AI won't replace your marketing team. It'll replace the one doing the wrong things.
AI is compressing the execution layer. Strategy, judgment and commercial accountability are getting rarer, and far more valuable.
Adoption looks like a stampede. McKinsey found 78% of organisations now use AI in at least one function, with 88% reporting regular use. That is the figure everyone quotes. The one that matters sits below it: only about 21% have redesigned any workflows, and just 5.5% qualify as AI high performers. Adoption is everywhere. Return is rare.
Which makes the next number harder to forgive. Research from Davenport and Srinivasan found roughly 60% of companies cut headcount anticipating AI value, against about 2% citing value actually realised. That is a thirty-fold gap between the story and the result. The honest reading is that AI has become a convenient cover for cuts leadership wanted to make anyway.
The work AI is genuinely good at is the repeatable execution layer: first drafts, production, variants, reporting. The work it is poor at is judgment. Get the boundary wrong and you do what Klarna did, automate into customer-facing roles and then quietly start rehiring.
Automate the work, protect the judgment: the AI line every marketing leader should draw
The full field note, including what to automate, what to protect, the Klarna case told properly, and the roles that get more valuable not less. Straight to your inbox.