Interested to know if people think AI is hurting Marketing Jobs?
I was at a medium sized SaaS and haven’t been able to find anything for 1-year after getting laid off. The economy is crap. Worst job market I’ve ever seen.
I feel like there is more at play for marketing jobs.
A lot of marketers I’ve talked with have been leaning into AI more for content generation. I’ve been learning to keep up.
It feels like this is taking away marketing jobs. Any thoughts?
Yes, I think it is, but the economy is also in a weird place. I am sure many small businesses are already in survival mode due to high interest rates, inflation, etc.
Wil said:
Yes, I think it is, but the economy is also in a weird place. I am sure many small businesses are already in survival mode due to high interest rates, inflation, etc.
SaaS probably isn’t a good space to be in now either (obviously depending on the software). Businesses are playing it safe and probably only tinkering with their tech stack if they need to, or if there are obvious savings vs an existing solution they use.
Yes. Absolutely. But it’s only a small piece of the whole story right now.
AI is enabling non-marketers to do many marketing tasks. Particularly copywriting for websites, blogs, and social media. We know this is happening at every level too, as evidenced by Sports Illustrated. But it’s probably a much bigger impact on the bottom. Maybe the mom & pop local business doesn’t hire the copywriter to help write their new website, where two years ago they definitely would have. Or, maybe the really popular marketing consultants and contractors are leveraging AI to get more clients, leaving fewer opportunities on the table for everyone else. Maybe that agency decided they don’t need to hire more staff, they just need to train their existing staff to use AI more. These are all ways AI is replacing jobs without someone directly getting fired and replaced with one. This is what it looks like.
But there’s other forces at work here that are playing a more significant role in what’s happening to the economy as a whole and our industry specifically.
Rolling Recessions: This is a fairly new term, but it really explains what’s happened to our economy since 2020. Instead of a recession being widespread and relatively quick, what we have now are specific sectors/regions/industries experiencing significant recessions for prolonged periods asynchronously with other sectors/regions/industries. This never appears as a full-on recession, because those are measured on the economy as a whole. If one part does extremely well while another does poorly, they cancel each other out in the aggregate. Housing, Goods, and Manufacturing were in a recession in early 2020-2021, largely due to supply chain shortages and drastic changes in consumer habits overnight. Tech has been in a recession since late 2021. Banking is likely the next shoe to drop. A lot of this was misdiagnosed as the “vibe-cession,” but it was never the vibes; we just weren’t seeing the trees from the forest. Companies have responded to this by doing what they always do in a recession: pull back expenses and freeze new investments. That means companies have very little reason to promote themselves at this point, beyond what they need to just survive. So… fewer marketing jobs, and a lot less turnover and promotions.
De-globalization: The pandemic’s impact on the economy long term will be what it did to our notion of globalization. JIT (Just In Time) logistics methodology was the gold standard up until 2019, and overnight became the biggest liability a company could have. 2020 also revealed how having all of your manufacturing based in one country, especially an authoritarian communist country like China, was a huge liability to your company. Mix all of this with increasingly protectionist policies from the US and EU (think CHIPS and BBB), and you’ve got a race to “regionalization.” In other words, companies that were already established with a product coming out of China now have to spend a massive amount of capital to if not outright move operations, at least diversify them to other strategic locations. Look at the development happening in Mexico right now to see what I’m talking about. While long term this will create a more robust economy that’s more resilient to global black swan events, it’s going to take years of massive investments from these companies. That’s investments that might have otherwise gone to advertising budgets, sales teams, or fancy marketing campaigns.
There’s plenty of jobs out there. They just won’t be in marketing. And this won’t change for a while. It may actually get worse. These are not short term trends. These are fundamental shifts in our society/economy.
@Harley
I really like this explanation - this is spot-on.
I think marketers, especially those who are generalists, have a better chance of pivoting towards project management; there’s always a demand for PM. (I know 2 people within my network who went from marketing to project management) But I agree the industry is changing; I do feel this is more so on the small business side currently, slowly working towards bigger companies like SI, for example. Or marketers are being outsourced to other countries.
@Franklin
I can see that. Many marketers have to be PMs by default anyway. I know I sure have.
Harley said:
@Franklin
I can see that. Many marketers have to be PMs by default anyway. I know I sure have.
I tell everyone my PMP that cost $400 10+ years ago has done more for me in my career than any degree I have.
@Franklin
My previous ‘marketing’ roles centered around tradeshow & special event planning, coordination and logistics. I always felt they were more project management jobs than marketing. Many tasks need to be completed by a certain deadline and within a set budget. Isn’t that what project management is?
But I can’t get a PM job because I never had that as a title. And I can’t get a marketing job because I don’t have many of the digital skills/experience that are now required.
@Franklin
How did they do that?
Bevin said:
@Franklin
How did they do that?
One has connections so it was easier for her to get that role because she worked with a few of the team members (fashion industry is much smaller than you’d think, especially if you work in one city.) So she ended up reaching out to her old coworkers to inquire about the role.
The other spent $$ on a PM certification program. He was able to leverage his marketing skills/responsibilities and got a management role with 4 years of marketing experience. But his role within the company was very similar to a project manager’s, to be honest; he worked on briefing and high-level strategy with executives.
Harley said:
@Harley
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SI was caught having articles written with AI and creating fake journalists.
Harley said:
@Harley
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@Harley
Goddamn Gump! That’s the most outstanding answer I have ever heard!
@Harley
Good explanation.
@Harley
Really good explanation!
No, lol. It’s the market. Companies are leaning out. Those that are hiring are more picky, and there’s way more applicants than before.
Payton said:
No, lol. It’s the market. Companies are leaning out. Those that are hiring are more picky, and there’s way more applicants than before.
This is true too.
No. It’s just a tool. It can’t act autonomously. It still needs humans to use it.
Pace said:
No. It’s just a tool. It can’t act autonomously. It still needs humans to use it.
For now
Pace said:
No. It’s just a tool. It can’t act autonomously. It still needs humans to use it.
For now
Skynet 
