If you asked whether technology could replace marketing a few decades ago, most would look at you like you hit your head on concrete. Now, it’s no more a question but an issue that’s sparking industry-wide debate.
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And we owe this specifically to the generative AI surge — which has more implications for the creative sector than many others.
But the question is, will AI replace marketers or make us better? And what about SEO? Will Googling be replaced with AI chatbots — and what does all that mean for content creation?
To answer these questions, I spoke with Samyutha Reddy, Jasper’s former Head of Enterprise Marketing, to explore her perspectives on what the future holds for AI in marketing and organic search.
Table of Contents
- How do marketers use AI?
- Why AI Won’t Replace Marketing
- AI is a Tool For Marketers, Not a Replacement
- But what about the search engines?
- So, will marketing be replaced by AI?
How do marketers use AI?
First, let’s consider how generative AI is even used in marketing.
Marketers surveyed in our 2024 State of AI in Marketing revealed the major tasks they use AI for. Top on that list are content creation, research, brainstorming, learning, and data analysis.
These tools are offering marketers the ability to generate content more quickly, analyze vast amounts of data with greater accuracy, and even come up with creative ideas through AI-powered brainstorming sessions. All leading to significantly positive ROI for their efforts.
Still, 48% of marketers in our survey are concerned about AI replacing their jobs in the next few years while a whopping 69% believes it’s a possibility that AI completely replaces human beings in the workplace one day.
But here’s why Reddy and I think that may not happen.
Why AI Won’t Replace Marketing
1. AI augments the human experience (but it doesn’t replace the human within that experience).
Generative AI can research any topic online and create original content, formatted as a blog post, email, ad, or more, based on the query — and in record time. In the future, rather than needing a team of five or ten content creators, will you just need one — someone to fact-check the AI's content?
Fortunately, Reddy isn't worried. In fact, even though her team used generative AI on a daily basis, she was still actively hiring and growing her team.
As she puts it, “AI augments the human experience, but it doesn't replace the human within that experience. We value writers in our society because they're able to give us a thought-provoking human perspective on the world.
It isn't just about summarizing facts that are out there. It's about humans sharing opinions on very real topics that help build your perspective on how you feel about something. So an AI [tool] could really never replace that human perspective.”
2. AI still has biases.
Because generative AI is still early in its development, it is prone to potential biases and inaccuracies it cannot discern in the information it gathers. These biases can lead to skewed outputs that may not align with reality, making it essential to maintain human oversight in the process.
Reddy highlights this issue, stating, “AI has biases deeply embedded within its models that people are working on. AI has the tendency to hallucinate and start talking about random things when you're asking it for outputs, so it would be really tough to just completely remove a human from the process.”
This tendency of AI to “hallucinate” or produce irrelevant and sometimes nonsensical content underscores the importance of human intervention to ensure accuracy and relevance.
AI is a Tool For Marketers, Not a Replacement
Instead of viewing this technology as a threat, Reddy suggests marketers do this instead:
“I think the angle you take matters on this whole generative AI front. If you’re a writer, content creator, or a marketer, you’ll want to ask yourself:
‘Am I going to be someone that embraces technology and figures out how to upskill myself and actually become the cream of the crop in terms of talent? Or am I going to be someone who pushes technology away, refuses to believe it's happening, and clings onto an old way of life?’”
Although AI will not take your job, you must not underestimate its impact on your role as a marketer. Here’s how Reddy suggests you stay on top of this innovation.
1. Marketers will need to reskill.
As aspects of content creation become more automated, Reddy acknowledges that AI will force content creators to reskill. She told me, “I think it'll force content creators to re-skill. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that's what every big shift in technology has done for humans.”
She adds, “I've never met a content creator who has said, ‘Wait. I really want to spend more time doing all the rote tasks of reading everything I need to know on the internet about a given topic.’ AI will give marketers more time to be creative, form an opinion, and incorporate more data sources into their perspectives.”
Rather than thinking of AI as a content creator replacement, it‘s better to think of AI as a marketer’s efficient side-kick.
Consider this: A marketer decides she wants to write a topic about SWOT analysis.
Rather than spending her morning chugging coffee and reading up on what SWOT analysis means, effective SWOT analysis examples, and how SWOT analyses can help businesses grow, she can simply plug the query into an AI chatbot.
Once she’s confirmed the sources the chatbot used to pull that information are accurate, she can quickly skim through the AI's response and learn everything she needs to begin writing about the topic. She can even use the AI’s response as a first draft, and strengthen it with her own unique tone and perspective.
From there, she can leverage the AI’s proofreading skills to edit her final copy.
Additionally, if the marketer has written a piece of content that she'd like to turn into an entire campaign, she can use AI to re-format her blog post into corresponding ad copy, which she can then hand over to her sales and paid ad teams.
As Reddy puts it, “I can effectively hand over to sales an entire drip campaign, an entire outbound sequence, complete with landing pages, with the ads that people will click and see.
And it really allows me to take control back on what it means to execute a campaign. It enables me to truly be a project manager and a strategist, versus someone who is waiting on other people to deliver their end of the bargain.”
57% of our surveyed marketers also confess to feeling pressured to learn new skills so AI won’t make them irrelevant — so this checks out.
2. Marketers will need to become experts in select AI platforms.
Freelancing platform Upwork recently added a new category, ‘Generative AI’, as a specialty within their marketplace.
This means business leaders can now hire freelance content creators who have expertise with a specific AI platform — and Reddy isn’t surprised.
She continues, “Similar to how a marketer can level-up by becoming HubSpot or Salesforce certified, I think we’ll soon see marketers who demonstrate their value by saying, ‘Hey, I’m skilled in using generative AI platforms.’”
Reddy sees marketers at the forefront of a tool that will ultimately upend all roles within a business, and she believes there's great privilege in being the first to adopt it.
As she puts it, “I think there’s a certain power here that marketers can reclaim, and instead of being the victims in this story of ‘generative AI is coming for marketing’, I think we really reposition it as saying, ‘generative AI has landed in the most innovative portion of the enterprise: marketing.’”
She continues, “And we are now the stewards of this technology and how it'’l be used within the enterprise, and we get to pilot it and see how it can supercharge our work.
And the folks who lean into being the stewards of this powerful technology will reap its benefits. I consider myself and our industry extremely lucky to be in this position.”
But what about the search engines?
Away from getting quick answers to common queries, marketers use search engines to complete tasks like SEO optimization to improve website rankings, conduct keyword research to target relevant search terms and analyze competitors to improve their strategy.
Now, with research being the second most-popular use case for marketers using AI, it stands to reason that they'll be leveraging traditional search engines less often.
And as more people move to AI search engines, tools like HubSpot’s AI Search Grader are helping marketers optimize their search performance.
It's a free app that quickly analyzes your brand based on what your prospects and customers are seeing across AI search engines, then gives you actionable recommendations on how to improve.
But what does this mean for traditional search engines? Would we no longer need, or use, them?
Reddy begs to differ, particularly since the information supplied on search engines is what powers generative AI results. She however sees it drastically changing.
As she puts it, “Search can help battle AI’s inaccuracies. For instance, Jasper has a function where you can toggle on Google search results.
So if I say, ‘Jasper, help me write a paragraph about XYZ,’ it’ll write the paragraph, and at the bottom it’ll put in the Google search results it used while it helped me create that output.
So I have factual links which I can cite, and fact-check to ensure they're the most reliable piece of content on a given topic.”
She continues, “I don't see search going away. I do see a future where I don’t necessarily want to type things into a search bar, and instead, I want to use chat functionality. That, I think, is imminent.
And I think we're already seeing that with the virality of ChatGPT. In just a couple of days, it’s become the fastest-growing consumer app.”
So, will marketing be replaced by AI?
In short, our marketing jobs and search engines are safe — for now.Ultimately, my conversation with Reddy felt positive and uplifting. As marketers, we don’t need to fear AI; We need to embrace it as technology that will help us do our jobs better.
And, personally, I‘m all for any tool that minimizes the amount of time I spend doing rote tasks, so I can get back to what really matters: creating content with the intention to move, inspire, or challenge readers’ to think differently.
Think HubSpot isn’t getting in on the generative AI action? Think again. Learn about our brand-new ChatSpot and Content Assistant tools and how you can access them.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in February 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
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