As we go into the final stretch of 2024, there have been some amazing updates in the world of AI. I believe AI will change marketing in 2025.
As a marketing professional, I am entrenched in the rapidly advancing progress that AI platforms are achieving. Looking back just 12 months ago, we were in a totally different position with AI today and its mind blowing. So many things with AI were questionable 12 months ago, and the impact of AI on specific professions, skillsets and industries seemed distant.
Not anymore.
Yesterday OpenAI launched 3.o. While most people in the advertising and marketing industry won't be impressed by this, it has substantial impact on the industry. Why? Because it proved in testing that it can outperform PHD level humans in math and science. It also proved to be on the cusp of AGI, meaning it can reason by itself. But Gemini also launched their updated platform, the Orin Nano computer by Nvidia launched as well as the Genesis project in robotics. In the coming months I believe our industry is going to change in a big way.
Not to mention the massive impact AI agents are already having on the daily operations and content creation.
What does this all mean for the industry?
The reality is AI agents that can be trained to perform specific tasks can do them better than a person and for a fraction of the cost. Companies will need to make serious staffing and operational decisions on not IF they will adopt these new tools but when and to what extent. If AI increases the productivity of a person by 10X or more, you either increase your sales pipeline to meet that increased bandwidth or you reduce headcount to only have the necessary employees who work with AI. It's that simple.
Although this sounds harsh, here is the reality. If a person masters AI in their specific profession, they will be of greater value to companies and be able to take advantage of new opportunities.
Here is an example of what I mean.
Companies can now use advanced AI platforms to create all the essential brand strategy elements; brand positioning, USP, Target Audience profiles, as well as perform the necessary research to validate it all. 12 months ago, I would have said - This is great but you still need a strategy professional to validate what AI produced is of quality and accurate.
But the platforms are so advanced now, you don't need that. You can simply create an AI agent to perform that job.
The average project management tasks of creating timelines, scheduling and managing calendars, managing email communications both internally and with clients while monitoring budgets through the lifecycle of a project can all be automated and handled by AI agents. AI tools can already take more accurate and efficient meeting notes and perform necessary PM tasks in real time instead of when a project manager has time in their busy schedule to do it.
This means the daily workflow of a typical marketing project can be, by-in-large, automated using AI and AI agents.
It will still take time and labour to implement these systems into existing operational frameworks but once they are, this is when the reality will hit.
Even on the creative side of marketing and advertising AI is proving itself beneficial. Text to image and video platforms as well as text to audio and music platforms are making huge strides in their capabilities. Yes, it still takes an AI-trained creative professional to use multiple AI platforms and software to produce the end deliverable. But let me hypothesize a not-so-distant future scenario to you.
Currently the software we use to create content (image, video, sound, VFX) is the main interface between a human’s creativity and the output of a digital asset that embodies that creative vision. Meaning, a creative professional uses Photoshop to manipulate images, Unreal Engine to create virtual worlds and Ableton Live to compile music. The quality of that output is solely dependent on the talent and ability of the creative person using that software. What currently makes creative professionals valuable, is their combination of creative vision and how advanced their knowledge is of the software.
But if AI can use the software better than a person can, a person’s creative vision becomes the most valuable asset they have. The more unique the creative vision the more valuable they are.
In its basic form, we are providing inputs into software, and the software is using code to create a digital artifact or product based on those inputs. But a person’s creative vision can also be limited by what a piece of software can do. So, the software becomes a necessary layer in the creation process but also a bottle neck.
Now let’s say, instead of a human using that software an AI agent directly connects with the interface of that piece of software to create an output. A creative person simply speaks to an AI agent and tells it exactly what their creative vision is, and AI uses the parameters of the software to create it. And if AI finds gaps in the abilities of the software, it can create its own code to upgrade the software to enhance the output. Or write a totally new program using its ability to code.
This is not a pipe dream. This is reality today. It’s just not widely adopted yet. Yet.
There was a recent interview with the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, describing how he sees a future where AI agents will revolutionize business operations and potentially eliminate the need for software and the way we use it today.
I’ve spoken with many creative entrepreneurs and business owners in the creative service industry and most of them either think this is a sci-fi pipe dream, dooms-day speculation or they are rapidly trying to adopt AI into their workflow.
The reality is, next year in 2025, we are going to see bigger leaps in AI capabilities and bigger impacts to the economy. The way businesses operate is going to be reimagined.
So, what’s the upside?
Never has there been a time when a single person with specific talent or expertise can make a bigger impact and offer products or services that compete with larger companies than ever before.
In my opinion, brands won’t need large agencies anymore. They will have equivalent capabilities with small in-house teams using AI to level the playing field. If they choose to work with agencies, it will most likely be from a need for their unique creativity.
I think we are going to see a huge surge in freelancers, the ones who will continue being laid off from companies will use AI to provide competing services to companies on a more agile and cost-effective model.
I think we are also going to see the rise of new content platforms and new media opportunities. As major media platforms continue to be flooded with an increasing volume of ads and content due to AI, the rise of bespoke platforms or closed-community platforms will emerge giving consumers a chance to escape the noise and connect more meaningfully with a like-minded community.
The next year is going to be a wild ride. I for one am excited to see where it goes and what unfolds. Are you ready for 2025? What are your predictions?
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