What AI means for modern marketing

Mary Meeker’s “Trends in Artificial Intelligence” report recently landed with her typical data-rich clarity on how AI is fundamentally reshaping work and leadership.

The legendary analyst is nicknamed the “Queen of the Internet” thanks to her prescient trend analyses. This began with her 1996 “The Internet Report,” which was indispensable for investors during the dot-com boom.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

The most recent report resonated with me because I’ve spent the past couple of months in conversation with Asia communications heads at major global banks and leaders of PR and marketing agencies about AI.

One question has consumed me: What should comms look like in an AI-driven world?

The tech has prompted a restructuring of the world of work. Meeker’s data shows a 448% increase in AI-related job postings over the last seven years, while non-AI roles have contracted.

This shift isn’t theoretical for me. Since 2023, my own AI experiments – initially for gaming brands and later at my PR and marketing firm UnMute – have powered end-to-end AI content creation systems, from ideation and writing to publishing.

Meeker’s work and my conversations with industry leaders in Asia have shown me three structural shifts that AI will bring to marketing and communications. For founders, these will shape how you scale, position, and build trust in a noisy market.

The shift to systems-based thinking

Communications professionals have been enthusiastic adopters of generative AI. A 2023 survey by The Conference Board found that 68% were already using these tools in their work, a figure that has likely grown since.

However, marketing team leaders in Asia say that much of their teams’ AI usage is ad hoc and task-based. Think “rewrite this paragraph,” “summarize this email,” “draft a caption.”

To truly unlock AI’s potential, marketers must stop thinking of AI as an enhancement and start thinking of it as a foundation for a system. The job now is to design systems that play to the strengths of AI and humans, with workflows built to scale productivity.

See also: Manus shines at research but crumbles against CAPTCHAs

What this means in practice is not just using AI to write a headline but building a system that generates headlines that are 100% brand-aligned and fully optimized for engagement on demand. It’s not just about reviewing drafts but designing the prompt logic that makes those drafts better.

Responsive systems

Building AI-ready brand systems

Far from cosmetic