AI’s threat to your career: Will you survive the takeover?

Will AI take your marketing job, or redefine it? This blog explores how marketers can thrive in an AI-driven world by blending personal experience, industry wisdom, and new technology. History shows tools like the printing press, radio, and internet empowered marketers who adapted, and AI is no different. By applying timeless principles from legends like Claude Hopkins and David Ogilvy, plus real-world examples, you’ll learn how to leverage AI’s precision and scale while preserving the human creativity, empathy, and stakeholder management skills that remain irreplaceable.

The roots: travelling salesperson and early scaling efforts

Marketing began with travelling salespeople pitching goods face-to-face, learning customer needs firsthand. One of my favourite all-time business books, Claude Hopkins’ Scientific Advertising (1923), called advertising “salesmanship in print”, meaning it replicated a salesperson's persuasive, tailored pitch through written words scaled for mass audiences. The 1400s printing press scaled this, and by the late 1800s, Sears Roebuck’s catalogues reached 10 million Americans yearly.

This shift from personal pitches to mass marketing showed technology’s power to expand reach, but only when paired with customer understanding. David Ogilvy once said, “the consumer isn’t a moron; she’s your wife,” urging treating audiences with respect. AI can crunch data for hyper-personalised ads, but it can struggle to replicate the empathy needed to build trust, especially when lacking unpublished internal insights, like customer feedback or strategic priorities within a business.

Mass media boom: creativity meets accountability

The 20th century’s radio, newspapers, and TV exploded marketing’s scale. In the 1930s, radio jingles hooked listeners, and by the 1970s, Coca-Cola’s “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” became iconic. But bold claims sparked scepticism, leading to the FTC’s creation in 1914 and today, bodies like the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Hopkins’ call to “be specific”, grounding claims in facts, aligns with Ogilvy’s rule: “never write an advertisement you wouldn’t want your family to read.” As AI generates ads, marketers must ensure compliance, anchoring creativity in trust.

“AI offers scalable benefits, but only if we stay human, grounded in principles: know your customer, test relentlessly, stay honest.”

By the 20th century, corporations were becoming complex and matrixed, with an exploding number of stakeholders and working groups. Stakeholder management became an increasingly important skill and remains so now (it feels like 90% of my life is spent managing stakeholders at work and home). Aligning projects and campaigns with sales, product and legal requires communication and influencing skills AI doesn’t fully replicate.

“From the printing press to AI, history shows technology empowers marketers who adapt, not those who resist”

This era super-scaled the salesperson’s pitch, but Ogilvy’s “strong headlines” still live in viral posts, while Hopkins’ testing fuels split-tests. Digital’s constant nature requires relentless refinement, and AI accelerates this, but human creativity, informed by stakeholder insights, decides what connects.

Measurement: a common thread that continues to matter

Hopkins’ early 1900s coupon tests tracked responses, setting a standard for accountability mirrored in today’s analytics dashboards. His “test everything” mantra ensured campaigns proved their worth, a rigour seen in radio’s listener surveys and TV’s Nielsen ratings.

I’ve personally made full-funnel performance dashboards paramount wherever I’ve worked, likely due to having a chip on my shoulder about marketing traditionally being seen as a cost centre and wanting to quantify its value, not just at the point of acquisition, but full customer lifetime value.

AI supercharges this, analysing thousands of ad variants or revenue attribution in a fraction of the time, but the principle endures: data sharpens human judgment, not replaces it. Future marketers will use AI’s predictive models and granular reporting to optimise faster, yet success hinges on aligning metrics with customer needs, something stakeholder collaboration often informs, arguably beyond AI’s reach.

The future: established traditions will power AI’s potential

Will AI replace marketers? History says no. The printing press birthed publishers, radio created jingles, and the internet launched influencers. Each leap rewarded those mastering new tools while staying customer-focused. AI predicts behaviour, automates content, and hyper-targets ads, but it can lack the spark for 'big ideas', empathy-driven storytelling, or stakeholder management. Without access to team priorities or customer nuances, it can’t fully align different moving parts like a human can. Nor can it craft a sharp, strategic brief that distils goals, customer truths, and brand essence into a clear roadmap (more on the importance of a killer brief here).

What’s next? AI will deepen personalisation, with AR ads tailoring experiences in real-time and voice assistants pitching conversationally. Blockchain could ensure ad transparency, logging impressions immutably to rebuild trust. Yet risks loom: over-relying on AI might dull creativity, leading to a mass of wallpaper-like communications that merge into a pool of ‘sameness’.

Jobs won’t vanish, but for those in tactical roles, the shift may feel daunting as AI automates tasks like ad copy drafts, data analysis, media buys, reporting or campaign execution. But this is your chance to step out of the minutiae and pivot, focusing on strategic skills like crafting briefs, storytelling, and stakeholder alignment, where the human approach still reigns.

“AI frees marketers to focus on what machines can’t: crafting big ideas and building trustworthy relationships with consumers and peers”

History’s lesson is clear: channels evolve, but marketing’s core of solving problems and building trust for commercial benefit endures. From Sears’ catalogues to AI ads, it’s about value. Hopkins said, “People seek service for themselves.” AI scales that service, but only if we stay human, grounded in principles: know your customer, test relentlessly, stay honest.

Disagree? Will AI ever replace the human spark in marketing, or are we irreplaceable? Are there tasks AI can do that you’d never delegate? Would love to hear your thoughts, our livelihoods might depend on them.