The Importance of Humans and AI in Revolutionizing Marketing

The marketing industry is fueled by creativity and innovation. But how much time in your day-to-day is spent brainstorming new ideas? Dreaming up innovative new ways to reach consumers? Implementing the culture-shifting and revenue-driving work that attracted you to the industry in the first place?

The answer: Probably not as much time as you want. Recent studies suggest the average marketer spends 16 hours each week on non-core tasks, and they’re also handling more ad campaigns each quarter than ever before, sometimes working on multiple campaigns simultaneously.

This combination leaves little room to iterate and refine existing campaigns while prioritizing creative undertakings like brainstorming, strategizing, and executing ideas.

But now, with AI and especially generative AI, everyone across the industry—from marketers to advertisers, to agencies—can perform at the top of their game, vs. grinding on the tiresome, tedious tasks that can chip away at their creative and strategic spark.

The combination of human creativity and AI is a powerful one. It’s what the research firm Forrester calls “intelligent creativity—and will transform the marketing industry as it’s known.

Intelligent creativity is a concept already well underway at Meta, where AI-powered tools and technologies are helping businesses respond to trends, tailor their products and messaging.

Take, for instance, the AI-powered advantage+ plus shopping campaigns (aka “ASC”), which help clients get smarter and faster on which campaigns are converting best on Meta’s platforms.

Sustainable shoe brand Rothy’s leveraged ASC to test up to 150 different campaign placements and optimize for the highest-performing ads, resulting in a 25% higher return on ad spend compared to running campaigns manually. That’s because, with Meta Advantage, AI can predict how valuable a piece of content might be to an individual, allowing marketers to reach the right people at the right time. 

Now, imagine that AI-enhanced performance coupled with the customization and personalization of Meta’s just-launched generative AI creative product features, which can curate and adjust creative assets. You’ll begin to understand just how much of a game changer this has the potential to be for the millions of businesses that advertise on Meta’s platforms.

But as powerful as this new era of marketing is, these tools still need the human element to understand context, unlock the meaning behind data and bring effective ideas to life.

For a marketing executive, this could mean understanding and adapting your strategy thanks to the additional insights AI provides. Creative strategists can enhance and speed up their creative development process. Due to the cost-savings on production, performance marketers will be able to run more experiments and gain a better understanding of what works to build even more campaign strategies. With faster and smarter performance marketing data, brand strategists can sharpen the strategic thinking that goes into building a successful brand campaign.

And it’s easy to imagine a future where, due to increased volume thanks to your AI copilot, more visual and copy editors will be needed to keep up with the rate at which AI produces content. Or even AI trainers, who are focused on training AI models to generate personalized content for brands.

Today, this is only scratching the surface of intelligent creativity and what it means for the industry, but it will revolutionize the way marketers work by giving them the one thing they need the most: time.

And to do this, you’ll need the human touch, yet again. Marketers need to work together as an industry—that means Meta, agencies and brands—as they continue to develop these features and experiences so that they provide value to businesses and people, while ensuring they are being built responsibly.

Together, there is a unique opportunity to shape the future of the advertising and marketing industry. Let’s get to it.

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Alvin Bowles leads Meta’s sales organization in the U.S., Canada and Latin America. His team works with the largest and most influential advertisers and agencies in the Americas, helping them grow their businesses and connect with consumers in innovative and effective ways across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Marketplace.