Just a Reorg With Better Tools.
Let’s get something clear upfront.
AI isn’t here to take your job.
It’s here to watch you do it inefficiently for three more quarters, then gently suggest a better way.
And if you still believe “AI in marketing” means outsourcing ad copy and Canva banners to a robot, congratulations—you’ve just discovered what interns have been doing under pressure since the 2000s.
In India, where marketing is a heady cocktail of gut instinct, cricket metaphors, and late-night JIRA tickets, the arrival of AI feels… awkward. Like a management consultant at a wedding sangeet.
But once you get past the hype, the real question is: What does AI actually change for marketers?
Spoiler: A lot.
But not in the ways your favourite “Top 10 AI tools for LinkedIn growth” post would have you believe.
From Deck Pushers to Decision Architects
Remember when marketers were doers?
Write the copy.
Design the layout.
Make the call.
Send the mailer.
Repeat until product-market fit or burnout.
Well, meet the new workflow:
Prompt > Generate > Curate > Validate > Present > Repeat with justification.
What AI does best is remove the friction between thought and output.
Campaign concept? Done.
Customer segmentation? Real-time.
Ad creatives? Ten versions before your green tea cools.
What it can’t do is tell you why your 20-slide deck didn’t convert. That’s still on you.
In short: AI takes away the tedium so you can focus on the thinking.
But only if you were thinking in the first place.
New Roles, Same Deadlines
Let’s talk roles.
The Copywriter now needs to be part editor, part AI-tamer.
The Media Planner must be fluent in dashboard dialect.
And the Brand Manager? Let’s just say your job is now to translate between “What the AI recommends” and “What the CMO will sign off on without fainting.”
New kids on the block include:
- Prompt Strategist: aka the person who actually knows what to type into these machines.
- AI Workflow Lead: Basically, a glorified project manager, but with a certificate from Coursera and no patience for manual work.
- Brand Ethicist: Ensures your AI doesn’t accidentally generate a tagline that offends three communities and trends on X (formerly known as That Platform We Don’t Talk About at Work Anymore).
The teams are leaner, faster, and allergic to PowerPoint.
Because when a chatbot writes your agenda, you better come with decisions, not discussion points.
What’s Changing in Real Terms (Not Just Hype)
AI in Indian marketing is not just about creating jazzy creatives. It’s about:
- Hyper-personalised customer journeys without needing a 15-member CRM team.
- Instant insights that would’ve taken your analytics guy 3 weeks and 6 follow-ups.
- Real-time campaign tweaks based on user behaviour, not intuition masked as strategy.
You’re no longer “launching a campaign.”
You’re running a perpetual experiment.
Every touchpoint is A/B tested, every message tweaked, every user a segment of one.
(And no, your old Excel sheet won’t cut it.)
Skills That’ll Age Well (Because Not All Will)
The marketer of today (and tomorrow) needs:
- Curiosity: To ask the right questions. (AI’s only as good as the prompts.)
- Good taste: Because AI doesn’t know your brand’s tone, it just guesses.
- Critical thinking: For when the AI suggests sending a Holi discount mailer in June.
- Ethical judgment: Because just because you can hyper-personalize doesn’t mean you should.
And yes, you still need to write. Not just anything—but clearly, cleverly, and with context.
Because guess who feeds the AI?
You.
Final Word: AI Won’t Replace You. But It Will Expose You.
In a landscape where AI can automate the execution, value moves upstream.
No one cares if you can write 30 captions in an hour anymore.
They care if you can explain which one works and why it matters.
They care if your strategy has depth.
They care if your campaign builds trust, not just clicks.
So stop treating AI like your enemy or your savior.
It’s a power tool.
And power tools in the wrong hands?
Well… they make very pretty decks that say nothing.
Use it well, and AI becomes your competitive edge.
Ignore it, and someone with half your salary and three tabs open will outperform you by lunch.
- Sources:
- Ostwal, T. (2024). “AI Jobs in Marketing: Brands Are Reassessing Roles to Build Out New Capabilities.” Adweekadweek.comadweek.comadweek.com.
- Nicastro, D. (2024). “Sam Altman: AI Will Replace 95% of Creative Marketing Work.” CMSWirecmswire.com.
- Galstian, N. (2023). “AI: The Marketing Sidekick, Not the Boss.” (Opinion article featured in The Drum)linkedin.com.
- Scarborough, D. (2024). “Navigating the Future: How GenAI Is Transforming Marketing Teams.” Forbes Communications Councillinkedin.com.
- Harkness, L. et al. (2023). “How Generative AI can boost consumer marketing.” McKinseymckinsey.com.
- Katzin, J. et al. (2025). “For Marketers, Generative AI Moves from Novelty to Necessity.” Bain & Companybain.combain.combain.com.
- Deloitte AI Institute (2024). “Generative AI and the Future of Work.” Deloitte Insightswww2.deloitte.comwww2.deloitte.comwww2.deloitte.com.
- Rogers, C. (2025). “80% of CMOs concerned about ‘AI skills gap’.” Marketing Weekmarketingweek.com.
- Brandality (2023). “From Brand Strategy to Survival Strategy: How AI is Changing Marketing.”brandality.combrandality.com.
- Additional industry examples and case studies as cited in contextcmswire.comwww2.deloitte.com.