is immune, no job is safe.

I agreed, to a degree.

The next revolution

Yes, AI is going to transform the world, the same way previous Industrial Revolutions have, well, revolutionized the world. Our early Industrial Revolutions not only transformed our physical landscape as folks flocked to cities from farm fields, but they also introduced novel technologies and transformative processes.

These became so deeply engrained in our day-to-day lives, that it’s impossible to fathom life without them today. We are entirely reliant and deeply dependent on transportation, communication, digital technology, mass production, global trade, and even modern consumerism- all byproducts of these eras.

Certainly, such innovations did replace industries and thus jobs, but most of us would argue that despite the many negative consequences they generated (like climate change), they were a “net positive” addition to society. Humans had to adapt to these fundamental changes. And we did.

**Now, we find ourselves in the thick of the current Industrial Revolution, which many have dubbed “Industry 4.0.”**

We are innovating faster and more audaciously than ever, introducing massively disruptive concepts like the Internet of Things (IoT), big data analytics, cloud computing, advanced robotics, and of course, artificial intelligence.

Once again, humans are going to have to adapt to these changes.

No job is safe

When I was a kid, my mom told me that when she was growing up, they envisioned we’d be living in a Jetson-like world with flying cars in the sky and robots roaming the house by the 2000’s.

While most of our cars still roll on wheels, her visions aren’t too far from reality. I have yet to meet a Rosey, but many Roombas have replaced hand-held vacuums.
**And now, employees across every industry are asking if AI is going to take over their jobs, too.**

A few months ago, my lawyer friends and I tested Chat GPT’s ability to explain a complicated employment law with shocking precision. Does it depreciate their expertise and threaten their jobs or does it democratize information, enabling the general public to access, navigate, and understand complicated issues more easily? Maybe both.

Even my gynecologist and I had a lengthy chat about how despite decades of experience, AI will outperform her ability to screen for and detect issues. She told me, “I’ve been doing this for 20 years, so I can see with my eye when something looks off. But, soon enough, AI will be able to do it better than me.” Could this technology put my doctor out of a job or save lives? Maybe both.

The price of the human touch

I think we have to accept that AI will replace certain aspects of our jobs, but instead of dreading that inevitability, let’s think about the other inevitability: the more we use AI, the more value will be placed on human interaction, intelligence, creativity, and creation.

Case in point? As Amazon grew, so did the demand for artisanal, handmade goods, spawning an entire global marketplace on Etsy where consumers pay a premium for artisanal items made by crafty humans, not massive assembly lines.

We see similar trends with the rise of the modern farmer’s market, a $1B industry, which has averaged an annual +7% growth (per the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service) since they started tracking them in the 90’s.

Those jalapeno cheddar scones just taste better when they are handed to me in a little brown bag by the man who baked them earlier that morning.

Doctors should and will use AI to fast-track testing and develop better treatments, but can you truly imagine automating the entire healthcare industry? Humans don’t want a harrowing diagnosis delivered through a text message, they want to sit down with a live doctor and talk face-to-face.

Once the novelty wears off, humans won’t appreciate live performances put on by a cast of artificial actors and musicians. In the same way a print is not as valuable as the original painting, what makes a piece of art impressive is its authenticity. The fact it’s impossible to replicate. But if technology can replicate anything at scale, doesn’t the inherent value of it decrease as a result?

And who would want their wedding or a family member’s funeral to be officiated by a bot? Sure, streamline the table arrangements, but ChatGPT could never retell an embarrassing story or recount a heartfelt moment with vivid detail or emotive color the way a well-written Best Man/Maid of Honor speech can.

There are many facets of our world we cannot completely substitute for an artificial replacement. And I would argue marketing is one of them.

Will marketers be replaced by AI?

Marketers are creatives with the capacity to ideate completely novel concepts with nuance. They inspire connections between people and brands, reaching and resonating with target audiences in tailored, personalized, and authentic ways no computer can. Think about it- LLMs by definition riff on what they’ve been fed, churning out cookie-cutteresque, “insert brand here” results that sound, well, artificial.

Yet, I’ve also been leveraging AI to help improve my marketing materials, expediting the more mundane parts of the process and improving my output. I’m using automation tools to transcribe audio, edit video, modify images, and check my work for grammatical errors like:

Descript - Create, edit, and publish video content through easy automation
Fireflies.ai - Transcribe, summarize, search, and analyze voice conversations instantaneously
Canva Magic - Create customized, on-branded designs in seconds with an AI generator
Grammarly - Check your grammar, punctuation, spelling, and content quality automatically

These just scratch the surface! This GenAI Prism showcases a myriad of tools that span multiple disciplines, and the list just keeps growing.

So will AI replace the need for human marketers, or simply make us more efficient in our work? I think the latter.

How do we learn to work with AI?

As we continue to contemplate (and experience) these inevitable changes to our working world, I think it’s worth highlighting the humanity in our work, elevating and celebrating the things only humans can do, while letting the bots handle the rest (like catching the typos in this blog).

Will AI Replace Marketers?

The Spritzy Moment