Recent AI Marketing Trends

1. Marketing Layoffs Are Coming.

   The US Brookings Institute of Analysis in a recent report state that 30% of U.S. workers could see at least half of what they do today automated, and 85% will feel some impact as a result of AI. The difference in the AI era is that, unlike the last automation wave (robots on factory floors), the new hit list includes cognitive roles—paralegals, payroll clerks, and of course, marketers!

   We can see this already in the marketplace. As an example, the CEO of Shopify recently had a memo leaked stating to staff that before asking for more headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI. He apparently stated his expectations are that AI can get “100× the work done.” Productivity expectations from AI are, of course, sky-high, and it would be easy to bury our marketing heads in the sand and ignore it. However, I would bet that the first tangible step for marketers is a hiring freeze by default. The rule doesn’t fire current staff on day one, but it cuts off the oxygen of future head-count growth and acts as a forcing function to drive productivity gains from AI.

   So what can marketing teams do to prepare? Well, there are two obvious areas to focus on:

   • AI proficiency becomes job security. AI use will likely be evaluated in performance reviews, so anyone who can’t prompt, automate, or talk AI tools is automatically underperforming. Start learning all relevant AI marketing tools you can, attend workshops on AI tools, attend demos, and try out the tools for yourself even if only on a test basis. Becoming an expert in AI tools will make you the expert in the team and less expendable but will also mean you are leading the pack on marketing productivity know-how!

   • Focus on upstream activities: AI automation provides the opportunity for marketing teams to defocus from repetitive tasks to doubling down on creative and strategic thinking, which I hope is why most marketers originally started a career in marketing anyway! Some marketers will feel uncomfortable not doing repetitive tasks as repetition at work, while boring, is often easy. However, the winners will focus their newly freed-up time on developing strategies and campaigns that really move the needle.

Recently however, there has been some initial backlash on companies that have sacked employees on adopting AI. Both Duolingo and Klarna have both faced anger from customers for replacing employees with AI. According to the marketing unit of Harvard Business School, the possibility that AI tools might completely take over tasks previously handled by humans, rather than just assist with them, stirs up deep concerns and worries!

2. OpenAI 03 Model

   OpenAI recently launched their O3 model, a deep reasoning and research model that has been receiving very positive feedback. To test it out, I tried it on a complex pricing business problem for a subscription business and provided the LLM with a research brief via some concise prompts. The work would have taken me at least 2 days to complete without AI, and I was amazed at how quickly it developed a plan. I can't help thinking about how this tool could be used for market research and analytics and maybe even remove the need for a market researcher or data analyst.

   
   

3. AI adoption in marketing functions turbo charged: In a recently released 2025 survey from the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute on marketing leaders. 60% of marketing respondents claimed that they were piloting or scaling AI in their marketing functions, up 18 points from 2023. 74% of respondents claimed that AI is critical or very important to the success of their marketing function in the next 12 months, up 8 points since 2024. When asked what the primary outcomes marketeers are interested in achieving from AI, the top 3 reasons were reducing time on repetitive tasks (82% of respondents), obtaining more actionable insights from marketing data (65% of respondents) and accelerating revenue growth (63% of respondents).

All in all, the trend lines are clear, AI increasing adoption increasing, however it is reassuring to see that CMO's are not just looking for cost saving from AI but are also searching for opportunities to increase revenue and sales!