Don't let AI tools erase key marketing skills, CMOs told

Marketers must stop thinking about artificial intelligence as another tool in the martech stack and start thinking about the technology as a key member of the team, to truly harness its disruptive power.

That is one of the key findings of a new report from Gartner, “Building the Marketing Function of Tomorrow”, which argues that CMOs who do not act now risk losing key skills in their teams in the future.

For instance, in its current form, the report maintains that over time AI will become a “smart tool”, where marketers set parameters like “a promotional campaign on social, targeting Gen Z,” and the AI system recommends images or headlines most likely to resonate with that audience.

However, by making AI a key part of the team – what Gartner describes as “AI as an actor” – the technology will start to suggest campaign ideas; for instance, how specific audiences would prefer to see an image and what their preferences are in terms of channels, and then it would be able to build and run the campaign itself.

Ultimately, AI would not just provide a response when called upon, it would have the latitude to react, offer and even correct ideas, In addition, it would be embedded into all marketing processes, meaning it is always on, rather than being turned on as a tool would be.

AI’s work would also be trusted by its human colleagues; its efforts may be broadly overseen by humans, but those efforts will not have to be painstakingly checked and verified.

Gartner insists that CMOs who are not taking an intentional approach to AI’s involvement in marketing activities risk creating skill deficits or skill degradation on marketing teams, as classic marketing skills are increasingly offloaded to AI, and subsequently lost or devalued by humans.

It cites, as an example, the increased human reliance on GPS which has, over time, resulted in less proficiency in reading and using paper maps. In other words, GPS reliance creates wayfinding skill degradation.

Similarly, offloading human reasoning skills to AI will impact the future of marketing talent, unless careful stewardship is implemented now.

The report states: “Marketing has demonstrated its resilience by adapting to discrete-but-significant challenges (for example, the emergence of mobile or social marketing), mainly by shifting people, process and technology to continue to deliver campaigns and insight.

“Designing a marketing function to direct disruption means you must harness AI to power the marketing function. In practice, this means being realistic about the impact of AI on tech and talent.

“We’ve learned that convergent disruption means that changes build on and intersect with one another, creating new, bigger dynamics and complexities. Embedding AI deeply into marketing activities creates tech and talent interdependencies that even advanced marketing functions aren’t ready for.

“Handling these interdependencies and harnessing the true disruptive power of AI requires a specific shift from AI as a tool to AI as an actor.”