AI will be an 'absolute bloodbath' when it comes to taking marketers’ jobs

Long gone are the days where artificial intelligence is just an idea that marketers are still considering if they should or shouldn’t dip into. It’s now become an essential tool in everything from using generative AI for content creation to using for trend predictions and analysing consumer behaviour. 

In 2024, marketers that aren’t using AI in their day to day are at risk of being disadvantaged from competitors and are under threat of being left behind. Research from advertising company Mediaocean shows that more than half (54%) of marketers see gen AI as the most important consumer trend for 2024, showing that it is at the top of mind for marketers already. 

Additionally, content generated by AI tools like ChatGPT increased by more than half (56.7%) since these tools started entering the space in 2022 and it is predicted that this will increase by more than double in 2030, according to research by Bynder. 

However, there is an even bigger reality that marketers need to be accustomed to. What happens when AI starts to take over people’s existing jobs? During a session at MAD//Fest Australian, industry veteran and WPP founder Sir Martin Sorrell said that “algorithms are going to replace 25-year-old media planners in fairly quick time” and there won’t be 250,000 people at the holding companies running media planning and buying networks around the world. 

Sorrell said during this year’s Mad//Fest in London on stage that marketers need to stop looking back with “rose-tinted spectacles in the past” and to start looking at other models because AI will lead to a net reduction in areas such as visualisation and copywriting as it can produce an ad in hours instead of weeks. 

He said: “I will come out net-negative but there are pockets around personalisation, efficiency, and LLMs to educate everyone in the company which are super opportunities. AI will mean the models we have are going to be flatter and more efficient and effective.”

That’s the concern for Outbrain’s Head of Enterprise, Alex Cheeseman, a web recommendation platform. While other performance marketers are worried about which content and numbers will prove their job is safe, his concern is about how AI will impact not only performance marketers but the creative industry as a whole. 

“Rebuild and adapt” to survive 

While making AI be part of day to day life is only natural and part of how the world is going to grow, Cheeseman says that it will be a “bloodbath in the short term” as it starks to take away a lot of existing work and the industry will then have to adapts and remodel. 

He says: “ We live in a world of exponential growth, right? And exponential growth isn't linear; it's a J curve. It's really hard for a human brain to visualise that growth.

“Whenever you go through that, there’s always going to be pain and suffering and difficulty. It’s the same as when we went through the Industrial Revolution; it was the same when someone discovered electricity.

“All of the systems in place that we have pre-AI were built around a world where we didn’t have all this massive power. The second that we rebuild and adapt, I think things will be at a much better pace. But I think we’ve got to go through this hardship to get to Nirvana.” 

While the reality is unavoidable, there are ways that marketers can prepare better – according to Cheeseman – and one of those includes teaching people more critical thinking and agility so that they are able to adapt to constant change instead of the mindset that learning stops after education systems end like school and university. 

The second step is to then accept this change and agility and come to terms with having the systems and structure in place changing as well as your role changing with them. This includes thinking about how one might rebuild their business and how these structures that are in place would adapt to the change. 

Cheeseman added: “Everyone has to think about zero-budgeting their teams because if you look at some of the media and performance agencies, I guarantee that if they had the scope and ability to tear it all down and rebuild it, it would look fundamentally different from what it is today. 

“Challenge everything you’re doing. Don’t accept that just because you’ve done something for five years, it’s the right way to do it. Review everything you’re doing and think about what matters to you.

“How do you want to be perceived in the next five or ten years? When your kids grow up and face issues like depression and other societal problems, where do you want to spend your money? How do you want to support the world and be agile?”