As AI approaches and exceeds human intelligence, I’ve been thinking a lot about where humans fit in the mix. I hope you’re thinking about this, too.

Compared to any time in history, there are a few unique aspects about the technological change we’re facing.

First, we’re not replacing a horse with a car, or a book with a Kindle. We are replacing intelligence. This has unparalleled consequences for the usefulness of human beings.

Second, nobody knows what’s next. Even the most ego-driven tech bros say … “we don’t know.” Will we enter a period of enlightenment, or will we destroy ourselves? Don’t know.

But here is something that we do know. Many knowledge-industry professions are facing an existential crisis. And our survival might depend on art.

The economic value of intelligence is zero

Every company is built on the organization of intelligence. We manage human intelligence units who possess useful knowledge in HR, accounting, marketing, etc. As those humans gain more intelligence, they are rewarded with economic incentives like money, stock options, and vacation days.

But what happens when there is no economic value for intelligence? Think about the ChatGPT you use every day. It’s more or less free, and it’s getting better month by month. As the capability increases, the cost to access that intelligence also goes down. So the most prized possession in any company — intelligence — is becoming a commodity. And that truly changes everything.

Now at this point, you might want to stop me and say, “But what about …”  Of course there are exceptions. And as I said, nobody knows for sure. But one trend we can see with clarity is that the economic value of intelligence will be near zero, and that is profound.

The impact on marketing careers

Let’s get more granular. Where do humans fit in the future marketing world where intelligence is not prized as it once was?

If you care about the sustainability of your marketing career, I beg you to read Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World. This book spells out very clearly the human-only aspects of marketing we can protect. It’s not about fighting AI or ignoring it, but transedning it in a uniquely human way. The book contains hundreds of ideas.

And here is a major theme of the book that I want you to internalize and carry with you forever.

If you’re a competent person creating competent work, you are vulnerable. You are ignorable. AI will take your job. I can’t sugarcoat this. AI is already competent and even excellent at many tasks. It is already taking jobs.

But here is one thing I am sure of: Art will persist. Art is the future of your marketing.

Becoming marketing artists

Tech analyst Shelly Palmer recently wrote:

“The debate over AI and its role in creative industries often centers on one question: Can AI ever be as creative as humans? While it’s tempting to philosophize about inspiration and ingenuity, this line of inquiry misses a crucial point for anyone tasked with making practical decisions about content creation: If the audience can’t tell the difference between AI-generated and human-generated content—or if they don’t care—then, for all practical purposes, there is no difference.”

My view is, you have to make them care!

Art is the expression of the human experience. AI can fake this in a convincing way. A humanoid robot recently painted a picture that sold for $1.6 million. But we will always hold on to the music, the stories, the paintings that are an irreplaceable part of a human story.

The same goes for marketing.

To stand out, you have to be original. To be original, you have to add your human story to the marketing mix. This requires a new way of thinking and some courage, but what choice do you have?

Your voice, perspective, and wisdom are the only things AI cannot copy. There is only one you, and the world is longing for authenticity that cuts through the AI pandemic of dull.

So here is one key to success. Art is an expression of the human condition and brand marketing must aspire to do the same. To survive and thrive in the AI-pocalypse our marketing must approach art. Make your customers care about your content.

Which would be audacious. Audacity: The AI survival skill.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

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I am a fan of internet pioneer Kevin Kelly. His futuristic projections and books have informed much of my work. And while I don’t always agree with him, I pay close attention to his writing.

Last week, Kevin wrote a blog post titled The Handoff to Bots, which thinks through the implications of two colliding megatrends: global de-population due to a rapidly declining birthrate and the inevitable rise of AI bots taking over human jobs.

This collision seems calamitous — how many businesses depend on steady population growth for their economic progress? The specter of the population and job market simultaneously crashing in a freefall seems horrifying.

But Kevin is optimistic, even in the face of this probability. His thesis is that AI is not only capable of manufacturing and innovation but also driving consumption and economic growth. He contends this “handoff” from human labor to machine efficiency is essential for sustaining and improving living standards despite a declining human workforce.

What AI Utopia?

Kevin’s article repeats a familiar futurist theme: When the bots come, we’ll be able to do whatever we want to do! No more careers, no more toil. We will be living in Leisure World.

Go play. Or volunteer. Or write poetry. Hurray!

When will a transition to a dreamy AI Utopia arrive? Job loss is already occurring in some sectors, like customer service, where thousands of jobs have been replaced by AI agents.

But the initial tendency for these displaced workers isn’t to start watercolor painting or gardening. They’re looking for another job because there is no safety net for AI-replaced workers. There is no AI Utopia, at least not for the foreseeable future. There are bills to pay.

When will we see job displacement at scale? Many AI advocates say it’s soon, but I think it will be at least two to three years away. Why? Because every time a big tech shift seems imminent, it’s not. Tech moves fast, culture moves slowly, so there will be an adjustment period.

But, it’s coming. And when it does, there will be no mass migration to AI Utopia, as the futurists like to say. Most displaced people will be looking for jobs, not fishing trips. This is what’s nagging at me. What are the plans to help people navigate to a world without work? Who is planning for this?

Our smartest visionaries, like Kevin Kelly, think it’s inevitable.

But how?

Surviving AI Utopia

To get to the next step in my thought process, let’s assume we figure this transition out. The AI bots and humanoid bots arrive. They take millions of jobs. Somehow, the government extracts bot-created wealth from the technocrats, and re-distributes it equitably to the unemployed, and we indeed enter a new era of AI Utopia for humanity.

So we’ve arrived. But there is another aspect of this “do whatever we want” vision of Leisure World that’s unsettling. What exactly will we be doing with all this free time? Take endless vacations? Sit around writing poetry? Plant flowers?

If many careers go away, realistically, how will people fill their time? How many flowers can a person plant? My mind is boggled by the prospect that billions of work hours could suddenly be shifted to … what?

If and when we get through this transition to AI Utopia (5-10 years away?), there will be significant business opportunities ahead. Think about what businesses could thrive if they focus on 1) occupying all this vacant time and 2) creating meaning in our lives.

Occupying time

Part of the new AI Utopia will indeed be leisure. Follow your dreams! Thinking this through, there could be a huge surge for any products and services that serve these areas:

• Creative Industries: Art, music, literature, and design could experience a renaissance as more individuals pursue creative expression and innovation. Lessons, art supplies, crafts.
• Entertainment and Media: Immersive virtual reality experiences, gaming, and digital content production would evolve to offer personalized, high-quality entertainment. High-end electronics, gaming, gambling.
• Travel and Experiential Tourism: As disposable time increases, tourism may shift toward experiential and culturally rich travel, emphasizing unique, transformative journeys. Hunting, fishing, premium travel.
• Wellness and Personal Development: Sectors focused on physical health, mental well-being, and self-improvement—such as fitness, mindfulness, and holistic health services—are likely to expand. Trainers, studios, fitness apps, gear.
• Lifelong Learning and Education: Education could transform into an ongoing, enrichment-focused experience rather than a strict career path, fostering personal growth and new skill development. It could be a niche for universities or, more likely, community colleges.

Not an exhaustive list. But if you’re looking at a transitional career, these areas might be good bets.

Creating meaning

When the bots come, some people will just drop out, take the government replacement income, and sit on the beach all day. But I think most people will want something more than a hobby to occupy their time. They’ll need to replace the meaning and personal value that comes with having a job.

This will be a significant problem: Creating personal meaning for millions of unemployed people! So if you figure out a way to do that when AI Utopia arrives, you’re probably on a path to success. How might people find new meaning?

• Community and Social Engagement: Social clubs, local cultural events, and artisan markets might thrive. Might be an opportunity for a fresh approach to local service clubs.
• Spiritual Pursuits: I think there will be a renaissance in religion and religious studies. Joining a church community can provide meaning as well as companionship.
• Volunteerism. Perhaps the greatest benefit of Leisure World will be a passionate workforce ready to solve problems, protect our planet, and lift up the needy.

Another interesting side note on volunteerism. A recent experiment with a universal basic income found that when people had a stable monthly flow of money, their charitable giving increased. So the AI Utopia future might mean more volunteers and also more funding.

The asteroid we’re ignoring

There was news recently about an asteroid that might hit Earth in 2032. The probability is less than 1%, but scientists have already tested processes to alter its path. Cool.

What are the chances that AI and robots will displace millions of jobs by that same year? Far higher than 1%. Yet we have no deflection plan. No preparation strategy. No safety systems.

As we move closer to this inevitable collision of depopulation and unemployment, you’ll hear this refrain about humans being “free to pursue anything they want” over and over again. That’s not a solution. That’s the beginning of the real problem.

The next time the AI experts claim how we’ll all be free to do whatever we want in this AI future, ask them what that actually means.

Ask them who’s building the bridge.

Ask them who’s creating the safety nets.

And, ask yourself, what are our business plans for preparing for both the problems and opportunities of a drastically changing world?

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Image courtesy Mid Journey

The post From Work to What? Surviving the AI Utopia Narrative appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

A few months ago, I viewed a demonstration of a new ad agency “operating system” that showed how AI could take one piece of blog content and distort it endlessly into a nearly infinite number of variations to serve every platform and every language. It made me feel ill as the copy of a copy of a copy gradually lost any connection to its human origins.

An AWS study showed that already a shocking 57.1% of all the content on the web is an AI-garbled dumpster of poor quality re-purposed content. And as AI inexorably scans the web for more information to learn and grow, it’s now training on its own crappy content.

In one respect, this ocean of meh might seem intimidating. Wasn’t it hard enough to stand out in this world — and now we have bots flooding our niches with so much crap that we’ll never be found?

But this is also an opportunity because the real, the human, the content that is surprising and even a little crazy, will feel like an oasis. The content that approaches the level of human art will stand out. The marketing activations that bring people together in shared experiences will be remembered and even celebrated.

But we simply can’t keep doing what we’ve always been doing. Competent doesn’t cut it. Competence doesn’t create conversations. Competent is ignorable.

This new AI marketing reality demands human audacity. So let’s get to it.

The place for humans in a pandemic of dull

Last week, I was given an incredible gift that I want to share with you.

Douglas Burdett, the legendary host of The Marketing Book podcast, came out of retirement to interview me about these topics — the core of my new book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World. The interview was part of a global livestream (you can see it here).

This discussion was so wonderful that I turned the recording into a special podcast episode for you. We cover:

• What are the strategies for human-based marketing in an AI-dominant world?
• How do humans unleash the revolutionary power of “everyday awe” in our businesses?
• Why AI creates a “pandemic of dull” that can only be overcome by human ingenuity.

… and much more.

It’s an incredibly fascinating show, and I hope you’ll join in by clicking here:

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 309

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this fantastic episode.

Bravo for Brevo!

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now, any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post How AI is creating a pandemic of dull (and what to do about it!) appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I want to talk about my wife for a moment. This is relevant to AI, trust me.

In most marriages, there is a division of labor. For example, my wife does the taxes for our family. I used to do the taxes, but once we were married, this was something she wanted to do, so I happily off-loaded that duty.

Today, if I had to do my own taxes, I would be lost. I couldn’t log-in to the software. I don’t know where she keeps our files. I’ve lost my skills in this area, but I’m OK with that, at least as long as she’s around!

Today, we offload much more than our tax skills to a partner or spouse. As we immerse ourselves into a world of nearly free, abundant super intelligent AI, we can offload our need for memory, critical thinking, and formal education. This isn’t a weird, science fiction scenario. It’s already happening.

A recent Swiss study indicated that more frequent use of AI led to cognitive decline as users offloaded critical thinking to machines.

Younger participants (17–25) showed higher dependence on AI tools and lower critical thinking scores compared to older age groups. Advanced educational attainment correlated positively with critical thinking skills, suggesting that education mitigates some cognitive impacts of AI reliance.

Although this is an early study, it sort of makes sense. I don’t use math skills like previous generations because math is automatically baked into everything we do. What happens to our brains when abundant, perfect intelligence is available to everyone? Interesting implications for education and I think this is coming fast.

Another study from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University suggests that over-reliance on generative AI may erode critical thinking skills. Researchers surveyed 319 knowledge workers across 936 AI-assisted tasks and found that the more users trusted AI-generated outputs, the less cognitive effort they applied. Said differently, confidence in AI correlates with diminished analytical engagement and cognitive decline.

This is the automation paradox—offloading cognitive tasks to AI can make humans worse at them. Participants who blindly accepted AI’s suggestions reported weaker critical thinking skills, while skeptics remained more analytical.

This is one of the provocative topics on the new episode of The Marketing Companion podcast. Paul Roetzer of the Artificial Intelligence Show and I cover AI + cognitive decline, as well as:

• The marketing (or lack of) for AI
• The hype around AI agents
• The Deep Seek outfall

It’s an incredibly fascinating show, and I hope you’ll join in by clicking here:

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 308

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this fantastic episode.

Bravo for Brevo!

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now, any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post How frequent AI usage is leading to cognitive decline appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Too short for a blog post, too interesting to ignore, here are a few observations from the world of marketing, and beyond.

Talk to me

It seems like everywhere I turn marketers are touting the benefits of personalized marketing, and especially how AI is leading the way. My question is, where is it???

I find marketing as impersonal and intrusive as ever.

Today, a guy left me a message on LinkedIn: “I’m trying to connect on a more human way on LinkedIn and created this personal video for you.” I clicked out of curiosity. It was a cookie-cutter video. He had simply created more spam — only in video form.

Here’s what most companies think personalized marketing is:
“Dear [FIRST_NAME], we noticed you might be interested in [RECENTLY_VIEWED_PRODUCT]…”

Here’s what it actually is: Spam with a smile

The irony is that “personalized marketing”—if it means just slapping a name at the beginning of an email—is still impersonal. It’s artificial intimacy that’s a signal for me to “ignore.”

The technology exists for businesses to be truly helpful and personal, so are we just lazy? The era of true marketing personalization is still ahead of us, it seems.

If you’ve seen examples of true and useful personalization, drop me a note.

Reality check

Loved this quote from Ted Gioia:

In VR, we go into a fake world to interact with real people.

In AI, we remain in the real world but interact with fake people.

That’s not much of an improvement. By my measure, it’s actually a step backward.

Reality is not something to trifle with. It always gets the last laugh.

The core problem with social media

Conflict is the currency of social media. Hate is good for business. Controversy drives engagement and eyeballs. While people exit Twitter-X for Threads or Bluesky or whatever, these patterns of hate will repeat unless the revenue model is based on subscriptions instead of ads and attention.

The job is NOT to create content

Marketing is sick in so many ways right now. However, one of the biggest issues I encounter is that many marketers think their job is to create content. Perhaps it is even to turn their brand into a “media channel.”

No. Your job isn’t to create content. Your job is to create customers. Stop for a minute and look hard at what you’re doing. If you’re not creating customers, stop it, and start over.

This is something I write about in my book “Social Media Explained 3.0.” Too many marketers, especially those working in social media, are sleepwalking. They’re creating and engaging and Instagramming on autopilot and unaware of what they are even doing.

Are you creating content because you’re afraid not to? Because everyone else is doing it? It’s time to be more strategic and thoughtful with your work. Wake up. Create customers.

Bot companies

Nvidia CEO Jenson Huang and others have stated that soon we will have companies entirely run by agentic AI bots.

Analyst Scott Belsky had this forecast:

In such a world, every company will ultimately become a compute + data-centric company. Until now, humans have been the reasoning layer of every organization.

Sure, every company uses technology, but mostly for the purpose of driving productivity and analysis to help humans make decisions and take action. In contrast, the next-generation company will be run by a combination of inference engines (real-time computational reasoning running every function and driving actions across the business), leveraging a variety of pre-trained AI models and a large amount of deep and proprietary data at the center of the company.

This core of data, models, and computational reasoning will all be surrounded by “nodes” – the modern version of every “function” of a company from HR to product to sales – which, together, compose the logic layer that performs every process and operation of an organization.

I think we will see this happen in 2025. Somebody will want to prove this concept — a company entirely (or almost) run by bots. Nvidia is already testing the idea in different departments. Hopefully the first one will be personalized marketing!

In the next year, AI will not be a technology challenge, it will be a leadership challenge.

Are you all-in?

I was lamenting about the difficulty of staying up to date with the rapid pace of AI change in the marketing field, and a friend asked, “Is there a hybrid solution? Can you keep up with just a small part of it?”

A thought-provoking question. My answer was, “No.”

I think focus must be a key strategy for every business, but for somebody like me who is an author, consultant, and college educator, I need to maintain a broad and current view of the AI world. To be relevant, I have to be “all-in,” which is a challenge. To be effective, I can’t be caught flat-footed about a significant new AI revelation … which seems to happen every day.

How do you feel about that? Do you need to be “all-in” to be relevant as a marketer? How do you handle the stress?

Need a keynote speaker about brand communities? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustrations courtesy MidJourney

The post Dear [FIRST_NAME]: Why Personalized Marketing Still Feels Like Spam appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

The AI tsunami isn’t coming—it’s here. And it’s serving up more jaw-dropping “holy cow” moments than a magician’s convention. One thing is clear: The balance of traditional marketing work is rapidly and permanently shifting to the bots. If you’re immersed in this AI world as I am, you’ve probably gone through the mental gymnastics of trying to figure out how this will sort out. What is the role of humans in an AI world?

Where will humans land — an existential question, and unanswerable, because nobody knows for sure what’s coming next. Even the experts can’t foresee the next year, let alone our future career path in an AI-dominant world.

However, I think certain truths hold up in any circumstance. Looking at the future through these filters, we could make some assumptions about where our marketing careers might go.

Here are truths I hold on to as I think about the future of my own career in marketing. I hope this helps you, too.

1. Our work as art

Think about what moves you. Really moves you. That hand-crafted bowl. The novel that kept you up at night. The artwork that you view over and over again. Notice something? They’re all hewn from human experience, not algorithms.

Art is a way of interpreting the human experience. AI might simulate a human experience. In our sci-fi fever dreams, it might one day even believe it has a human experience. But only humans can interpret a human experience.

Recently, an oil painting created by an AI-fueled humanoid robot sold for $1.6 million. I think this was a one-off … a purchase driven by a novel carnival trick. I deeply believe that true art which reflects the human experience will remain important.

This suggests that our common and competent marketing work, which AI will certainly replace, needs to come closer to human art to be noticed and relevant.

To outmaneuver AI, how can your work begin to approach the emotional impact of art?

I think this is one of the reasons young influencers have become multimedia superstars. They expose their lives as performance art.

2. The critical importance of personal brand

When ChatGPT first hit the scene, I called tech analyst Shelly Palmer to get his view. “It’s terrifying,” he told me. “I just asked ChatGPT to compose a blog post in my writing style, and it did a great job. I’ve blogged almost every day for 15 years, and it wrote a perfect post in three seconds. I’m 80% replaced.”

While that “80%” quote certainly seems terrifying, a more interesting question is, “What is the 20% that is NOT replaceable?”

It’s his personal brand.

Shelly is known, loved, and respected. In a chaotic world of misinformation and deep fakes, we will always depend on a human being for insight and truth. Shelly has nothing to worry about. He cannot be replaced by AI because of his powerful personal brand.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve added a “100% Human Content” badge to my posts. I want to assure you that this is me. You can count on me. I’m not going away. I still matter.

For the past 10 years, I’ve shouted from the rooftops that your personal brand is the ONLY defense we have against the bots. Are you a trusted and beloved presence cutting through the noise of your marketplace?

It’s not too late for you to start this personal branding journey. The best place to start is my upcoming Personal Branding Master Class, which is the finest of its kind anywhere.

How do you thrive in an AI world? Your personal brand is your oxygen.

3. Accountability

We’ve already seen spectacular AI failures. In the business world, accountability for problems ultimately rests with a human, not a machine. No board of directors or government regulator will accept an excuse blaming a machine for scandal or a financial irregularity.

Beyond legal considerations, marketing often requires nuanced cultural understanding and sensitivity.
Humans need to evaluate AI outputs for brand safety and appropriateness.

As far as I can see into the future, a human has to be accountable for marketing performance and results.

4. Adding awe

Have you ever gone to a music event by yourself? Perhaps it was a pleasant experience. Now compare that to attending a concert with friends who are singing with you, dancing, and jumping for joy. The difference is a state of awe called collective effervescence, a powerful emotional contagion that occurs when you bring people together in a joyful way.

This idea is a big part of my book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World.

Most people today consume their news, music, and music alone, on a screen, or through earbuds. We are in an emotional desert devoid of shared experiences. Our customers long to belong. How can we create uniquely human shared experiences — perhaps the most important marketing opportunity going forward!

A thesis of the new book is that humans will continue to thrive in the AI marketing world because we can uniquely bring humans together to create awe. No bot can do that.

5. The human foundation of marketing

I my first college marketing class, I opened Principles of Marketing by Dr. Philip Kotler, and read these words: Marketing is a combination of Psychology, Anthropology, and Sociology.

Isn’t that the coolest thing ever? Marketing is All Things Human. I was hooked and knew that marketing would be my career path.

Today, the marketing conversation is dominated by concepts like algorithms, content optimization, and, of course, AI integration. But at its heart, marketing still moves through this nuanced concept of “all things human.”

As I reflect on my career, I can’t fathom how AI would replace the human factor of my most effective marketing work:

• During my corporate career, an off-hand remark during a customer visit helped me connect the dots in a new way that led to a significant new product innovation and a two-year advantage over competitors.
• My company hired an anthropologist to observe people using our products in their homes. One revelation led to a blockbuster new product application.
• I helped negotiate a $5 billion contract. AI could have helped with ideas, strategies, and contract language, but a deal that size could never close without trusting personal relationships.
• I created the most profitable product in my company’s history because of my detailed knowledge of industry constraints and instincts about emerging customer needs. This inside information could not have come through any AI data analysis.
• Perhaps my greatest professional achievement was creating The Uprising marketing retreat. It’s not unusual for people to tell me it is life-changing. The secret? Bringing people together in a way that creates collective effervescence: the awe that can only exist through human interaction.
• My best-selling book (so far!) is Marketing Rebellion. It is an assigned textbook at many universities, and it has been translated into 14 languages. Why has this book been so successful? Highly personal insights and stories hold the book together and make it unforgettable. You can certainly use AI to write a book. But AI could not have written that book. Or this blog post! Personal stories make the difference, right?

I could go on, but we should take comfort in the fact that none of these achievements depended on AI. Humans still excel at connecting seemingly unrelated market insights, telling stories that earn attention, acting on gut instinct, and detecting the subtleties of emotional cues and relationships.

Often, an innovation doesn’t come from data. It comes from instinct, observation, constraints, and unexpected human challenges.

6. Human audacity wins

Here is the final truth on my mind today. If you’re “competent,” you’re vulnerable. Being merely competent is a liability. AI already owns competent — In many cases AI is spectacular. So if you’re only creating competent work, you’re ignorable. You’re a commodity.

Don’t take this personally. You likely want to do better but the business culture in most places rewards dull. We don’t want to upset a customer, so we’re dull. We want to get it approved by legal, so we don’t take risks. We fear criticism, so we play it safe.

You can still be relevant in an AI world, but you must have the courage to explore audacity.

The bots are coming. But you still own crazy, my friend. Unleash it.

You need to act to remain relevant

The Wall Street Journal reported on research that showed how once scientists started using AI, they discovered 44% more materials, their patent filings rose by 39% and there was a 17% increase in new product prototypes. Contrary to concerns that using AI for scientific research might lead to a “streetlight effect”—hitting on the most obvious solutions rather than the best ones—there were more novel compounds than what the scientists discovered before using AI.

Sure, there are scary headlines about AI, but it’s a wonder-making machine.

There was another conclusion from the research. The scientists already known for making the best discoveries made even more with the help of AI. The AI assist made the best even better.

AI is the most important innovation in the history of the world. Bigger than fire. The steam engine. The internet.

Eventually, AI will reimagine marketing and create entirely new industries. By the end of the year, I think we’ll see at least one prototype business venture run entirely by AI agents.

AI will certainly eliminate some jobs. At a minimum, it will transform most careers. But humans still matter. You still matter, but you can’t keep your head in the sand.

Put the anxiety behind you. Focus on the uniquely human strengths I mentioned today. Embrace this wonder for your own discoveries, and watch how AI can make you better than your best.

Need a keynote speaker about the future of marketing? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post It’s time to discern the role of humans in an AI world appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

The AI Revolution isn’t just about creating new tools – it’s about transforming how we learn, understand, and interact with information. And that’s exactly why NotebookLM has become the darling of the AI research community. As someone who’s spent decades observing how technology reshapes human behavior, it’s been fun for me to experiment with this new application.

Here’s what’s really going on: We’re drowning in information. Between podcasts, blog posts, and the endless stream of developments on social media, staying current is like drinking from a firehose. NotebookLM isn’t just another note-taking app – it’s an AI-powered research companion that actually understands context and helps connect the dots.

It’s as close to getting a brain extension as you’ll see (at least for now!).

What makes NotebookLM different is its ability to act as both a librarian and a study buddy. When you’re deep in research mode, it doesn’t just store your notes – it actively helps you understand them. It can summarize complex papers, explain difficult concepts, and even highlight connections between different pieces of research that you might have missed. This is game-changing for anyone navigating the complex world of AI development.

But there’s something even more profound happening here. In all my years of studying digital transformation, I’ve noticed that the tools that truly stick are the ones that feel natural – that work the way our brains work. NotebookLM gets this right. It’s not trying to force users into a rigid system. Instead, it adapts to your thinking style, helping you build knowledge in a way that feels organic and intuitive.

NotebookLM — But wait, there’s more!

A few months ago, NotebookLM users discovered they could use the voice mode to command the app to have a discussion with itself, something similar to a podcast episode. A few people have even produced AI-fueled podcasts with synthetic hosts!

While I have no plans to do this with The Marketing Companion, I did turn to NotebookLM to help me in a pinch this week. My podcast is now in its thirteenth year, and remarkably, I’ve never missed an episode. But this week was close!

My human co-host became too sick to record, and out of time, I turned to NotebookLM for help. The new episode provides extraordinary value in two ways: It’s a mesmerizing demonstration of AI voice capabilities. But what’s really cool is that I uploaded my new book “Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI World” and asked the “hosts” to review the book.

The result was more than I expected, and I think you’ll love this mind-bending podcast episode. If you haven’t experienced NotebookLM in action, this will get your head spinning. Ready? All you have to do is click here:

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 304

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this amazing episode.

Bravo for Brevo!

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post A mind-bending demonstration of AI and NotebookLM appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

What a world.

Who could have dreamed that parents would be fearful of a phone?

Is there any other conversation so vital right now? Should our children have a smart device? How do we monitor it? Keep our children sane and safe?

This is one of the essential topics Paul Roetzer and I cover in the new episode of The Marketing Companion. Paul has created a new resource.

In Kid Safe GPT for Parents, an online safety advisor to help parents understand and manage risks their kids may encounter online.

The GPT’s goal is to educate parents on the risks associated with digital interactions—from gaming to social media—and provide proactive guidance to help parents protect their children’s mental health and safety.

Kid Safe GPT offers practical advice, empathetic support, and tailored strategies to encourage healthy digital habits for families.

(And, it’s completely free to use with a ChatGPT account.)

In this show we also cover:

• AI literacy for marketers
• The future of art and creativity
• The magic of NotebookLM

You won’t want to miss this! Just click here:

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 302

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this amazing episode.

Bravo for Brevo!

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post How to talk to your children about social media and AI appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

At the end of Marketing Rebellion, a bestselling book that served as a wake-up call for the state of marketing, I predicted what might be the next consumer rebellion. I believe I got it right, and the revolution could be coming sooner than I expected. Let’s take a look at what’s going on, and the implications for marketing and our AI future.

The First Three Rebellions

The thesis of Marketing Rebellion is that every time businesses and their marketing efforts push consumers too far, the customers rebel, resulting in a cataclysmic shift in marketing strategy.

The first rebellion came in the 1920s. The advertising industry had become a multi-billion-dollar industry, attaching remarkable claims to everything from cigarettes to toothpaste. But when these claims became TOO remarkable, they were outright lies. Consumers rebelled, and the industry was regulated through the Federal Trade Commission and similar agencies in other nations.

The second rebellion occurred in the 1990s. Companies made money on what you didn’t know. Profit margins were made on the public’s ignorance about the truth of insurance policies, used cars, and vacation plans. The internet ended all that. There were no more secrets. Today, it’s likely that an informed consumer knows more about your product than you do!

The third rebellion started around 2010 and the advent of social media. Historically, a “brand” is what a company told you it was. Advertising disrupted your view that Coke was colored sugar water and turned it into playful polar bears, for example. However, with social media, brand marketing was disrupted because customers owned the conversations. In fact, more sales occur through consumer social posts than traditional brand marketing. This was the end of marketing control.

The Fourth Marketing Rebellion

At the end of the book, I projected that the fourth marketing rebellion would have something to do with biometric data.

I wrote that the next technological revolution would depend on securing mountains of data on personal habits, down to every heartbeat. While consumers are normally resigned to the fact that we’re being tracked all over the internet in exchange for free search and social media, collecting and selling our bodily data might be a step too far.

In my recent post, “Are we creating AI, or are AI Agents creating us?” I summarized a research report on the ethics of AI. A few points pop out for me:

• AI Agents will monitor biometric data, facial expressions, and emotions to determine our state of mind. They will react differently to us if they know we are irritable or sleep-deprived, for example.
• AI Agents will have access to so much personal information that significant new levels of consent and security will be required. The threat level of information being used out of context is extremely high. Since agents will “plug in” to external services, we will place abnormally high trust in our agents and how information is stored and used. A data breach might mean that every fact of our life and health would be available on the web.
• The economic incentive will be to create bots that make the user happy in a way that cultivates dependence. Connecting with a bot in a deeply personal way could adversely affect user well-being and create the risk of infringing on user privacy and autonomy.
• As we become dependent on bots to take over daily interactions, humans will be “out of the loop,” and disconnected from many normal human interactions. If agents are designed to monitor our vital signs and promote “well being,” how is that defined? If we follow a path of automated, programmed self-improvement, are we improving as human beings or conforming to an algorithmic definition created by programmers? Will AI change society based on the coding preferences of developers?

Do you think this would push consumers into a rebellion? I think it is already happening.

Is the fourth marketing rebellion already here?

I can imagine a world where these bots are so useful that we ignore the vast data collection going on. But I think there are two places where we might draw the line:

1. If biometric data collection affects how we raise our children. For example, a new AI app called Ursula records a child’s response to information and makes money by interpreting potential emotional problems or learning disabilities to parents. It promises that “no kid will feel alone again.” Are we going to put AI in charge of that?
2. People will resist if data collection becomes required to function in society. A recent sign that the fourth marketing rebellion is upon us is that U.S. legislators are pushing for limits on facial recognition data collection at airport security, arguing that facial recognition poses “significant threats to our privacy and civil liberties.”

In the next few years, collecting and accessing customer biometric data could present revolutionary new marketing opportunities for personalization, customized drug therapies, and products that adjust to moods (and change them!). Yes, this is exciting. Yes, this can be profitable. But let’s not lose sight of history and the implications when we cross the line.

A note about that photo: “I am Robert Robot, mechanical man. Drive me and steer me, wherever you can.” These were the words uttered by Robert the Robot, a 1954 tin toy robot produced by New York-based Ideal Toy Corporation. Robert was run via a wired remote control, and about half a million units were sold. Robert is one of the staples of any vintage toy robot collection, with several dedicated fan pages on the web.

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The post A Prediction: The Fourth Marketing Rebellion appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.