Autopilot marketing. The marketing that steers and drives itself, or so it says. It’s becoming the default AI marketing strategy for businesses looking to cut costs and move fast.
We don’t know about you, but we’re not sure we would love the idea of getting on a plane that flies itself, with no one in control, no one overseeing emergencies or unprecedented situations and ultimately, no one to put your trust and safety in.
But yet, when it comes to marketing strategy, where time, money and resources are actively being invested, there’s a growing desire to “let AI handle that”, or to just “ask ChatGPT”, nearly by default now.
Overnight, we’ve seen businesses become okay with relinquishing control of their strategy, decision-making and input into marketing strategy, because AI can do it.
And that’s nothing short of a problem.
Now, we’re not shunning AI and trying to eradicate it, but this idea that it’s a replacement for marketing personnel or teams is a line of thinking that needs debunking.
From an outsider’s perspective, we get how it sounds appealing to use AI for all of your marketing. It cuts costs, doesn’t require annual leave, sick days, pensions, the lot.
So yes, it only makes sense to head in this direction.
The Problem With an Autopilot AI Marketing Strategy
The issue, though? From people who genuinely understand how AI works, yes, you can generate and automate an AI marketing strategy, but there are a few things you’ll have to come to expect.
AI optimises for patterns, not nuance
AI is great at figuring out patterns and trends; what’s worked before and replicating it.
But as any marketer will know, it’s not always about what’s worked before, and that’s because marketing is so incredibly dynamic and fast-paced that the same thing rarely remains relevant for long.
So while an AI marketing strategy can give you the most travelled route, a common strategy and what can feel like a safe bet, it doesn’t know what you do.
It doesn’t know that a softer CTA might land better with your audience, or why phrasing something more casually resonates better with your customers; the list goes on.
There are conscious decisions we make as marketers because we know your business inside and out; we’ve learned your audience, we’ve been hands-on from creative conception to delivery and reporting.
That’s instinctual and has been developed from years of experience, and it’s not something AI can always get right or master in the way humans can.
If “good enough” is what you’re aiming for with your marketing, then maybe this isn’t a dealbreaker for you.
Your years of first-hand experience get diluted to a prompt
With AI, you’re trying to feed it as much information as possible so it can get as close o understanding you and your business as it can and “tailor” a strategy to your needs.
The problem is, how do you wrap up years and years of learning, knowledge and understanding into a single prompt?
Unfortunately, as good as the input might be, an AI marketing strategy can lack depth. It works from surface-level inputs and draws surface-level conclusions, never fully absorbing the true depth of your organisation, and filling in the gaps with broad, generic data instead.
You know your audience. AI tries to interpret them
Repetition is how your audience learns who you are, what to expect from you, and what you stand for, because you’ve spent time reinforcing it. It’s one of the most valuable and hard-won assets your business has.
Hand that over to AI, and over time it starts to tweak your tone of voice, your branding, the look and feel of your content, the authenticity of it all. Slowly, you lose the elements of your business that made you, you.
What you’re left with is an audience that no longer resonates with your communication, and worse, one that trusts you less, because they can tell it’s been AI’d.
None of this is to say AI needs to head off. It’s an absolute asset to teams and experts that have the ability to use it well.
A genuinely effective AI marketing strategy isn’t about choosing AI over people; it’s about knowing exactly where each one belongs.
The best marketing teams today aren’t choosing between AI and human judgment; it’s having the skill to combine both in a way that generates the best outcomes for clients. That ambition, the genuine desire to win for a client, sits at the heart of every great team. And it’s something AI simply can’t feel.
AI is your GPS, not your driver, and you need a team that can use it to move faster, go deeper and free up space for the creative thinking and emotionally grounded decisions that genuinely move the needle.
It is only as intelligent as the person using it. Choose where you place your trust wisely.
AI isn’t going to replace great marketing teams, but it will make the ones who know how to use it properly unstoppable.
If you’re tired of “good enough” and want a team that’s genuinely in the driver’s seat, get in touch with us, and we’ll talk about what AI-informed, human-led marketing could look like for you.