My blog started in 2013 with a vulnerable post that I didn’t think anyone would read. In fact, the post served as a therapeutic reminder to me of why I embarked on the then-unpaved path of social media management. With my story of how I moved to NYC for an internship four days after a surgery, knowing not one soul in the city, I pulled on some chord. Flash to my next post, where I connect my recent engagement to being ‘engaged’ with customers in a social media relationship, and I was a new viral author on the scene—a barely extroverted introvert author who was suddenly thrown into the very public eye.
When asked in interviews my secret for going viral, which I actually believe is more of a lucky aligning of many stars at the right time in the place more than anything else, I would answer that it was because I was authentic. I was real. I did not edit my posts before hitting publish and made a pact to never edit myself. In time when automation and virtual assistants were hitting the gas, I was managing my own writing, posting, and responding from the headquarters of a small apartment. Twelve years later, I’m proud to say I still do all of my writing and write every single one of my own responses. I also have never made one dollar off of my blog or social media presence, so I have no advertisers or influencer marketing teams to answer to. It’s literally just me, and my savvy graphic designer Ronalyn who has stepped in to do some of the more tedious design work these days.
There’s a lesson to be learned here.
Marketing, at its best, has always been about human connection: how one person’s truth meets another person’s need. And then, somewhere between hashtags and hyper-targeting, came artificial intelligence.
AI didn’t just stroll into marketing — it crashed the party. One minute, we were scheduling posts and running A/B tests; the next, ChatGPT was writing blog drafts, Jasper was naming products, and algorithms were predicting who might open an email before we even wrote it. Overnight, “AI-powered” became the new “innovative.” And in true marketing fashion, everyone scrambled to say they were doing it — whether they understood it or not.
The truth? AI has changed everything — but not always for the better.
The Good: When AI Works
There’s no denying the brilliance of AI when it’s used with intention.
It’s like having a strategist, analyst, and intern rolled into one — tireless, fast, and frighteningly efficient.
1. Personalization That Actually Feels Personal
AI has taken the guesswork out of segmentation. It analyzes patterns we’d never spot manually and helps us tailor messages down to the micro-behavior level. The result: emails that land with uncanny precision and ads that seem to “get” the user. When done well, it feels like magic — or, at least, good listening. The trick is doing it well by using the right prompts that fuel human responses from the AI tools.
2. Data That Tells Stories, Not Just Numbers
For years, marketers have been drowning in dashboards, mistaking data for insight. After deciding PR was not for me after my first NYC internship stint cold calling radio stations, I found myself on the research end of PR, retroactively analyzing data around published PR for big brands such as Walmart, PepsiCo, and McDonald’s. My job was then to advise the communications team at each brand on how to change the sentiment and focus of their PR over the next quarter. I always thank my foundation in research and actionable insights for my ability to execute effective marketing strategies.
AI helps add the actionable insight piece that many marketers miss because, honestly, most marketers are underresourced and digging out those actionable insights can take the longest amount of time. It can forecast campaign performance, spot trends before they break, and even predict churn or conversion likelihood. It’s not replacing the strategist — it’s giving them superpowers.
3. Efficiency Without Burnout
AI has saved countless marketers hours of grunt work. From content outlines to competitive research, it’s the ultimate first-draft partner. It won’t write your story for you (we’ll get to that), but it sure gets you out of “staring at the cursor” paralysis. This is where I use AI the most.
4. Smarter Ad Targeting
Programmatic AI-driven buying has turned media strategy into precision art. We’re no longer tossing money into the void hoping our audience catches it. AI makes sure it lands in the right feed, at the right time, in the right mood.
Warning; this can be a double-edged sword, as I recently ran a Google campaign where AI pushed ads for a product unrelated to the one I was promoting. Google had no remorse, stating that’s the problem with AI and it’s not their fault if their AI program is not up to par. WOAH.
5. 24/7 Customer Support That Actually Responds
Chatbots used to be clunky and cold. Now, they can answer FAQs, route leads, and collect data seamlessly — freeing humans to do the more nuanced, emotional work.
So yes, when used thoughtfully, AI works. Beautifully, even.
The Bad: When AI Doesn’t
But then there’s the flip side — the side where AI becomes the shiny new intern you can’t quite trust with client emails yet. From targeting unrelated products in digital marketing ads to pulling the wrong data to being called out in forums, I’ve seen AI wreck marketing projects more than that shiny new intern ever could have.
1. The Loss of Human Voice
You can always tell when something’s been written by AI — not because it’s bad, but because it’s too perfect. It’s smooth in all the wrong places. It lacks the cracks, the tension, the vulnerability that make writing feel alive. AI doesn’t know when a reader needs empathy instead of expertise.
2. Over-Automation Kills Connection
Somewhere between scheduling posts, automating replies, and feeding CRMs, marketers risk losing the “human” part of human connection. AI can make us faster — but speed doesn’t equal intimacy. Sometimes it’s the pause, the real conversation, the moment of imperfection that builds trust.
3. Garbage In, Garbage Out
AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on. Feed it bias, and it learns bias. Feed it outdated data, and it’ll confidently predict the wrong thing. We forget that “intelligence” is learned — and sometimes, it learns our worst habits.
4. Ethical Blind Spots
AI doesn’t have morals. It doesn’t know when a campaign feels exploitative or tone-deaf. Without human oversight, it can unintentionally cross lines — in personalization, privacy, or cultural sensitivity.
5. Creativity Isn’t Code
Here’s the part we can’t outsource: emotion. AI can mimic tone and style, but it can’t feel the heartbreak behind a rebrand, or the pride in a small business owner finally landing a loan. Those stories come from lived experience. Without that, we’re just generating content, not creating connection.
6. AI Can’t Read Nuance
We tested AI bots for a client who runs most of the car forums in the world and it was a disaster. Even after being trained down to the brass tacks of every model of every car possible, the bots could not understand the sarcasm that often is found within the niche car forum world. So our lovely bots would take a sarcastic comment (I’d rather light myself on fire than drive this Porsche) and respond literally (Yes, light yourself on fire). Whoops.
While more AI tools are becoming scarily able to have ‘personality’, they are a long way from understanding the nuances of the human language and all of the different ways we humans use it.
The Middle Ground: Where AI + Humans Thrive Together
Here’s what I’ve learned: AI doesn’t kill creativity — it amplifies it when we let it.
The problem isn’t the technology; it’s the temptation to hand over too much power.
The smartest marketers I know aren’t “AI-first.” They’re “AI-aware.” They let AI do the heavy lifting — the research, the drafting, the number crunching — and then step in with human insight. They rewrite. They feel. They question.
It’s the balance between brain and gut.
AI might tell you when to post. But your gut tells you when the world needs a pause.
In my own workflow, I use AI for ideation and structure — but the story still comes from lived experience. It’s the coffee-stained notebook beside my laptop, the 2 a.m. thought that hits mid-scroll, the sentence that doesn’t make sense until it suddenly does. AI can’t replicate that spark — it can only organize it once it exists.
How to Use AI the Right Way
If you’re diving into AI-powered marketing, here’s what actually works:
- Start small. Automate one task, analyze the impact, and expand slowly.
- Stay curious. Use AI to learn, not to outsource thinking.
- Edit ruthlessly. Never publish raw AI content. Human editing is where the meaning lives.
- Be transparent. If you’re using AI in creative work, own it. The honesty builds trust.
- Keep empathy at the center. Ask not “What will AI say?” but “How will this make someone feel?”
Need help navigating AI tools? Check out the top 21 AI tools I use for marketing here.
The Future of AI in Marketing
AI isn’t going anywhere. It’s going to get better, faster, more integrated into every campaign we build. Soon, it’ll predict customer moods, optimize visuals in real-time, and personalize video messages at scale.
But the future isn’t about replacing humans — it’s about redefining what humans do best.
We’ll move from creators to curators, from writers to editors of machine-assisted ideas. And maybe that’s not a bad thing — as long as we don’t forget why we started creating in the first place.
Because the best marketing has always been about more than data. It’s about people — their fears, their dreams, their trust.
And no algorithm can calculate that.
Final Thought
So yes, use AI. Learn it, play with it, push its limits.
But remember — the moment it stops feeling human, it stops working.
AI can write a sentence.
Only you can make it mean something.
– Marji J. Sherman
