Marketing in the age of AI - What's really changing?

Welcome to my blog. I'm starting this space to think out loud - about marketing, about AI, about where consumer behaviour is heading, and about all the ideas I can't stop scribbling in my notes app at 11pm. If you're someone who geeks out on brands, strategy, and what makes people click (literally and figuratively), you're in the right place.

Let's kick things off with the topic everyone in marketing is either excited about, anxious about, or pretending not to think about: AI.

It's not a buzzword anymore

A few years ago, "AI in marketing" felt like a conference keynote topic - something aspirational, a little abstract. But in 2026, it's everywhere, and it's moving fast. Consider this:

• 94% of marketers plan to use AI for content creation this year

• 80% already use AI tools regularly

• 2× higher ROAS when using AI-based targeting vs third-party data

Those numbers are striking. But here's the number that actually caught my attention: 74% of those AI users say they can't get real value from it. Adoption is everywhere - outcomes, less so. That gap is where the interesting marketing conversation lives.

"The winners won't be the teams using more AI - they'll be the teams transforming their marketing program."

What AI is actually doing to marketing

Let's break it down into what I think are the three most important shifts happening right now:

1. Personalization at a scale that wasn't possible before. Old-school segmentation meant grouping people by age, city, or purchase history — and refreshing those segments monthly. Today, AI is analyzing live behavioural signals continuously. Your audience isn't a static list anymore; it's a dynamic, always-updating picture of real intent.

2. AI agents are taking over routine customer journeys. From reorder notifications to personalized onboarding to real-time support — things that used to require human touchpoints are now being handled by intelligent agents. This doesn't mean marketing is becoming robotic. It means marketers need to become orchestrators, focusing on strategy and supervising the systems rather than executing every step manually.

3. Search behavior is fundamentally shifting. AI Overviews now appear on nearly half of all Google searches. People are getting answers before they even click. For content marketers and SEO folks, this is a massive change — one that demands we rethink what "ranking" even means.

Some AI tools I've been exploring

I'll be writing dedicated posts on each of these, but here's a quick peek at what's been on my radar:

1. Claude / ChatGPT - Drafting, strategy frameworks, research synthesis. Use them as thinking partners, not ghostwriters.

2. Improvado - AI-driven marketing data aggregation — pulls from all channels into one clean dashboard.

3. StackAdapt / Ivy™ - AI-assisted programmatic advertising with smart audience refinement and creative optimization.

4. Synthetic audiences - AI-generated consumer simulations for ethical creative testing — no personal data needed.

My honest take

Here's what I keep coming back to: AI doesn't replace good marketing instincts - it amplifies them. If you have a weak strategy, AI will help you produce weak content faster. If you have a clear point of view on your audience and your brand, AI becomes genuinely powerful.

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