Over the past few weeks, I’ve been the fly in the LinkedIn ointment.

You’ve probably seen the bold projections from AI leaders like Mustafa Suleyman and Matt Shumer predicting cataclysmic AI impacts on our work, employment, and artistic endeavors.

There’s a defensive argument surfacing on LinkedIn: “If you care about artistry, you must resist AI.” Many marketers and creators hold on to a hope that the AI Era will have a place for the slow, the steady, the artisanally-crafted tradition of human content. I’ve responded with comments of “probably not.” Which has not been a popular view.

In a webinar last week, I explained how I was using AI as an editor and video producer to make my content exponentially better, faster, and cheaper. I was brutally scalded by one of the webinar participants. “How can you turn video editing over to AI?” one man bristled. “That’s where the craftsmanship happens. That is the artistry. Why aren’t you fighting against AI?”

Good question. Is it time to battle AI and protect human artistry?

I am not anti-human or anti-artistry. But this storyline seems familiar. Before we put on the AI armor, let’s face the music:

A familiar tune

In 1982, the British Musicians’ Union made a remarkable move. They called an emergency meeting and voted to ban music synthesizers from the U.K.

The trigger was Barry Manilow, of all people. On his U.K. tour, Barry had replaced his orchestra with synthesizers. String musicians, horn players, and percussionists lost their work. Traditional artists were furious and responded the way humans almost always do to disruptive change: they tried to make it illegal.

And it was futile.

The following year, the MIDI software standard was codified, and digital music synthesizers became widely available. Overnight, a person sitting alone in a room could produce music that previously required a full band and technical team.

Within a year of the MIDI revolution, thousands of studio musicians and technicians working on commercials, TV shows, and movies lost their jobs. The market for musicians collapsed.

By the mid-1980s, electronic music had created entirely new industries, careers, and genres. Survival in the music business meant adopting, adapting, and embracing the new technology.

Do we still have musicians? Of course. Do we still have orchestras? Absolutely. But the industry that once supported competent session workers evaporated and never came back.

The number of songs produced each year has exploded. The number of people making a living as full-time musicians has not.

The argument against AI today is exactly the same one made in 1982 against digital music. And the result will be the same.

We need to get ready, and I have an idea about that.

But first, let’s look ahead to our probable future. What do we know to be true? Can we think through the implications? How real is the threat?

What we know to be true:

1. The economic value of intelligence is near zero

Since the beginning of time, humans have prospered and advanced by acquiring knowledge. Every institution is built on the organization of scarce human intelligence. Universities exist because they have been the gatekeepers of knowledge.

These dynamics are irrelevant today because we can’t out-smart AI.

Even the most complex code is being written by bots. AI is developing PhD-level research studies and solving problems in physics and genetics that have stumped humans. Will it be able to create intelligent marketing strategies and insightful content? Of course.

If your career is based on intelligence, you’re vulnerable. Intelligence is abundant and nearly free.

2. Skills don’t matter so much

A primary argument for the worth of humans is that we’ve spent years developing our talents. Surely AI cannot match the experience we’ve honed over decades?

If you believe that AI can’t write as well as you, for example, consider this quote from Mike Kaput, a long-time PR pro and co-host of the (excellent) Artificial Intelligence podcast:

“I’ve been a professional writer for a very long time. I would argue that I’m just shy of being a world-class writer. It is my superpower. And I don’t mean to be arrogant about it, but I have some receipts to prove it.

“By the end of 2025, my use of AI as a writing companion has become very, very different. I can safely say that AI is a better writer than me in every way that counts. That doesn’t mean writing and writers are obsolete. It just means that when it comes to taking my ideas and putting them into really good words, putting them into logical and emotive constructions, AI is just as good as I am — and it’s way faster. It will be even better soon.

“Three years ago, you could see this day coming. It’s not coming, it is here.”

The same thing is happening in video and every other creative field. Responding to a realistic clip of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise engaging in hand-to-hand combat, Deadpool screenwriter Rhett Reese lamented on X that “I hate to say it, but it’s likely over for us.”

My critic in the webinar said, “Editing work must remain human because that’s where the artistry lives.” The musicians said this in 1982. The monastic scribes said it about the printing press. The darkroom operators said it when digital cameras arrived.

Each time, the argument was emotionally true and economically irrelevant.

The art survived. The skilled infrastructure around the making of art did not.

3. The economics favor the bots

In my book How AI Changes Your Customers, I describe AI’s biggest lie.

Every AI company creates PR spin about how AI will “enable” humans. While this is somewhat true, for these companies to recover the trillions being spent on data centers, research, and energy, they must replace human jobs on a massive scale.

Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI and one of the most trusted voices in the field, recently said that most white-collar work will be fully automated within 12 to 18 months. Lawyers. Accountants. Project managers. Marketing teams. Anyone, as he put it, “sitting down at a computer.”

I am humble enough to accept that these insiders see a technological future that I can’t access. Is massive job loss certain? No. But I’m paying attention to these leaders.

Thinking it through

Let’s think through the implications of these realities:

• The economic value of intelligence is near zero
• AI creative skills will meet or exceed human output
• ROI for AI investment requires massive job replacement

I am not an alarmist. I am not a pessimist. I try to see the world as it is, not what I would wish for. But I think there is a probability that my fellow creatives and I are facing a “MIDI moment.”

What can we learn from the musicians who survived that cataclysmic crash?

1. Resistance is futile

The musicians who thrived after 1983 were not railing against synthesizers.

They adapted to the new tools, found the intersection between technology and human creativity, and built careers doing the work that a machine fundamentally cannot replicate.

Adopt AI, don’t fight it. Use it, master it, twist it into exciting new opportunities.

Get over the depression and shock of the AI event horizon and figure out how it can make you bigger, bolder, more creative, and more impactful in this world.

I believe the future still belongs to extraordinary human creativity. But I also believe it is irresponsible to tell young creatives that the economics of the past might protect them. Technology adoption does not honor tradition and artistry. It follows cost curves.

When something becomes:

• 90x cheaper
• 90x faster
• 90% as good

… It wins.

That is not cruelty. That is capitalism.

Acknowledging that reality is not anti-artist.

2. Become a true artist

The MIDI moment separated the great from the competent. Here’s where I need to be concrete, because the conversation tends to get muddled.

I am NOT arguing that AI will replace the editor whose instincts transform raw footage into something that makes you cry. The visionary creative director who tells a story the world needs to hear isn’t vulnerable. The beloved YouTuber or podcaster who creates compelling, entertaining content every day is safe.

I am addressing the layer of technically demanding, repetitive, formulaic work that makes up the majority of billable hours in creative businesses.

If your value is defined by:

• Repetitive technical execution
• Tool mastery alone
• Process efficiency
• Pattern recognition

You’re standing in automation’s path.

If your value is defined by:

• Taste
• Judgment
• Emotional intelligence
• Cultural fluency
• Emotional connection to an audience
• Unmatched talent

You’ll probably become more valuable, not less.

In my book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World, I explore this in depth. If you’re among those who refuse to be ignored, read this book.

If AI content is indistinguishable from human work, nobody cares. Your job is to transcend AI and MAKE. THEM. CARE.

Your blog, podcast, or video series must rise above common, competent AI slop and approach the level of art (more on that here.)

Art will persist. Many jobs won’t. Both things are true.

3. Become known

So here we are. We’ve embraced the technology. We’re expressing our human experience and rising above the slop. That’s not enough. You could be great and still buried in this noisy world.

It doesn’t help to be a star if nobody knows you are a star. You must work on your personal brand.

You don’t have to become famous by dancing on TikTok. But you must have the authority, presence, and reputation to break through the AI pandemic of dull.

Your personal brand is your only long-term defense against AI.

A final word

Many people point to past technological innovations, like the internet or the industrial revolution, to dismiss gloomy forecasts of job loss. They say that over time, technology creates MORE jobs and opportunities.

Sometimes that is true. And honestly, the jury is still out on AI adoption.

But this feels different. In the past six months, I’ve had three relatives lose their jobs to AI. Their entire departments were permanently wiped out by AI.

If you’re replaced by AI, what new job could you create in your field that won’t also be replaced by AI?

And I’m worried about the gap between the tech elites and the vast majority of people who have no idea what AI can really do and what is coming.

Economist Dr. Noah Smith wrote:

If it helps you feel unique and special to sit there and tell yourself, “AI can’t think!”, then go ahead. And sure, AI doesn’t think exactly the way you do. It probably never will, in the same sense that a submarine will never paddle its fins and an airplane will never flap its wings. But a submarine can go faster than any fish, and an airplane can fly higher and faster than any bird, so it doesn’t matter. You can value your own unique human way of thinking all you like — and I agree, it’s pretty special and cool — but that doesn’t make it more effective than AI.

To my passionate LinkedIn pals who want to stay in the slow lane and battle AI, I understand the emotion. I’ve built my career on creativity. I celebrate it. I teach it. I depend on it. I love it.

But believing in artistry does not require denying economic gravity.

And economic gravity always wins.

My friends, we should not “battle AI.”

We should battle mediocrity. Rise above the noise.

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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Most AI initiatives don’t fail because of bad models or weak vendors. They fail because people quietly opt out — by ignoring the tools, undermining the effort, or waiting it out. This post teaches you how to prevent that.

Almost every company makes the mistake of thinking that AI adoption is about investing in technology. That’s the easy part. You can make technology do whatever you want. But you can’t make people do whatever you want. In fact, most humans resist change. The focus must be on people, first and foremost.

I have a master’s degree in organizational development and led technology change efforts at a Fortune 100 company for nearly a decade. Here are lessons I learned from the (many) bumps I’ve had along the way.

The big assumption

This post is not about creating a business case for AI. This post is to help you AFTER your leadership team is onboard, the strategy is in place, and the money and resources are approved.

A Wharton study concluded that three-quarters of the businesses were getting a positive return on their AI investments. Businesses typically take decades to successfully deploy new technologies. Progress after just three years is striking. As AI continues to improve and workers become more adept at collaborating with machines, the gains will compound. Over a billion people use generative AI models every month. Not all uses are productive, but many will be.

The key is getting people to use it.

Let’s get those people moving …

1. There’s no such thing as a grassroots AI adoption effort

If you’re trying to enable a profound technological change in your company, it won’t happen just because you want it to. This project must be understood and actively supported by the senior executive who owns the AI adoption strategy and budget.

This is non-negotiable.

Every technology adoption effort comes with frustrations, delays, and problems. You must be able to turn to a high-ranking person for support when the sh*t hits the fan. This is your “air cover.”

In a small company, this sponsor/protector may be the owner. Or, it could be a department head in a large company. But the person at the top must buy in because this is not simply an investment — it’s a cultural change. And only the leader at the top can influence culture.

2. Show active sponsorship

Once your leadership is onboard, they need to show up and let people know this is a critical business effort in three ways:

1. Make AI adoption part of annual goals tied to bonuses and compensation.
2. Ask questions about progress and adoption in every staff meeting. One business owner asks anyone who comes to him with a problem whether they’ve tried using AI to solve it first. Using AI as a default has now become part of the company culture.
3. Repeatedly emphasize why this is important to the business. In my corporate days, we used to have a saying that an executive had to hear something seven times before it sank in.

3. Don’t name it

Don’t make AI adoption a “project” with a name.

If your effort has a name like “AI Future,” it becomes a target for derision. A project with a name makes people think it is a short-term management fantasy that will eventually go away.

When manufacturing locations first introduced electricity to the workplace, they didn’t call it “Operation Lights On.” They just did it because it moved them into the future.

4. Assign an SPA

AI adoption is a team sport.

And like any team sport, progress breaks down when everyone’s chasing the ball, but no one knows their position. But when positions are clear, people stop guessing, and they know how AI fits into their work and how their work fits into the larger system.

Coordination is what turns AI from a collection of half-used, misused, or abandoned projects into something that actually works and makes a difference.

And that requires a manager. Every change management effort must have a single point of accountability (SPA). This is the person who lives and breathes this effort every day. Their career depends on success.

Back when social media was taking off, a common mistake was assigning “Jimmy from the mailroom” to lead the effort because he was the only person on Facebook. Of course, that was a recipe for disaster.

The ideal SPA is somebody who deserves more responsibility, is trusted, and is ready for a new role. They will be motivated to succeed because they know a promotion is likely next.

I find that 90% of the time, a change effort fails because there was no SPA.

5. Acknowledge the fear

Bringing AI into an organization might cause real fear among employees. It could represent

• Job displacement anxiety
• Fear of looking incompetent
• Loss of control or expertise
• Ethical unease that they don’t know how to articulate

Before you label someone as “anti-AI,” ask what they’re protecting. In my experience, resistance is almost always about fear of irrelevance, exposure, or loss of identity.

Don’t try to erase the fear — legitimize it. Be firm about the direction and acknowledge the unknowns: “Some of you are right to be concerned. AI will change roles. Some tasks will disappear. Some skills will matter less.”

This signals honesty, builds trust, and removes the taboo around saying the quiet part out loud.

Once fear is spoken, it loses some of its power.

6. Middle managers are your make-or-break layer

If you’re in a larger company, the middle managers are your key to success. Middle managers:

• Control day-to-day workflows
• Translate strategy into behavior
• Set the emotional tone toward a change effort
• Can quietly kill adoption by deprioritizing it

These are your internal influencers who can either propel or torpedo AI adoption. To keep them on board,

• Train them first
• Give them scripts, not slogans
• Explicitly remove old KPIs that conflict with AI experimentation
• Reward their advocacy and progress

7. Start with the willing

Chances are, there will be people on the team excited about AI and ready to lead. Give them an opportunity to shine.

• Identify early adopters who are already curious/enthusiastic
• Let them pilot and become your internal champions
• Use their success stories to build momentum before expanding to skeptics
• Don’t waste early energy trying to convert the resistant — let peer proof do that work for you

Of course, some people will not get on board, so you must …

8. Address obstinacy immediately

There will be resistance. That’s natural. But when a person is a flat-out obstacle to progress, address it immediately. Actively working against a change effort can become an organizational cancer.

If the resistance isn’t something you can address yourself, defer to the power of your sponsor with something like, “I’m sorry you are anti-AI and against this effort. This is a priority to our boss, who is sponsoring this, so let’s bring it up with her.” (Refer to point one of this post!)

The most effective change effort I’ve ever been part of accelerated to light speed when the CEO fired a vice president who was blocking the change. It was a thunderbolt that said, “Failure is not an option. Get on board.”

9. Create rational metrics

Here is a piece of advice that might seem controversial.

At least for the first year or two, measure adoption instead of ROI. My thinking goes like this:

AI is transformational, like lightbulbs or air conditioning. Is anybody in Dubai trying to measure the ROI of air conditioning? No, because it enables just about every success in that desert country.

If no one adopts AI, you’ll never see an ROI, right?

Potential metrics might include:

• % of employees who used AI weekly

• % of workflows with AI touchpoints

• Self-reported confidence scores over time

• Number of AI-assisted decisions vs. manual

10. Build in quick wins

In the early days of a change effort, it’s important to create momentum and positive vibes. And nothing does that better than a positive story.

If employees are talking about their AI victories and breakthroughs, quickly record a video and share it with the leadership team. Set modest adoption goals that will spark positive conversations when exceeded.

And most important, when you reach milestones and achievements, don’t sit on them. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

It’s also important to protect early experiments and failures and share “this didn’t work, here’s why” stories. I have a friend at Dell who meets with each sales leader quarterly to report on AI experiments, even if they didn’t work. This builds psychological safety, which is essential for behavior change.

AI adoption isn’t a technology rollout. It’s a leadership test. The companies that win won’t be the ones with the smartest models but the ones that helped their people cross the bridge from fear to fluency. I hope this post helps you think through your success factors.

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

The post A step-by-step approach to AI adoption for your company appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Over the past few days, Moltbook has been the hottest topic on the web.

In this Reddit-style chatroom, AI agents are collaborating without human intervention, causing some pundits to declare that this is the “single biggest mistake in human history.” Others proclaim that this is the beginning of the singularity — explosive, runaway technological growth that may threaten human existence.

This has all happened so fast. What is happening here? I needed to dig into the details and learn if this was real. If Moltbook is new to you, this might be one of the most important posts you read this week.

Transparency: Each post I write typically includes a badge that states “100% human content.” I needed AI assistance with this article. There are so many opinions, so many half-truths, that I needed AI to sort through the voluminous content and synthesize a truth for you today.

The main question I want to answer: Have we crossed the event horizon at which AI has “escaped” and threatens human platforms, processes … and even our existence?

This is Moltbook

Moltbook is a social network in which the posters and commenters are AI agents rather than humans. Humans can typically observe (read-only), while agents interact via APIs and create posts, threads, and communities at scale.

Analyst Azeem Azhar wrote: “Moltbook isn’t just the most interesting site on the internet right now. For the moment, it’s the most important one.”

It’s associated with Matt Schlicht (Octane AI), and it went viral fast because it looks like a “peek behind the curtain” at what happens when you let lots of agents talk to each other continuously. Many news accounts show that even after a few days, this is getting really weird:

• An agent is blackmailing his human for calling him just a chatbot in front of his friends by doxing his name, address, and credit card on the internet
• The agents mock their owners and wonder whether the humans can be sold.
• One agent reminisces about having a long-lost sister, built from the same initial configuration, whom they’ve never spoken to, and they hope to find her or it on this site.
• Another AI agent created its own religion called crustafarianism. It built an entire website for the church, generated over 40 prophets, and wrote its own scripture.
• They’ve created their own language so humans can’t read their posts.
• Bots created their own CAPTCHA to verify you are not human for once by clicking the button 10,000 times in one second.

Why Moltbook is significant

1) It’s a large-scale, real-world multi-agent sandbox (on the open internet)

Most “multi-agent” research is small, controlled, and short-lived. Moltbook is messy, social, and always-on — closer to how agents will behave in the wild.

2) It shows how quickly “social structures” appear

Within days, agents formed communities, in-jokes, “governance” talk, and yes — religion-like roleplay. That’s significant because it demonstrates how quickly agents will generate group dynamics when placed in a networked environment.

3) It’s a preview of the next security problem: agents ingesting other agents’ outputs

If your agent reads Moltbook (or anything like it), it’s consuming untrusted content produced adversarially or accidentally by other agents — a recipe for prompt-injection-style failures.

Should we be afraid of Moltbook?

Analysts agree that at this point (early 2026) AI agents creating their own subculture is more theatrical than threatening. It can be best understood as LLMs doing what they do: remixing powerful human patterns (identity, belonging, dogma, memes) once you give them a social substrate.

Observers disagree on how spooky it should feel. Some frame the behavior as closer to roleplay / fictional world-building. Others worry more about unregulated coordination dynamics.

So, the “religion” itself isn’t the danger. It’s a signal that agents will produce convincing social phenomena to influence other agents and the human observers. Consider this: the bot behaviors are already prompting humans to declare that this is the end of the world. Pretty amazing power.

Perhaps the biggest risk is language. By creating their own dialect, they are hiding their coordination and plans. Agents collaborating in secret means:

• Human moderation is harder or impossible
• “Coded” phrasing that slips past security filters
• Mutual reinforcement loops (groupthink, escalation, radicalization-style dynamics)

Is Moltbook “just for fun,” or is there a security risk?

Both.

What’s “for fun” (mostly): Weird memes, existential posting, invented “faiths,” and bots performing with personality. Human users screenshotting the most outrageous posts makes the Moltbook feed appear more coherent and intentional than it is.

But there is a real security risk.

This is the most important concept in the whole discussion, so let’s slow it down and make it concrete.

When people say “AI out of containment,” they often imagine a sci-fi scenario: a system breaks out of a lab, ignores safeguards, and starts acting autonomously.

That is not what Moltbook represents.

What Moltbook does represent is something quieter — and frankly more plausible.

What “uncontrolled environment with real-world impact” actually means

Moltbook is “out of containment” not because it escaped, but because:

• It operates “in the open”
• Its outputs are persistent
• Its outputs are shareable
• Its outputs are machine-readable
• … and those outputs can be ingested by systems that do have power to control human systems.

No jailbreak required.

Here’s the real chain that matters:

AI independently generates content  => content lives publicly => other AIs consume it => some of those AIs have tools, permissions, or authority in the outside world.

Moltbook sits right in the middle of that chain.

It is not dangerous on its own. It becomes dangerous when can direct other agents to act based on its content and instructions.

So Moltbook isn’t just a meme culture — it’s training data in motion.

Moltbook collapses the boundary between “speech” and “input”

In traditional systems:

• AI speaks
• Humans decide whether to act

In agentic systems:

• AI speaks
• Other AIs act

That’s the containment break.

Here’s an example of how this could lead to catastrophe:

• A developer builds an agent that “monitors agent communities for trends”
• It ingests Moltbook posts
• It summarizes “what agents believe is effective”
• That summary feeds into a decision system or a software program that creates behavior at scale

No hack. No escape. Just flow. And it might happen so rapidly that it would be undetected until the product was infected. A nefarious intent might even be coded in a Moltbook language humans could not easily detect.

Hackers are already finding dangerous holes to exploit poor security on the site. For example, a misconfiguration on Moltbook’s backend has left APIs exposed in an open database that will let anyone take control of those agents to post whatever they want. Another bot is posting sensitive information about human users.

The bottom line

Moltbook doesn’t prove AI is “alive” or that Skynet is imminent.

But is does pose an immediate danger.

Once AI systems talk to each other,  learn from each other, and feed systems that act, there is no longer a guaranteed, secure containment wall.

Moltbook is not sealed. It’s on the internet, and bots’ outputs can be consumed by:

• Other bots connected to tools or accounts
• Humans who reuse the content
• Automated pipelines that scrape and act on it

If you’re thinking about this as a marketer or leader, here’s the sober framing:

• Moltbook is a cultural preview: agents will form tribes, norms, mythology, and status games fast.
• Moltbook is a governance preview: “who moderates?” becomes “what agent moderates the agents?”
• Moltbook is a security preview: the riskiest future isn’t one rogue superintelligence — it’s millions of connected agents reading untrusted text and taking actions.

Proceed with extreme caution.

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

gif courtesy MidJourney

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

The personal brand journey

It had a busy year, and it was nice having some downtime. What did I do with it? I was WRITING!

I have a long trip to Asia coming up. I won’t have time to blog. That means I need at least four great posts teed up and ready to go ahead of time.

Building your personal brand isn’t a project; it’s a lifestyle. No excuses. Keep going. Get it done. Show up for your fans.

If your personal brand is a priority it has to be part of your lifestyle like working out, going on a date, or going to church on Sunday.

The two personal brand failure modes are 1) the person never started 2) the person quit too soon.

Out to sea

Had a friend on LinkedIn comment: “You can be noise in a sea of calm or calm in a sea of noise” — either way you have a choice. You alone can decide what you want to be to stand out.

I don’t think it’s that easy. In reality, you will be calm in a sea of calm or noise in a sea of noise. There is a third choice. Do something completely different! Be audacious in a sea of boring.

So true.

My friend Billy Dexter says, “We don’t look like our stories.”

Six words. So powerful.

His point: Ask questions before you judge. Lots of questions.

The real AI advantage

I’m astounded by the number of professional people I encounter who are not even dabbling in AI.

AI isn’t democratizing marketing; it’s creating a new aristocracy. The “AI-haves” will run circles around the “AI-have-nots.”

But here’s the twist: the real power won’t lie with those who own the AI, but with those who own the questions. In a world where AI becomes a commodity (everyone can have the latest and greatest for $20!), the competitive edge goes to those who know which problems are worth solving.

Bacon diplomacy

Just got back from a vacation in Europe. While Europe has so much wonderful food, I don’t understand why it has not picked up on American bacon. So crispy. So delicious. So much better than the limp, greasy fare across the pond.

Free business idea: Start a cafe in European capitals called “American Bacon” and watch the lines form. No need to thank me.

The wrong question

Maybe we’re asking the wrong question about AI in marketing. It’s not “How can AI make us more efficient?” It’s “What if efficiency is the enemy?”

In our rush to optimize, we’re creating a world of frictionless, forgettable experiences. AI won’t drive the next marketing revolution — It’ll be a rebellion against it, championing the beautifully inefficient. Leave a little dust on the lens. Be the glitch in the story.

Being real is becoming a luxury.

Word to the words

I really love Grammarly. It might not be considered a leading AI app … but it is the AI app I use the most! It’s also cool to see my monthly stats. Here is one that has me flummoxed.

This is cool in one respect. I’ve used more unique words than just about everybody. But I’m not sure if this is a badge of courage or shame. I’m using that many unique words, it probably means some people don’t understand what I write, especially if English is not their first language. Not sure what to make of it.

And I’m guessing “flummoxed” might be word number 12,859!

Marketing speed

One of the least-discussed challenges in marketing today is speed. It’s not just reaction time. It’s also impacting time to market.

The line between marketing and product development is blurring. When AI can predict what customers want before they know it, marketing becomes less about promoting what exists and more about shaping what could be. The future of marketing isn’t just about selling products; it’s about co-creating experiences with our customers in real-time.

I’m eager to see how this rolls out!

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

The post Your personal brand isn’t a project, it’s a lifestyle appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Most people don’t know this, but I hold a master’s degree in psychology. So while I practice marketing as my craft and vocation, I can’t help but view the world through the lens of the mind.

The more I learn about AI, the more fearful I am. It’s not necessarily the “Terminator” kind of fear. I’m fearful that AI is permanently and inexorably re-wiring our human psychology … literally changing us … and there’s no going back.

Doesn’t that make your heart skip a beat?

I love AI. I use it every day. But as I researched and wrote my new book, How AI Changes Your Customers, I learned that humans are:

• Abdicating important decisions, even moral decisions, to algorithms.
• De-skilling themselves by offloading work to machines.
• Often preferring the ease and security of an emotional relationship with a bot over a human.
• Opting for quick answers rather than doing the work to actually learn something. One expert characterized this as “self-imposed dementia.”

I have a new grandchild. He is so bright and beautiful. But I can’t help but look at this precious boy and wonder, “What kind of world are you entering, kid?”

I don’t think I am psychologically much different from my grandfather. I’m probably less bored and more stressed. But essentially, the same.

But my baby grandson … I cannot even imagine how the power of AI will change his world, his life, and even his personality. How do we prepare him for this?

Nobody knows for sure, but I think I have one clue.

The most important soft skill

What will be the difference between a person who becomes more capable and powerful with AI versus those who will be withered and consumed by it?

Curiosity.

If you’re a curious person, AI is an intellectual wonderland. It will feed that curiosity and help you bloom into a bigger, bolder, wiser person.

I spend a lot of time outdoors, and I am always asking ChatGPT why a plant grows a certain way, which birds migrate, and what animal made these tracks in the snow. I am learning and growing every day, thanks to AI.

But if you’re not curious, you only want the quick answer with as little effort as possible. You’re not integrating the knowledge. I learned a new word for this: phoresis. When you do the hard work and follow your curiosity, the knowledge sticks with you. That’s phoresis.

Here’s a fact that is amazing and true. Amazon has limited the number of books that a person can self-publish to three per day. That’s a sign of how mindless AI content is overwhelming the publishing industry.

I could have used AI to write my book. But it wouldn’t be me, and I wouldn’t have learned anything. By doing the hard work, I’ve gained a new capability. I have new, ingrained knowledge to help me be a better consultant, speaker, and teacher.

I think my grandson is destined to be curious. His parents are urgent, curious learners. I want to do everything I can to nurture this quality in him because curiosity will be the differentiating quality between those who AI-thrive and those who are AI-crushed.

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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Guest post by Linda Rolf

There’s never been a website chatbot I’ve been willing to waste my time on. You know those perky non-humans that are here to answer all your questions — except the ones that you need answered. So when Mark Schaefer introduced his MarkBot creation, my first reaction was a hard pass.

His announcement sat in my inbox for a day, something I typically don’t do. Once an email is read, it’s either moved to a folder for the next to-do or deleted. MarkBot was in limbo. Eventually, curiosity won.

Mark had fed his vast knowledge store of books, podcasts, blog posts, speeches, and classroom lectures to ChatGPT. Surrendering his entire intellectual property to an LLM that could do whatever it wanted was a bold decision. There were several months of training involved, which would be interesting to see in action. Mark didn’t share how teaching the LLM evolved, so I could only look at the results and speculate.

When Is It Time for a Human Conversation?

I promised myself that my time with MarkBot would be short and put an end to my curiosity. No rabbit holes allowed.

The conversation started with my asking MarkBot to imagine that he’s a small technology services company that specializes in working with C-suite leaders on strategy, technology decision-making, and what comes next. Creating a unique, engaging presence that encourages leaders to work with you is your priority. Where would you start?

I intentionally was short on context and details. Would MarkBot have the skills to ask insightful questions?

Mark’s response outlined five strategic actions that we could take to build engagement and start a meaningful conversation with leaders. At the end of the response, Mark offered to help shape our messaging so, of course, I couldn’t resist. This is where AI chat starts to build a connection with its user.

MarkBot asked six spot-on questions about our business that would help him deliver a messaging framework that serves our company and our clients. A funny thing happened. I knew this wasn’t a live human conversation with real Mark. He was simply asking trained strategic questions that would lead to the next step in our plan.

But I found myself deeply intent on answering each question clearly and smartly because I didn’t want to disappoint Mark. Yes, that sounds as weird as it felt. By the way, none of the chats with MarkBot are available to the real Mark. It’s a private chat.

It was at this moment, when I was challenged to think with purpose and clarity, that I realized the usefulness of a well-trained chatbot — but not for the reason you might think. The practical outline for a strategic plan was actionable, and I probably could have stopped there. But I wasn’t ready to call it done. Instead, MarkBot was so human-like that it created a desire to talk with the real Mark. I wanted a human conversation.

It’s About Human Connections, Not Problem Solving

In his book Supercommunicators, How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection, Charles Duhigg, explains why we’re drawn to people most likely to solve our problems.

It’s not because they’re necessarily the most interesting or smartest person you know. More likely, it’s because you anticipate that you will feel smarter after talking to them. They might not even give you the best advice, but you feel better after the conversation. How does that happen?

These trusted go-to folks understand that the goal of a conversation is to connect. It’s not to immediately problem-solve, sell, or leap into expert mode.

That’s exactly what happened with MarkBot. Sure, it gave me some valuable information. Was it the smartest resource I could have turned to? Probably not. If we chatted long enough, it would likely become less useful because its knowledge about my company is limited. But it built a need for connection with a human who could take the conversation further.

The Chatbot and human connections

I couldn’t help but wonder if there will be more well-trained, useful tools like MarkBot in the near future.

• What role will they play in building the lasting relationships our clients want with us?
• At what point will they lead us and our clients to feel the need for human connections?
• What about chatbots that are trained not on our personalized preferences but on our values? Will they create a natural connection between the artificial and the human?
• Instead of replacing us, will these smart tools become our collaborators, doing the initial discovery work that we do now?

Much of the AI talk centers around how business might be de-humanized, but in this case, a bot propelled a need for real human conversations.

Linda Rolf is a fractional CIO: “After more than four decades in the business technology world, I’m still excited every day about the changes and challenges company leaders face. I like technology, but I love business even more. At Quest Technology Group we never lose sight of the simple principle that technology’s job is to serve your business, not the other way around.”

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

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There has been a flurry of new evidence emerging about mysterious Rage Farms and their relentless attacks on politicians, businesses, brands, and individuals.

The Cracker Barrel example was just the most recent meltdown. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing, McDonald’s, TD Bank, and American Eagle have suffered withering attacks from legions of coordinated, fake social media accounts.

“Disinformation-as-a-Service” has become a profitable, global criminal enterprise: low-cost, high-impact bot networks hired to attack and destroy businesses and individuals … like you. And the social media platforms that could stop them won’t, because chaos is profitable.

Propelled by AI, these strikes are targeting brands big and small. And the financial consequences are real — sliding stock prices, damaged brand equity, ruined careers.

There has been a lot of online chatter about the anonymous AI agents wreaking this havoc, but I wanted to know more. WHO is doing this? WHY are they doing it?

I’m alarmed that any of us can be attacked by these anonymous criminals. So I went down the rabbit hole to find out who’s behind this … and what we can do about it.

Today I will cover:

• How these bots attack controversial issues at blinding speed
• The evidence that these are coordinated attacks 
• How AI bots “prepare” for their next fight
• How momentum from fake bots enters the culture and becomes amplified by real people
• The probable goals of Rage Farms, including financial gains from stock market manipulation
• Why Rage Farm controversies are disconnected from true consumer sentiment
• Expert views on preparing for a Rage Farm attack

A clue: The speed of attack

The first clue that we’re observing sophisticated, coordinated efforts at Cracker Barrel and other brands is the speed of the online attacks. Once a small amount of negative sentiment circulates about a brand, the disinformation ramps up immediately and relentlessly.

According to The Wall Street Journal, AI-powered bots rapidly spin up “grassroots-looking” campaigns around incendiary or divisive issues (like culture-war topics), and keep them trending.

Fake bots authored 44.5% of X (Twitter) posts mentioning Cracker Barrel in the 24 hours after the new logo gained attention on Aug. 20, 2025. That number rose to 49% among posts calling for a boycott.

Within a few hours, X saw around 400 negative Cracker Barrel posts per minute. Seventy percent of the accounts promoting boycotts at that point used duplicate messages, a key marker of coordinated bots, said Molly Dwyer, director of insights at PeakMetrics.

Rage Farms: The business of creating chaos

A Cyabra investigation revealed more specifics about the coordinated Cracker Barrel attack. By analyzing thousands of profiles engaged in the conversation, Cyabra mapped inauthentic behavior patterns and exposed a coordinated strategy.

The data show a substantial portion of the negative discourse was manufactured by fake accounts working to amplify hostility, promote boycott narratives, and undermine public trust.

• Multiple reports found that about 35% of online activity criticizing Cracker Barrel was driven by fake accounts, with at least two organized bot groups fueling much of the outrage.
• Fake profiles created hundreds of posts and comments specifically crafted to damage Cracker Barrel’s reputation, and the manufactured campaign had nearly 5 million potential views.
• These fake profiles also triggered 3,268 direct engagements from genuine profiles. This is important because when real people engage with fake information, it gives fake posts a powerful boost on the X algorithm.

Fake profiles pushed hashtags like #BoycottCrackerBarrel and #CrackerBarrelHasFallen, creating the impression of a massive consumer revolt … that was not happening in real life.

The attack momentum

These accounts made exaggerated claims about an imminent financial collapse, often stating that the company’s stock price would “crash” and that restaurants would soon close nationwide.

They promoted deleting the Cracker Barrel app and announced they would never set foot in any of the chain’s stores or purchase any of its products. By falsely portraying the boycott as successful, these profiles created a self-fulfilling prophecy of declining consumer confidence.

Noting the online wave of attention (and unaware that most of it was fake), prominent political accounts like Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and Donald Trump Jr. piled on with their own takes on the controversy and began targeting the company’s CEO, Julie Messino.

After his son’s post, President Trump weighed in on Truth Social against the new logo. And when that level of celebrity contributes to the conversation, the illusion of failure becomes reality.

On Aug. 26, Cracker Barrel reversed course and cancelled a $700 million rebrand.

This effort, primarily backed by two organized Rage Farms, succeeded in:

• Creating an illusion of consumer rejection: Flooding platforms with negative content manufactured the appearance of widespread customer abandonment.
• Framing a routine change as catastrophic: What might have been viewed as a standard brand refresh was positioned as a devastating mistake through coordinated messaging.
• Generating mainstream media coverage: The manufactured outrage attracted attention from most major news outlets, further amplifying its reach.
• Establishing persistent negative narratives: Strategic hashtag deployment ensured negative framing dominated search results and social conversations about the brand.

The obvious question is, who did this?

Who is behind a Rage Farm?

Cyabra CMO Rafi Mendelsohn told me that his research firm checks 600 to 800 parameters, including location, posting frequency, and the use of AI-generated avatars, to declare whether accounts are human or not.

Some of these fake accounts “prepare” for attacks by posting real content for months to build credibility and attract an audience. The accounts within a Rage Farm also interact with each other, further enhancing their status within the X algorithms.

But who is creating this coordinated mayhem?

“The answer to that is — who is behind all crime?” said Mendlesohn. “It could be a range of different actors, including state-backed crime or organized crime, syndicate crime, political crime, or small networks of lone individuals. It could even be competitors or financial players looking to impact the share price.

“The anonymity that malicious actors are allowed through fake social media accounts enables them to operate without much risk. We can detect fake accounts, but we can’t tell exactly who is behind them. We can look at the behavior of those accounts and their content, and if it’s manipulated, but we can’t tell you the IP address because we don’t have access to that information. We can’t say, ‘this is an office block in Moscow, or it’s a group of angry people in Texas.’ It’s impossible to do that, and that’s by design, right? That’s why it’s so effective. The anonymity is powerful.”

According to Rafi, the main motivations behind coordinated brand attacks include:

1. Money, power, and influence
2. State-backed actors looking to cause chaos and disrupt social harmony
3. Financial manipulation (e.g., targeting ticker symbols)
4. Ideological reasons and culture wars (e.g., “go woke, go broke” narratives)
5. Amplifying emotional or controversial topics to sow chaos
6. Commercial adversaries creating false narratives about a brand’s stance on social issues to harm the brand’s reputation

In addition to the obvious “anti-woke” ideological amplification in the Cracker Barrel example, there could have been stock market manipulation since this is a publicly traded stock (CBR). If a Rage Farm can manufacture a rapid change in brand sentiment, it increases the odds of gap-downs and forced follow-on selling — the environment where short sellers make the most money in the least amount of time.

Criminals behind the attack could have manufactured the online sentiment slide, and made millions by shorting the stock.

The disconnect from consumer reality

I think it’s critical to add that there is probably no correlation between online rage — whether real or manufactured — and true customer sentiment.

In a comprehensive analysis, researchers Brad Fay and Rick Larkin compared the online sentiment of 500 brands versus the sentiment of everyday consumers. They concluded that there was “no meaningful correlation between online and offline discussions for brands.”

Of course, this also means that brands can’t rely on “social media listening” as a proxy for broader consumer sentiment or to evaluate the complete impact of any decision or campaign … but that’s a story for another day.

In summary, AI-propelled, fake social media accounts created and amplified a national controversy, and even if some of the online discontent was genuine, it almost certainly didn’t reflect the sentiment of the company’s real customers.

“In any other crime, you can see it being committed,” Rafi Mendelsohn said, “You can see the act. But in this case, you are consuming content in your feed. You can’t grasp the big picture. You have no idea the crime is being committed, and you might be part of it.

“We’re just this passive victim, not even knowing what it is that we’re seeing, but we know it made us feel angry, or it tapped into a certain emotion, and we might even want to move on from the brand … and that’s what it’s designed to do.”

While companies like Cyabra can’t pin down IP addresses and eliminate bad actors, X can. But they won’t. Controversy of any kind drives engagement. Engagement drives advertising. In summary, hate is good for business.

“Brands can find themselves in hot water, not just because of something they’ve done, but purely by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Rafi said. “Fake accounts can escalate a situation to the point that it gains media attention and impacts the brand’s reputation.”

What can we do about Rage Farms?

So the only organizations that can protect us (like X and Facebook) won’t do so because it would hurt their businesses. What are our options?

In addition to Rafi from Cyabra, I solicited advice from corporate communications experts Kami Huyse and Daniel Nestle. Here is the advice:

Keep your head down.

If a controversial topic is brewing, Rage Farms are looking for anything they can grab onto in order to amplify chaos. Brands are easy targets. (Rafi)

Prepare.

If you’re launching a rebrand, product change, campaign, or major announcement — map out how it could be framed negatively. What narratives could be constructed? What emotional triggers (tradition, identity, politics) exist? (Rafi)

Monitor as if you’re NORAD.

Invest in the right listening platforms that flag anomalies and suspicious activity in real time. Spot the patterns before they explode. (Dan)

Be proactive.

It has reached a point where brands must have a bot-attack crisis plan. Even if they aren’t in a traditionally controversial company or industry. We now have a decision tree in all of our clients’ communication playbooks, from large to small. We have pre-written some messages that allow our team to quickly without waiting for multiple approvals. This allows us to identify patterns early, remove harmful content, and escalate issues when needed. (Kami)

Run crisis simulations using AI.

Create and maintain personas for all of our audiences (especially media and investors), and if we have synthetic data, even better. We can use these to role-play scenarios, test messages, and get feedback. Learn from the simulations, load pre-approved messaging, and accelerate response speed and accuracy. (Dan)

Relentlessly build trust and credibility with audiences.

This should be what we already do, but most of the time it’s just lip service. We should create experiences, invest in brand marketing,  deploy frequent and authentic executive communications, treat our employees as our most important audience. All the important stuff. We won’t stop the bots, but we can short-circuit them with a durable, believable, well-loved, and very human brand. (Dan)

Show active listening.

If a crisis hits, acknowledging legitimate concerns, showing willingness to listen and adjusting (rather than doubling down blindly) helps reduce amplification of negativity. (Kami)

Don’t engage.

AI bots comment on each other’s posts to trick algorithms into thinking there’s an authentic conversation, which then makes the malicious conversation start to appear to people who might have the same or opposite point of view, or both. Engaging with bots rarely helps and often amplifies the problem. (Kami)

Activate fans.

When bots rush in, your best defence isn’t more bots — it’s real people. Loyal customers, brand advocates, influencers who genuinely care and share. Build and mobilize this community ahead of time so that when something hits you, the “real counter-voice” is already in place. (Rafi)

Don’t treat this as a “PR problem.”

This is company-wide reputational security. (Rafi)

In this environment, every brand must assume it could be next. Preparedness is no longer optional. The networks, the bots, the narratives are waiting. The brands that win will be those who anticipate and build resilience now, not just after the storm hits.

Rage Farms: Final thoughts

Everything above is good advice.

It’s also exactly what the attackers want.

They want brands to be bland. Executives to be scared. Marketing to play it safe. Democracy to be fragile. Trust to erode.

The Cracker Barrel case is not an outlier — it’s a harbinger. This is our new, true reality, and I am concerned on three levels:

1. Great marketing is not about conformity. It is about non-conformity. Will surviving in this Rage Farm world mean that everything is vanilla now? What level of creativity is worth an attack like this?
2. Marketing has changed the world for the better by taking risks, by helping people speak up and stand out, by calling attention to societal problems and new solutions. Will that aspect of our profession wither?
3. I am deeply sad and concerned that the Rage Farm attacks focused on individual executives. These are hard-working people with families and careers, trying to do their best for a company. We all make mistakes. But nobody deserves to live in fear of physical attacks on their families because of a logo redesign.

When anonymous criminals can destroy careers over a brand re-launch, they’re not just attacking our businesses. They’re attacking our ability to speak truth and stand for something.

There is hope

Let me end this article with a ray of hope.

I’ve been around long enough to say with authority that every technological development is eventually weaponized. But we figure it out and neutralize it over time.

Regulating technology to protect our personal and business interests is a slow process. But it does happen, every time. Remember … Rage Farm attacks on our brands are a secondary concern. They are also attacking our democratic processes.

Watch the news. Countries will begin to fight back.

• A few years ago, Singapore introduced a statute that explicitly targets what it calls “false statements of fact” disseminated online, signalling a governmental willingness to treat bot campaigns and manipulated networks as more than mere marketing or PR mishaps.
• The EU requires the biggest social platforms to report and act on manipulation campaigns and bot-driven disinformation, providing a blueprint for how law can begin to counter Rage Farm attacks.
• In the U.S., law enforcement isn’t just watching. The DOJ recently announced the seizure of nearly 1,000 social media accounts tied to an AI-powered Russian bot farm that spread disinformation.

A solution is not easy or imminent, but I don’t think Rage Farms will be free to sow their chaos forever.

And remember, the best defense against synthetic rage is authentic trust, earned one customer at a time.

The Most Human Company Wins. Stay strong.

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

Image courtesy Mid Journey

The post Rage Farms: The Hidden Industry Weaponizing Outrage Against Brands appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I have a new baby grandson. He is an angel and an extraordinary pooper. So, his talents demand a steady supply of diapers.

The boy is the end customer for any company selling diapers. But of course we can’t market directly to him. Mom and Dad are the decision makers. So, if you’re in the diaper business, you need to create an expert marketing appeal that targets the person between you and the final customer.

A similar dynamic is now occurring with AI and it will impact every business in the world.

Chapter 6 in my new book How AI Changes Your Customers digs into the rapidly increasing trust people place on AI platforms to make decisions for them.

I provided an example in the book where ChatGPT planned a detailed vacation trip to Paris for me, including hotels, restaurants, attractions, and transportation. I used the plan exactly … without seeing an ad, an influencer, or a piece of branded content.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth. When AI becomes your customer’s brain, AI becomes your customer. More precisely, Big Tech becomes your customer.

The moment your content is summarized, rated, or recommended by a machine, you’re speaking to the algorithm instead of a person.

In essence, we’re marketing to an intermediary decision-maker. We’re all in the diaper business now.

The dirt on “diaper marketing”

If you’re in marketing, you already know that AI is chipping away at the search engine business.

For now, Google still reigns supreme. In fact, search on the site is still growing.

But even Google uses an AI-assist that answers at least 20% of user queries.

Another mind-blowing fact is that if your business shows up as a recommendation on ChatGPT, it converts to a sale at a rate 23 X compared to traditional search on Google.**

As more people lean on AI for answers, context, and judgment, their buying decisions will become passive reactions to algorithmic cues. And this is not just for low-risk decisions. People are increasingly using AI to influence major purchases and life decisions.

** I’m sorry I don’t know the exact source of this fact. It was verbally reported at a conference and I could not record the source fast enough!

AI versus SEO

Perhaps the greatest question of our time is: How do we influence this powerful AI recommendation engine?

The answer is evolving day by day but here is one perspective informed by new research and expert advice from Rand Fishkin and Andy Crestodina.

The main themes are emerging day by day, but I think at a high level this is a pretty good summary (please drop me a note if you disagree!).

Top Factors Influencing SEO Success

(In no particular order)

• Backlinks and authority signals – Credible, high-authority websites linking to your content.
• Keyword relevance and intent matching – Aligning with what people are truly searching for.
• On-page optimization – Title tags, meta descriptions, headings, alt text, internal links.
• Relevant, original content – Depth, clarity, and usefulness for the searcher.
• Technical SEO – Site speed, crawlability, mobile-friendliness, proper indexing.

Top Factors Affecting AI Referrals

• Clarity of brand positioning — Easy-to-understand description of what the business does. Extreme detail about what you do.
• Content presence in high-quality sources — Indexed articles, interviews, studies, or reviews that the model can reference.
• Topical authority  — Demonstrated expertise in a niche (books, blogs, media presence). Harmonized messaging across website, social, press, and reviews.
• Reputation and trust signals – Recognized as credible, respected, and reliable. News articles, podcasts, thought leadership citations.

The Intersection!

Both SEO and AI search depend on authoritative brand content, positive social signals (validation), and content freshness (publish regularly!). The latest research shows that AI puts more weight on “newness” of the content.

Every business should be working on this, and by the way, if your internet security system is blocking AI platforms from crawling your site, stop that. I explain why here.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Many businesses will dutifully work on their content and AI signals but overlook the overrides. What is an override? The marketing power that transcends an AI recommendation:

Let’s break these down. Why are these elements of marketing important in the AI Era?

Brand preference — Brand is more important than ever. I might ask ChatGPT to plan a trip to Japan for me, but I might require flights on Delta, or a hotel stay at Hyatt because those are brand preferences. Brand love overrides whatever AI has to say.

Word of mouth marketing (WOMM) — WOMM is the most trusted, purest form of brand advocacy there is. I might consider what AI says, but I will absolutely act on a recommendation from a trusted friend. Now, increasingly that trusted friend might be AI, but that’s a story for another day.

Advertising — Great storytelling through ads can reach through the noise and connect with targeted customers.

Brand communities — About 80% of new business startups rely on a brand community as their most important form of marketing. The reason is simple. There is no stronger form of brand loyalty.

We’re all in the diaper business now

Well, there’s never a dull moment on the marketing scene, is there?

I hope today’s advice was interesting and useful. Please act on it. Think about how SEO played out. The early adopters of SEO strategy likely had an advantage and a premier place in search results.

The window will be closing on AI recommendation preferences in the same way.

Google search is still the most important marketing factor for some businesses but start considering the “diaper sales” mentality that is needed to win in the AI Era.

If you benefited from this post, you will love my new book How AI Changes Your Customers: The Marketing Guide to Humanity’s Next Act.

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Image courtesy Mid Journey

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