I've just finished the Northwestern Kellogg "AI Strategies for Business Transformation" programme (Feb-April 2026) and it's given me some clearer thinking on how AI influences marketing strategy.
In the conversations I'm having about AI in marketing, they have two different directions: AI is either the answer to everything or it's absolute no where near the quality it needs to be. Neither's accurate. What I see instead are three failure modes that shift how we should approach AI within the marketing realm.
The first is over-automation for the sake of it. Just because you can automate something doesn't mean you should right now. I see so many videos on social media about automating repetitive tasks without thinking about whether that's the right investment for where you are. The result is faster processes that deliver the same output. One where businesses still don't know where improvements are going to have the biggest impact.
The second is misalignment. You can set up your AI system beautifully, but if it's solving the wrong problem or chasing a metric that doesn't move your business forward towards where you want it to be, you've wasted your resources. It's a more sophisticated way of missing the mark.
The third is magical thinking. AI won't rescue a bad strategy or fix gaps in how you understand your customers. It will just compound what's already there. If your targeting is confused, your positioning is weak or your messaging isn't landing, AI just makes those bigger problems and turns it into a cycle of tactics that aren't right for the business.
Understanding your customers better than your competitors do is what shifts how you compete. Face-to-face demand is predicted to rise over the next 18 to 24 months as AI handles routine content and interactions. That's a significant opportunity for anyone willing to invest in real customer insights and genuine relationship-building.
SMBs have an advantage here. You're not carrying the data complexity and enterprise legacy systems that slow down larger corporates. You can move fast, experiment, gather feedback and adapt.
When you're building your marketing strategy and plan, think about where AI solves a problem: scheduling, scaling and serving content that you've already strategically planned. Use it for the execution layer with the right human handoff and checks.
Keep your energy on the things only humans get right; understanding your audience's real needs, spotting the gap between what they say they want and what they need and building trust that turns prospects into customers. That doesn't get easier with better automation. It gets easier with customer research, clear positioning and correct messaging.