How Will AI Impact Marketing in 2025?

On nearly every "what to expect in 2025" article, AI was mentioned in one way or another. TD;LR: I predicted we would abandon AI in 2025.

By a show of hands, how many have used ChatGPT, Co-Pilot, or something similar? Thought so. But here is the truth: We have been using AI for a long time. In digital media buying, in social feed algorithms, and TikTok nailed it.

But what has me thinking a month into a year, is that there are very limited business uses today for AI.

In advertising AI is used to monitor and present the best creative at the right time on the right platform.

In financial services, AI supports enhanced lending strategies, targeting, and better return on ad spend.

In creativity, you can use AI to quickly mock up ideas for building out later.

But in most cases, AI does not help marketers do our jobs of designing products, finding pockets of opportunity, telling meaningful and impact-driven stories, and building a lead funnel. Certainly, AI can support pieces of those (lead scoring for one), but they can't do the work.

My two goals for AI in 2025 are simple:

📈 DATA: Set up your organization's data model to support prescriptive AI uses into 2026 and beyond.

‼️ SEGMENTATION: By doing DATA right, you can then utilize the technology to uncover unseen opportunities in the near- and long-term.

The use cases with AI are many, but AI doesn't solve business problems. They solve tactical ones. Don't let the shiny object obscure the work that needs to be done.