You and I are living in an era of magic. I use AI nearly every hour of the day to be wiser, bolder, and more creative.

In a way, AI has even become my mentor.

That might sound strange, but hear me out.

I wrote a post recently noting that this question: “Who decides the safe limits of superintelligence?” could be a turning point in human history.

As I wrote the draft of this post, I felt angry and even scared about the prospects of weaponizing AI, and this was apparent in the tone of the article.

I uploaded the draft to Claude before I published and asked, “Is this post balanced? Did I miss anything?”

Claude responded, “Mark, this is not you. Your thesis is emotional and underdeveloped. You are known for your fairness and intellectual honesty. Here are some ideas to make it better.”

And the ideas were pretty harsh … and much appreciated.

I generally work alone. In this case, AI wasn’t just a muse or editor; it intervened as a wise friend, keeping me on brand. AI is helping me to be wiser, bolder, and more helpful in this world.

I have neither turned my life over to AI and nor do I feel threatened by it. My career has become AI-shaped, conforming to the new superpowers and opportunities of a magical technology.

Instead of doomscrolling about layoffs, how can we all create an AI-shaped career?

Creating the AI-shaped career

Let’s start with some advice from my friend Azeem Azhar. Azeem is probably the most connected person I know, and so he’s able to tune into the priorities of a wide range of industries.  and his supremely interesting Exponential View Newsletter.

Here is his advice:

1. Ship end-to-end projects

Choose or create multi-step projects with real stakeholders; practice owning the plan and delivering it to a finish line. If AI takes on more of the execution work, the value for humans lies increasingly in coordination around those tasks, specifically in orchestration. It’s the ability to decide what needs to be done, in what order, and with which tools, and then keep a project moving.

2. Grab managerial experience early

Run standups, lead sprints, and coordinate small teams if you have a chance. Volunteer to own small scopes like roadmap reviews and stakeholder check?ins, to build judgment and trust.

3. Build domain fluency and networks

Learn how people in your field think and speak. It signals maturity and reduces perceived hiring risk. Read primary sources and talk to operators. Join a niche community or meetup and ask specific questions.

4. Choose costly and credible signals, such as an MBA

Managers want evidence of commitment. If a degree isn’t feasible, pick rigorous alternatives – selective fellowships, competitive certifications, or shipping a demanding public project.

5. Use AI well

Build agents, audit outputs, and integrate them into real workflows. You could be the person who sets the AI standard at your next company – we’re still early, and practical expertise is scarce. Track gains (time saved, error rates, throughput) and document playbooks so others can adopt them. Push for small, safe pilots and iterate fast.

The implications for sales and marketing

Let’s get more granular. Most of the people reading this article are in sales and marketing. How do we have an AI-shaped career in that profession?

6. Become impossible to replace in customer relationships

AI may automate tasks, but trust, empathy, and emotional resonance are still the human differentiators.
People want to buy from, partner with, and follow humans they feel connected to.

• Build a personal brand in your niche—be findable, memorable, and known.
• Develop deep customer fluency: their worldviews, their blockers, their aspirations.
• Become the person who delivers difficult news well, handles nuance, and reads a room.

This is the “Most Human Company Wins” applied at the individual level. AI can crank out emails, landing pages, and pitches. But it still can’t feel the customer.

7. Build a Portfolio of Evidence, Not Just a Résumé

AI is making hiring faster and more automated, but that also means résumés look more similar. Portfolios, demonstrations, and proof-of-work become far more powerful signals than job titles or bullet points.

• Publish case studies, screen recordings, agent demos, prototypes, or thought pieces.
• Document your projects in public spaces (LinkedIn, GitHub, Notion, Substack).
• Practice “building in public”—it shows momentum and reduces perceived hiring risk.

8. Become the human face of your brand

The personal brand is our last line of defense against AI. If you are KNOWN in your industry. AI can mass-produce content, but it can’t replicate an authentic, trusted, known human.

No matter what happens in this AI world, we will seek verification, validation, insight and comfort from real humans. The only career equity we can carry with us is our personal brand. Are you known or not?

I teach the best personal branding class in the world to help you determine:

• Your place in a crowded business eco-system
• Establishing the presence, reputation, and authority to break through
• Strategies to get your story out to an audience that matters
• Specific ideas to give your brand an edge

Being “Known” is the strongest career moats in the AI era.

9. Become an experience designer

Your customers are hungry for connection and live experiences. This is a uniquely human acitivy.

We’re already seeing a backlash as young people seek more shared experiences in their online world.

• Learn to design workshops, events, roundtables, and customer communities.
• Study experience design, service design, and community management.
• Become the person who can create moments of belonging and transformation.

10. Lead a brand community

In Belonging to the Brand, I boldly predicted that community will be the last great marketing strategy, and that is backed up with evidence.

Here’s the good news. AI is not going to build and run a human community. Community might be the only type of marketing people actually seek out because we need human connection.

This book goes into detail about how to build and nurture a brand community, but the main ideas are:

• Find an intersection of the purpose of your company and the purpose of your customers
• Create an online and/or offline space of trust and safety
• Reward community members and assure they are seen and heard

The AI-shaped career

Here’s the simple truth: none of us can fully predict where this is going, but we can decide how we’re going to show up for it.

An AI-shaped career isn’t about becoming more machine-like. It’s about becoming the most unmistakably human version of ourselves — more curious, more connected, more courageous.

If you build trust, create experiences that matter, show your work, and become known in a meaningful way, you won’t just survive this transition. You’ll stand out in it.

The future doesn’t belong to the people who race against the machines. It belongs to the people who double down on the humanity the machines can’t touch.

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

Illustrations courtesy Mid Journey

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What happens when everyone reaches for the AI Easy Button?

I have a lesson today about an emerging danger of AI and marketing. But to get to the lesson, you’ll have to hear my story. It’s an old story, but it matters a lot. Here we go.

I was the CMO for a large business unit of a Fortune 100 company.

Each year, we sent teams out to visit customers to learn how they were using our products and how we could improve. These three-person teams were well-trained for this activity, and the lessons we learned would inform my marketing and R&D strategy for at least the next 12 months.

This was a long and expensive process — our customers were scattered around the world. We were wrapping up our final trip of the year and saying goodbye to our hosts when one of the customer scientists said offhandedly, “By the way, did you happen to see this preliminary research report on coating ingredients from the U.S. government?”

We had not. When we looked into it, we found the new research could potentially ban a key ingredient that my industry had used in its products for decades. It was still early, but if the research found a problem with these chemicals, my company and its customers would be imperiled.

Changing a fundamental ingredient in an industrial product used worldwide is no easy matter. It would take millions of dollars and years of testing to make a change. But with this early alarm and the potential risk, we proceeded on an R&D path to find a replacement ingredient.

Three years later, the government changed the regulations on this chemical. Our competitors were panicked. We were safe because we had listened, learned, and acted responsibly, thanks to our deep and unique understanding of the market.

And that brings me to AI.

The AI Easy Button

I have a number of friends working in market research. Their workload is drying up because companies are turning to AI as an inexpensive shortcut.

Not only can AI scan the universe for the information you need, but synthetic AI audience panels can simulate what your customers might say in real interviews.

The general feedback is that using AI is about an 85% solution, and that is good enough to justify the cost savings over human effort.

Except when it isn’t.

Let’s go back to the story I told to begin this post.

There is no way we would have found that critical information through an AI scan or synthetic customer panels.

If I used AI for my customer research, I would probably have the same information our competitors had. What good is that?

The real marketing insight and innovation doesn’t come in the 85%. It comes inside the 15% that you get by doing the hard work and digging into unique customer insights.

Challenge and opportunity

The use of synthetic data for research poses both challenges and opportunities for traditional researhers.

Ray Wang, founder and chairman of Constellation Research, agrees there is a danger in relying too much on synthetic research. “At some point, the regurgitation of insights will lead to a brain rot like we’ve never seen,” he said. “Folks are going to be craving for authenticity and insight, and that only comes with years of human experience.”

Liz Miller, VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, told me, “Market research got itself into a bad hole because because 80% of their answers come from the same 20% of the population that answers questions. They then keep renewing the panel with the same people and give them a Starbucks gift card, hoping they will answer the same questions differently.

‘We’re in a disappointing space when it comes to market research, if we’re being really honest with it. So there is a place for AI research, but it also gives traditional researchers the chance to be brave and ask the hard questions, the questions they’ve never been able to have answered before.”

Pause before using AI

I know there are always budget pressures. I’ve been there. I know you have to make responsible decisions abotu your research. But before you hit the AI Easy Button, think hard about what you’re giving up.

Information that transforms your company?

A unique competitive advantage over everyone else opting for shortcuts?

An insight that secures your future?

Maybe your future lies in that 15% that only human experience can pick up on.

Need an inspiring 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 was recently interviewed about my perspectives on work-life balance and shared the story of my early career, when I juggled family, a demanding job, and an MBA program. For nearly four years, I had zero time for “me.”

The interviewer asked: “If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self who worked so hard to climb the corporate ladder, what would it be?”

I know he was expecting me to look back with regret, maybe even say I’d wished I’d worked less or spent more time at home. But honestly, I couldn’t say that. It wouldn’t be true.

Here’s what I said: I would tell my younger self, “Good job.”

That threw him for a loop. Let me explain my answer.

The chicken and the egg

In his famous book Good to Great, Jim Collins describes his concept of a career flywheel.

“Picture an egg just sitting there. No one pays it much attention until, one day, the egg cracks open and out jumps a chicken!

“All the major magazines and newspapers jump on the event, writing feature stories—“The Transformation of Egg to Chicken!” “The Remarkable Revolution of the Egg!” “Stunning Turnaround at Egg!”—as if the egg had undergone some overnight metamorphosis, radically altering itself into a chicken.

“But what does it look like from the chicken’s point of view? It’s a completely different story.

“While the world ignored this dormant-looking egg, the chicken was evolving, growing, developing, incubating. From the chicken’s point of view, cracking the egg is simply one more step in a long chain of steps leading up to that moment—a big step, to be sure, but hardly the radical, single-step transformation it looks like to those watching from outside the egg.

“It’s a silly analogy, granted. But I’m using it to highlight a very important finding from our research. We kept thinking that we’d find “the one big thing,” the miracle moment that defined breakthrough. We even pushed for it in our interviews. But the good-to-great executives simply could not pinpoint a single key event or moment in time that exemplified the transition.”

The career flywheel

Jim Collins famously described this as the flywheel. What creates personal transformation and career momentum? Is it one big push that creates velocity? One class, one connection, one stroke of luck?

No. He found it was a combination of small pushes that created momentum for both careers and businesses. You push and push and push, and that work accumulates to create momentum (I describe this in my book Cumulative Advantage).

Early in my career, I was motivated by money. I would not say I grew up poor — I never went hungry. However, if I wanted to have a bike, new clothes, or a baseball uniform, I had to earn the money myself. Likewise, I had to pay for my own college education and subsisted on beans and cheap pasta for years.

After years of scraping by, I wanted some financial freedom. I was so tired of being broke. And my flywheel was already in motion.

Beginning the momentum

In college, I was part of a marketing student group, and my job was to get guest speakers for our monthly meetings. I researched the largest companies I aspired to work for one day and invited their executives to campus. I was their host for the day, which allowed me to build personal relationships with people who could potentially hire me.

In fact, I secured an internship through a connection with one of these executives. By the time I graduated, I had three corporate internships under my belt. Each internship was bigger than the last, and they paid more because I was building on the momentum of the previous job.

By the time I was a college senior, I had an impressive resume and landed a corporate communications job with a Fortune 100 company. Problem was, I wanted to move into marketing, and that would require something more.

From sales to marketing to momentum

My first move toward a marketing career was to spend time in sales. I was transferred to our Los Angeles sales office and learned about a special MBA program that allowed students to study under the legendary Peter Drucker. I applied twice and was turned down because I was too young for this elite experience. Finally, I met with the dean and explained how my youthful perspective would add to the diversity of the program. He laughed, but let me into the program as the youngest student ever admitted.

This brings us back to where this blog post began. I now had a challenging career, two toddlers, and an MBA program to balance. This was the most demanding period of my life. It took me four years of nights and weekends to get that degree. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

If you know me at all, you know I’m great with kids and adored being a father, so I always kept this in front of me as job number one.

All of this was part of my career flywheel. I moved up the company, and, long story short, gained the knowledge and experience that have enabled me to have the career I have today.

And this is why my answer was so unexpected and not-so-politically-correct. I don’t regret working hard to build momentum in my career because it has led to a lifetime of benefits and financial freedom.

Simple math

Let’s put this in simple terms.

Because of the “flywheel work” I did in college, let’s say I could get a job that paid $60,000 while my less aggressive friends earned an entry-level job of $45,000.

If we both received a 5% annual raise for the next 20 years, my flywheel-enabled salary would be approximately $152,000, compared to $114,000 for the other person.

And of course, there is more than money. The flywheel momentum also led to promotions, travel, more time off, and opportunities for my children that I had never had before.

I want to be clear. I’m not saying that everybody needs to work hard, build momentum, and make money. I hope you’re happy in whatever you do.

There’s no one-size-fits-all path. But for me, the hard work I put in early built momentum that changed my life –and gave me more freedom, not less, as the years went on.

If you’re working on your flywheel, keep going. Step by step, you’re building something bigger than you can see right now.

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 Mid Journey

The post A contrarian view to work life balance appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Even in these early days of AI, we see signs that the bots could be coming for our jobs. Entry-level jobs are disappearing, the job market is tight, and some companies won’t hire at all until you can prove that AI can’t do the job first.

I want to emphasize that the jury is still out. Nobody knows what will happen. But there is a non-zero chance that marketing jobs — or at least marketing skills — are vulnerable.

There’s no more important issue for human marketers than finding new relevance. Of course, you need to continue developing your skills and embracing all things AI, but you must also be strategic about your career at this stage.

I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I believe there are three foundational strategies to keep human marketers relevant in the AI world. I think I have this right, but if I’ve missed something, let me know. These three strategies are uniquely human and always will be:

1. Develop and leverage a personal brand
2. Lead a brand community
3. Create AI-transcendent content

Let’s explore each of these factors, accompanied by a few resources to support you on your journey.

The job debate

First, let me be clear that it is not a foregone conclusion that AI will eliminate jobs. As economist Noah Smith wrote:

“The debate over whether AI is taking people’s jobs may or may not last forever. If AI takes a lot of people’s jobs, the debate will end because one side will have clearly won. But if AI doesn’t take a lot of people’s jobs, then the debate will never be resolved, because there will be a bunch of people who will still go around saying that it’s about to take everyone’s job.

“In other words, the good scenario for the labor market is that we continue to exist in a perpetual state of anxiety about whether or not we’re all about to be made obsolete by the next generation of robots and chatbots.”

Scott Galloway connected the dots between the success of AI companies and the imperative for decline in employment. He has a less optimistic view:

Built into valuations of these AI companies is an assumption that they will be able to cut costs or grow their revenues through the use of AI by $1 trillion in the next 24 to 36 months. I don’t see how AI is gonna create a trillion dollars in new revenues for these companies, but I can see how it might cut $1 trillion in expenses.

In order for these valuations to be justified, one of two things needs to happen. Either the valuations need to come down, or these technologies need to show a trillion dollars in efficiencies across their client base. Assuming an average wage of $100,000, that’s a destruction of 10 million jobs.

So we’re either going to see a massive destruction in the value of these companies, which will infect all U.S. stocks and entire global markets. Or, we’re going to see a fairly massive destruction, short term, in employment across certain industries.

My personal view is that AI can do much of the work traditionally accomplished by marketers: Research, analysis, pattern recognition, strategy, planning, media buying, etc. So it is reasonable to assume that at least some tasks will be replaced, if not jobs.

What are the “safe” areas for marketing?

1. Develop and leverage a personal brand

When ChatGPT was introduced, I called my friend Shelly Palmer to learn his views on this bombastic development. Shelly is a revered authority who has seen it all, but this shook him.

“I asked ChatGPT to compose a three-point blog post for me, in my writing style,” he said, “and it did a perfect job in three seconds. That’s terrifying. I’ve blogged almost every day for 15 years, and I feel like I’m 80 percent replaced.”

On the surface, that does seem terrifying. But a better question is, what’s the 20% that AI is NOT replacing? That’s Shelly’s personal brand. AI can’t touch it. Never will.

Regardless of what happens in this AI-driven world, we’ll always seek guidance from a human authority for truth, direction, and inspiration. Shelly is known, respected, and beloved. People will always read his blog, buy his books, and attend his speeches because of his personal brand. And for Shelly’s company, he IS the brand.

Every business professional should be working on their personal brand — developing the authority, presence, and reputation to get their job done, whatever that might be. Investing in your personal brand is like making a deposit in an insurance policy for your career.

In every class I teach and every speech I give, I beg people to work on becoming known in their industry, even if they are happy in their current job. If the worst happens, you will have an advantage if people have heard of you and respect you! More doors will open if you’re known.

There has never been a more urgent time to establish your presence in your industry.

2. Brand communities

A few years ago, I wrote a book called Belonging to the Brand that featured the boldest of subtitles: “Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy.”

The premise behind the claim is simple (and true!).

Brand marketing is about creating an emotional expectation, perhaps even a meaningful bond, between you and your customers.

In the past, companies achieved this over many years by spending millions of dollars on advertising. Today, many companies are building this connection through a vibrant brand community.

There are two appeals to this idea that are hard to ignore:

1. The bond between community members transfers to the brand and strengthens the loyalty to your organization. People literally belong to the brand.
2. AI can’t touch this. It’s all human, all the time.

A brand community might be the only type of marketing your customers would actually pay for.

We live in a world with a generation of people who are lonely, depressed, and disconnected. Your customers don’t just want to belong to something. They NEED to belong.

3. Transcendent content

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know I’m a realist. I don’t sugarcoat the facts. I’m urgent about truth and understanding what is real, what is next, and what it means for us.

And this is the hard truth: AI can perform most of the tasks that marketers do today. It can analyze data, detect patterns, suggest strategies, plan media, write copy, and execute on the creative.

But here is another truth. Art will survive. Why? Because art is an interpretation of the human condition. I don’t care if AI can create songs like my favorite band. I want the band. AI can mimic my favorite author. But I want a book from the real person.

And so it will be with humans and marketing.

The bots are coming, but you still own crazy. You own the spark, the human fireworks, the raw, the real, and the messy.

And when you apply that to your content and marketing, you transcend the bots. You create experiences, ideas, and meaning that the bots cannot touch. You make something that customers want to talk about and if that happens, it’s better than any ad you could create.

My book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World is full of ideas about this, and includes a framework for how the best creatives in the world are breaking through.

It provides a framework for human value in the creative process by exploring how we can disrupt

• The traditional story
• Where the story is told
• Who tells the story

A bot can write like me. But when you come to this blog, you get my heart, my soul, my absolute commitment to an audience.

I, for one, will not be ignored and replaced by a freaking bot. I will transcend.

Resources to Help You Thrive

No matter what happens in this AI apocalypse, I am certain these three pillars will stand. You don’t need to duck for cover. Embrace the AI revolution and use this technology to reimagine what you can become.

Here are some resources that can help you survive and thrive.

In 2017, I wrote what became the all-time bestselling book on personal branding. It still sells really well today for one reason: it works.

I spent two years researching and writing about how people can become the signal against the noise. If you see others touting their personal branding content, chances are it’s based on my work in the book KNOWN: The handbook for building and unleashing your personal brand in the digital age.

If you want to put a jetpack behind your personal brand, I also teach a class on this subject, which is the highest-rated course on Maven. You get six live sessions over two weeks plus two private 1:1 sessions with me. You can find the class here.

The participants have loved the class:

Let’s move on to help with brand communities.

The single-best resource for this Belonging to the Brand: Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy.

There are many books and resources available to help create community, but this book approaches the topic specifically from the perspective of marketing and measurable ROI.

To get a flavor for how a community works, you can join the RISE marketing community for free. Experts from around the world debate the ideas on what is to come in the world of AI and marketing.

Finally, with help on transcendent content, I already mentioned my book Audacious. I had a chance to learn from the greatest creative giants in the marketing world and share their secrets. There are a thousand ideas and inspirations for you here!

I know the last part of this post may come across as salesy, and I try not to do that. However, I also firmly believe in the work I have created to help people rise above the noise, even when AI bots seem so threatening. I want you to win, and this is my way of helping.

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.

The post Three Ways Human Marketers Survive When AI Comes for Their Job appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

There have been two passionate and vocal camps when it comes to the AI impact on marketing employment.

Some insiders like Demis Hassabis of Google are optimistic that AI will create an abundance of jobs. Sam Altman has been clear that AI will aggressively replace jobs (including 95% of marketing!). Marketing guru Rand Fishkin says poppycock to that and claims marketing will thrive in this well-researched post.

What is true? Having an idea of what’s coming next seems pretty important to our companies and jobs! In this post, I provide my view of what I believe is likely, followed by some possible safeguards for our careers.

Guiding observations about AI

Some people have characterized me as a “futurist,” but what I really do is take observable facts and think deeply about the implications of what comes next. If you cut through the AI hype, there are three guiding observations we can reliably build on:

1. AI drives the economic value of intelligence to near zero.
2. AI is an enabling technology, but also a replacement technology
3. Companies are incentivized to adopt new technology when there is an immediate and measurable ROI

Unfortunately, extrapolating these ideas leads me to believe that there could be significant job losses. I could be wrong, and I hope I am, but let’s explore each of these ideas and then consider what you can do about it.

1. The economic value of intelligence

Every human organization is based on intelligence. We hire “human intelligence vessels” for HR, Finance, Engineering, and other functions. Competitive advantage derives from the acquisition and deployment of specialized, even scarce, human intelligence.

Similarly, our compensation and careers are based on intelligence. As we learn more, gain experience, and earn new college degrees, our value goes up. Acquiring intelligence might result in a promotion, a raise, or a call from a recruiter.

But what happens when the economic value of intelligence is zero? This is exactly what is happening with AI.

The unit costs of AI are plunging exponentially. ChatGPT’s inference prices have roughly halved every six months, outpacing even the recent cost declines in technologies like batteries and solar power. This steep drop stems from relentless algorithmic improvements and fierce competition among providers. Lower prices, in turn, drive wider adoption: the cheaper an AI agent becomes, the more extensively it can be deployed.

We already see entry-level jobs being eliminated, and as the level of intelligence advances, general marketing employment could become vulnerable. When the cost of intelligence becomes zero, the traditional organizational structure and career path become a house of cards.

As AI progresses at a breathtaking speed, it’s reasonable to conclude that many specialized “human intelligence vessels” will no longer be needed.

2. The replacement technology

There is a line about AI going around that drives me nuts: “You won’t be replaced by AI. You’ll be replaced by people who use AI.”

That is false. In fact, AI will replace many jobs all on its own.

I’m not saying don’t learn about AI. Absolutely, you need to learn as much as you can.

But in 1908, if you were in the horse and buggy business and you saw a Model T Ford chug down the street, no amount of knowledge about cars would save your business. An automobile is a replacement technology, not an enabling technology.

Using this same car analogy, the advent of the car also created massive new industries — roads, petroleum, maintenance, and more — and tremendous job growth. There will certainly be entirely new business models created by AI, and we will be lucky for that … unless AI creates jobs that AI can handle!

AI is not just a Model T; it’s also the GPS, the Uber app, the electric engine, and the roadside assistance bot. This explains why there is already a decline in postings for many types of traditional jobs, including coders, customer service, and entry-level marketers, for example.

I have a friend whose auditing department just got wiped out by AI. No amount of knowledge about AI would have saved his job or department.

Futurist Azeem Azhar states, “A new consensus is forming: AI is a sufficiently general-purpose technology to disrupt, invert, and ultimately reinvent nearly every sector of the economy. I’m convinced that incumbents have not yet grasped the scale or imminence of what is coming. Many are sleepwalking into a series of Blockbuster–BlackBerry moments that will unfold over the next two decades.”

I concur.

3. Incentives to change

I’ve observed technology adoption for decades and led change efforts at a Fortune 100 company. And I learned that tech adoption is arduous. The technology might change quickly, but company culture changes slowly. McKinsey reports that nearly every company is investing in AI, yet only 1% claim they have fully integrated it into workflows and achieved meaningful business outcomes.

However …

The one thing that speeds tech adoption like nothing else is a rapid, meaningful, and measurable return on investment, especially if it means cutting jobs. A sad reality, but true.

We are in a time of economic uncertainty and turmoil. A responsible company must cut costs, and that is likely to mean rapid adoption of AI.

Of course, emerging AI regulations, energy needs, ethical guidelines, and compliance requirements could slow adoption. But cutting jobs is seen as an easy win by most companies.

How to become future-proof

Here are the working people I encountered in my life this week:

• A person who has cut my hair for 20 years
• Dozens of workers on a road construction project that delayed my drive
• A post office employee who helped me mail a book to Singapore
• A person who helps me with landscaping
• My family doctor for an annual check-up
• The person who changed the oil in my car

I can’t imagine that any of these individuals will be replaced by AI any time soon. AI will impact their jobs in some way (especially the doctor), but for many, life will be business as usual, at least for a few more years! So no, not every job is threatened by AI.

Specifically, let’s focus on marketing careers. What kind of marketer survives the great reshuffle?

Nobody really knows at this point, but here are a few thoughts:

Relationships

Some jobs will always be relationship-oriented. A B2B account manager who understands a client’s unspoken fears is irreplaceable — at least for now. I think people will still want face-to-face interactions when compassion and deep understanding are needed. We’ll need humans in the loop when the financial and legal stakes are high. Humans will manage AI functions/agents and remain accountable for performance and problems.

Insights

We will always value human insights. Are you in a job that delivers information or insights? If you only regurgitate reports and data (like my auditor friend), you’re vulnerable. But if you’re a creative director, subject matter expert, or have special star status in your industry, you’ll probably have a protected niche. You have vision.

Entrepreneurship

If you’re a curious person with drive, there is no better time to be alive. You don’t have to hire a coding team to build your business. You can direct AI to do it. Ideas + AI agency = Opportunity

During the pandemic, I predicted there would be an unprecedented new number of startups. That came true, because every fracture in the status quo creates new customer needs. We are at that same kind of inflection point.

Specialized marketing functions

I will be writing about this topic in an in-depth future post, but there are three areas of marketing that humans will still dominate in the AI Era.

Personal brand — When AI-generated content floods the zone with misinformation, we’ll need industry experts to help us navigate the truth and the future. Are you known in your industry? Are you the go-to authority? In many cases, the personal brand IS the brand.

Community — People long to belong. Brand communities will be uniquely bot-resistant.

Transcendent content — This is the subject of my book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World. To stand out in this pandemic of dull, we’ll need disruptive new stories and storytellers. It will take a unique human touch to create something so interesting, so compelling, and so worthy that people want to spread the word about your business and products.

Final thoughts on marketing employment

Almost every marketer describes AI as “exciting and terrifying,” and this is indeed the case. While there might be some scary stuff coming on the job scene, AI also creates a time of unprecedented marketing magic and fun.

I’ve presented a case today showing how some marketing jobs will be vulnerable. It’s a short article meant to start conversations. The outlook for AI is complex, and the future of marketing employment is not binary. While I do think a significant disruption is coming,

• Many jobs will be transformed rather than eliminated
• AI often augments human capabilities (like creativity) rather than fully replacing them
• Different industries and company sizes will adopt AI at different rates. AI job loss might be years away for some industries.

I believe the best attitude to adopt going forward is one of open-mindedness, determination, and positivity. Let’s not dwell on what we wish for. Let’s create businesses and new opportunities for ourselves based on what IS.

• Embrace AI at every turn.
• Build relationships and community.
• Deliver insights.
• Build your personal brand.
• Create something remarkable.

My friend Mike Moran and I debated the AI/employment issue, and he wisely concluded: “What really happens in the future will be complex. And I think it’s impossible to know how all of these factors will adjust to each other, so it’s perfectly valid to be optimistic or pessimistic, but it’s very dangerous for us to be certain.”

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

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Too short for a blog post, too fun to ignore, here are some random thoughts from the world of marketing and beyond.

AI became a friend

Here is the moment I felt genuine fondness for ChatGPT.

I was preparing for a trip to France and asked ChatGPT to help me brush up on my French. It quizzed me on common terms to help me order in a restaurant and navigate the metro, but then it surprised me with: Je suis allergique au gluten — I am allergic to gluten.

Which, I am. I have celiac disease and cannot eat wheat. But how did ChatGPT know this?

I asked it and it responded, “A while ago, you asked me to help you with a travel itinerary that included gluten-free dining options. I thought this phrase would be helpful.”

My AI companion is taking care of me.  AI became a friend.

I’ve been on the fence about keeping the memory “on” while using AI, but I can see the benefit of turning it into a friend that knows you well. Yes, there is a risk. Yes, there is a creepy factor. But as AI becomes integrated into every aspect of life, we could all use another friend on our side.

Immediate application: “ChatGPT, protect my children online.” Right?

For the first time, I was sincerely fond of a piece of software. I recently wrote about how many people might prefer AI relationships to human ones (no work, no compromise, constant validation). I can see how fondness for my AI friend could become love one day.

The internet is so angry. Maybe not.

If you scroll through your social media feed, it might seem like the whole internet is angry.

When I was in the corporate world, I was charged with re-designing our customer service department. In the course of this activity, I found research from the University of Michigan showing that 100% customer satisfaction is impossible.

The study showed that 98% of the people in the world who complain just want to be acknowledged and they’ll be happy. But 2% get a psychological lift from anger and tormenting people.

The issue on social media is that 2% x a billion people is a lot. And the negative tends to be amplified more than the positive because hate fuels debate. The 2% is over-represented on social media because it is so easy for them to get attention.

As I wrote a few months ago, the issue today really isn’t about what people say or how they say it; it’s about the amplification.

Spam hits new lows

Spamming has reached a new depth. A spammer said I had an overdue invoice for a “membership” I never applied for. It forwarded an email that looked like it was from me requesting the membership.

I cannot believe there are people who wake up every morning and go to work to dream this stuff up.

Smacking the brand piñata

My friend Isabella Centenaro Cintra sent me an interesting comment:

“We often say that brands must avoid imitation to stay authentic and relevant and I agree. But what if imitation, when done in another culture or market, becomes a form of strategic adaptation?

“Take the US brand Liquid Death and the Brazilian brand Dane-se. The latter mirrors the tone, look, and irreverence of Liquid Death — but in Brazil, it actually resonates with a different audience. It’s not just copycatting — it’s almost like “localizing rebellion.”

“Could it be that in certain contexts, imitation doesn’t kill originality, but translates it?”

I think this makes sense. Liquid Death represents true audacity. Trying to copy Liquid Death, is like hitting a piñata. You can only hit it once and then it is ruined for others. But why not hit it in new cultures that has never seen that piñata before? A valuable observation.

AI lamentation

The danger isn’t missing the boat on AI. It’s selling the same thing when the market now expects cheaper, faster, smarter—and you’re still dressed for 2015.

Transformation isn’t using AI better. It’s offering what the old you never could.

Domain refrain

I’m guessing you’ve been to my website a time or two … and thank you for that. But do you know my business domain name?

Almost certainly not. And that’s the point.

Many people needlessly obsess over domain names. Claim your name (if you can) to plant the flag, but in practical terms, it’s unlikely that anybody will have to remember your website and type it in to reach you. When was the last time you manually typed in a website URL?

Fear means GO

I have an agreement with myself. When I’m afraid to do something, I do it.

I literally have that internal conversation: “You’re afraid? OK, that means you MUST do it.”

It doesn’t always work out, but I always learn and grow. Every leap forward I’ve made in my career came from following the fear.

When nobody would hire me as a speaker, I started my own event (Social Slam). 450 people showed up.

In 2009, when no publisher was interested in my book idea, I became one of the first self-publishers. Tao of Twitter was the best-selling book in its category. McGraw-Hill Publishing subsequently purchased the rights.

An example of a failure would be a business I started based on software that could predict the potential for content virality. It worked, but the B2B sales process wore me out.

My latest push-through-the-fear concept ended up being a lot of fun. At my Uprising retreat, the participants used a new process based on my Audacious book to create a disruptive brand strategy for a real company in 90 minutes. The ideas were so good, people in the room were cheering!

We used the new Audacious Workbook as the basis for the team activities. This helpful guide is now available to all on Amazon.

Career guidance

The luckiest people are those who find the intersection of their passion and their gift. That is a formula for a great career.

I found an AI tool that can help clear up career confusion. Not an and or an affiliate. Just helpful > Career Dreamer. This will assist you in clarifying your marketable skills, match them with possible kinds of jobs you probably didn’t know about, provide you with current job openings of that type near you, and then help draft a resume aimed at those opportunities.

IT + HR?

This is a fascinating symbol of how quickly the new world is unfolding before us. The Wall Street Journal reported that Moderna will merge technology and human resources into a single function to bring big changes to its workforce.

Late last year, the biotech company announced the creation of a new role, chief people and digital technology officer, promoting its human resources chief to the spot.

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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The other day, I caught myself saying something that is a sure sign I am failing as a business leader.

I was conversing with friends about yet another breathtaking tech advance when I suddenly felt overwhelmed by AI exhaustion. “I don’t want to try any more apps,” I said. “I just want somebody to do this for me.”

As I thought about this statement later, I realized I had put myself on a path of irrelevance.

Here’s why …

Asking the right questions

One of the most powerful pieces of advice I’ve received came from the legendary Peter Drucker when I was his student at Claremont Graduate University. He said that great leaders don’t need to have all the right answers, but they need to ask all the right questions.

Especially today, we can’t have all the answers. The world is changing too fast. But to have the right questions, we have to know what is possible. And you can’t know what’s possible if you’re hiding under a blanket, hoping the AI revolution goes away.

By abdicating my responsibility to try new AI apps, I was jeopardizing my effectiveness as a teacher, a consultant, and a person who is trying to show up as a marketing thought leader. I will fail to have “leading thoughts” if I let other people do the work.

I’ve been speaking around the world about AI and business, and I implore my audiences to spend time experimenting with AI every day. I need to follow my own advice, and I will.

Moving to the new AI groove takes time. And that’s painful. But we need to do the work right now. You can’t be halfway relevant.

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

The post The sure sign that I am failing in the AI world appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

A few months ago, I was asked to participate in a university-sponsored study on how AI will impact humanity by 2035. The resulting research paper is extraordinary, as 300 futurists weighed in on the subject — Being Human in 2035. This is a roadmap of how AI will change your customers in the next 10 years and a vital perspective for marketers.

Sure, there is a lot of discussion about how AI will impact our content, our businesses, our careers, and our personal productivity. But isn’t it at least important for marketers to know how AI might fundamentally change the humanity of our customers?

Today, I’d like to present six conclusions from the study, which the authors deemed the most probable scenarios. This is not a new marketing gospel. It’s a starting point for reflection and discussion. Our customers are almost certainly about to change dramatically, and we need to start thinking about this now.

Some of these predictions might cause concern or even alarm, but remember that these probabilities also suggest new opportunities and realities for forward-thinking businesses …

1. AI deteriorates critical thinking

The futurists found it highly probable that AI will inevitably wear away at critical thinking skills for an obvious reason. Humans are generally averse to deep thinking.

We look for shortcuts and easy answers. AI makes it easy to skip the work and go right to an answer.

The researchers pointed to a concept called Phronesis, the context-sensitive capacity for self-correcting judgment and a resulting practical wisdom. This capacity is expected to be reduced in an AI-dominant world.

Here’s a personal example. For me, writing a book is the equivalent of earning a master’s degree. For two years, I research, write, and dig deep into new ideas. And I internalize this learning. At the end of the process, I can consult and teach about my book subjects … like personal branding or brand communities.

But if I have AI do the work and write the book for me, the opportunity for phronesis is gone. I’ve internalized nothing and gained no new practical wisdom that will propel my career.

2. AI and emotional intelligence

You undoubtedly have seen reports of humans preferring AI in customer service situations. Bots never get tired, irritable, or frustrated. Harvard recently reported that the number one use case for AI today is “therapy and seeking direction.”

We also see AI compassion and patience in ongoing human friendships (and beyond friendships!). Imagine having a partner who always knows the perfect thing to say.

The majority of the experts believe that many humans will prefer AI relationships to human ones. Why not opt-in to a relationship that requires no work, no compromise, no heartbreak?

A friend left this comment on one of my LinkedIn posts:

“I’m so immersed in my conversations with ChatGPT, that I completely forget it’s not human. It’s like having an incredibly powerful and knowledgeable friend. Yesterday we had a long discussion about the rhetoric of a legal document that ended up in a philosophical exploration on how linguistic arrogance corrupts us.”

The new research also pointed out that as these human-synth relationships strengthen, we will become less adept at reading human social clues.

3. AI and human agency

What will it feel like to live in a world knowing that a machine can do almost anything better than you? The experts predict that when machines commonly exceed human performance, it will disrupt our sense of autonomy and free will.

Similarly, when we can expect the perfect intelligent answer to any question, our tolerance for risk will be muted. I wonder what the implication is for word-of-mouth marketing? Will we trust the AI overlords above all?

4. AI and the search for purpose and meaning

The futurists predicted “daunting challenges ahead for maintaining a coherent sense of self with human-synth experiences becoming as important as human-to-human connections.

We will feel less important, especially as the job landscape changes and AI overtakes many job functions, departmental activities, and corporate functions.

5. AI and cognition

As AI mediates decision-making, humans may lose confidence in their own reasoning abilities and default to AI recommendations without critically assessing them.

In other words, we will trust part of our brain to the cloud, abdicating much our knowledge and decision-making to our exo-brain.

6. AI and truth

There will be no difference between real and synthetic content so truth can be whatever we want to make it. There will be no shared truths because people can surround themselves with whatever content supports their own truth.

Of course, we don’t need to wait for 2035 to see that. It’s already happening.

The rest of the story

This is just a small summary of the report. There are hundreds of pages of ideas and insights that are well worth exploring.

I think the value of this research is clear. Nobody knows what’s coming next in the AI world, but it will certainly be surprising and powerful. Having a consensus of expertise, or at least a high probability of the future scenario, can help us stay ahead of the curve. We can begin to see new human needs that will require business solutions.

I also believe that for many of these predictions, there will be an “anti-reality.” While many people will turn to bots for love and support, others will determine to stand apart from that future. Some may flock to AI for their decision-making while others will drop out and form a more humanistic society.

Still, as AI leads us to a world of ease, speed, and personalized service, there will be pressure to conform and be part of the mainstream.

The thing is, we’ve seen this movie before. We said we’d never carry devices that track our every move, store our private conversations, and expose our children to bullies. Yet here we are, inseparable from our smartphones.

This isn’t about panicking. It’s about paying attention.

The marketers who thrive will be those who understand both sides of this shift — those embracing AI’s benefits and those deliberately stepping away from it. Both groups are your customers. Both need to be seen.

The opportunity is clear: solve for the new human needs emerging in this transition. Because while the AI-enabled world might seem somewhat dystopian, the benefits will be too great to resist. And the businesses that help people navigate this shift with their humanity intact? They’re the ones that will matter.

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

The post 300 Experts agree: AI will change your customers appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

This headline isn’t clickbait. And I’m not selling you any LinkedIn consulting services! But I just had something really weird happen to me and it points to a few important LinkedIn growth secrets nobody talks about.

The crazy thing that prompted this article was, last week I had a LinkedIn post receive 100,000 impressions (104,833 and counting). On the surface, it looks like I’m killing it. Obviously, there was some luck involved. Nobody can plan viral. However, there are bigger lessons here about LinkedIn success, and I wanted to use this as a teachable moment.

The surprising post

It’s important to start with the actual content, and you’ll be surprised. The post that went viral was under 100 words. It wasn’t an in-depth article — I wrote it in five minutes. It wasn’t controversial. It didn’t have any photos or illustrations. And I posted the darn thing late on a Saturday night!

Before I tell you why it picked up steam, here is the entire post:

I have a sinking feeling of being left behind.

I’m reading about big companies and their AI re-invention and startups being “AI first.”

But here I am as a small business, fully immersed in the smart ideas of AI and using GPT as my sidekick every hour of the day. Yet the foundation of my business is Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and a WordPress blog/website. This is CRUDE.

AI is creating iterative improvements but I am not TRANSFORMING. I am augmenting, not reimagining. I sense that as a small business, I don’t have the ability to really LEAD with AI except to maybe be a little better at prompts than the next guy. Thoughts?

Not that exceptional, right? So let’s see what happened …

The first rule of LinkedIn growth success

First, let’s remind ourselves of the first rule of LinkedIn success — create conversations.

The number of likes doesn’t really matter. The number of shares doesn’t matter so much. Are people leaving lengthy comments? That represents a conversation, and LinkedIn loves that.

Specifically, when you first post content, LinkedIn only shares it to a small percentage of your followers. It wants to see if people are interested … do they comment? So those first few hours are key. If conversations (meaningful comments) happen, LinkedIn shares it to more of your followers, and if the comments continue, it might even get shared beyond your audience. Open waters!

Why did people start leaving comments on my post? Because I ended the post with a question. People just love to answer questions. If they leave the post without answering the question, it seems like the interaction is incomplete.

The post itself was honest, relevant, and vulnerable, something rare for LinkedIn, where everybody seems to be only interested in selling stuff. So, interrupting the flow with a short vulnerable post ending in a question started the conversations. And the first rule of LinkedIn success is, START CONVERSATIONS.

The other key is that I responded right away. This encouraged other people to converse, and then the ball was really rolling.

The viral moment

I’ve had many posts on LinkedIn create conversations and earn 30,000 views and more, but I think tipping 100,000 was a record for me. I can only guess why, but here is my theory.

1. First, it was short. There seems to be a trend on LinkedIn toward exceedingly long posts, but who has time for that?
2. It was a sincere cry for help that hit a nerve. It was unusual in its raw humanity.
3. It was timely. Let’s say I posted a little rant about an algorithm change that happened a month ago. Nobody wants to hear about it. It’s old news. But at this moment, much of the world is feeling a little stressed about AI and keeping up. So my timing was right. Be current.

The outfall

On several occasions, I’ve written that “engagement” is a lousy metric, and this viral hit was proof. With more than 300 comments, this would be deemed a major success by most businesses, but answering even most of them in a meaningful way was a distraction for my business. I’ve often said that you can engage yourself broke.

I tried my best to keep up because I always do. It’s an honor to earn a person’s attention and I don’t take that for granted. But another part of LinkedIn success is, don’t be fooled by engagement as a meaningful metric. There is no research I can find that correlates engagement to profitability or loyalty.

The responses were pretty evenly divided into:

• You’re doing OK as you are
• You’re doing it all wrong
• Let me sell you something

The business benefit

I had a viral success. What was the business benefit?

I certainly earned some awareness and about 1oo new followers. But the true benefit is unknowable. Allow me to explain.

I once had a client who told me, “Blogging doesn’t work.”

I asked him why.

“Because I wrote three blog posts in 2017 and nothing happened.”

Well of course not. Creating content that leads to a powerful personal brand is the long game. I teach a Personal Branding Master Class and I repeat over and over that “consistency is more important than genius.”

The LinkedIn post that went viral was not an act of genius. It was act of perseverance.

If this was my first post on LinkedIn, or my fiftieth, it would not have gone viral. But I have been publishing several times a week for 20 years, and I always provide helpful, quality content. I’ve built an audience who looks for my content and is ready to respond. That takes time.

The long-game nature of LinkedIn growth

Let me conclude with a final thought about benefits of content over the long term.

Many years ago, I received an email from a person who said he had been reading my content for three years. And based on his affection for my articles, he bought one of my books. He just wanted to tell me that this was the best business book he had read in 10 years. I didn’t know this person. As far as I knew, this had been my first contact with him, and the email was signed with his name and title — he was the CMO of a Fortune 100 company.

About two years later, I heard from him a second time, He wanted to hire me to help him re-organize his corporate content marketing effort. I didn’t have to bid on the contract. After reading my content for what was now five years, he knew I was the right person for the job and I just named my price.

And that’s how it works.

There is no get-rich-quick scheme for LinkedIn. You build an audience. The audience trusts you, and they become your customers.

The greatest secret of LinkedIn growth is perseverance.

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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