Soapbox: AI will help marketers focus on being human again

The emergence of AI-powered martech has given marketers a lot to grapple with the last couple of years. Some have voiced fears of being replaced by automation. Others are excited by the potential time and cost savings.

But with all the hype around new technology, we may have overlooked the most exciting part of the AI revolution.

As traditional marketing shifted into digital marketing over the last decade, we’ve drifted further and further away from the human-to-human interactions that defined customer experience in prior decades.

We’ve turned people into prospects. Views into impressions. We’ve commoditized customers by automating our funnels and flywheels. By scaling our digital activities, we’ve lost a bit of the human touch.

It takes a ton of time and lots of tools to manage a digital marketing campaign. We have to leverage automation to drive results. But the machinery we build can feel cold and impersonal and end up damaging the customer experience.

AI promises to streamline our efforts, automating the repetitive tasks we grind through today, performing massively complex calculations so we don’t have to.

By replacing the technical grind of digital marketing, AI will free marketers to focus on the part of the job that requires the most humanity – engaging and serving customers.

Conversational marketing, data-driven personalization, AI and other trends predict a future where marketers have the time, and the mandate, to focus on real human interactions again. What a time to be a marketer!