The AI is cheating debate shows why reinvention has always been at the heart of marketing as technology reshapes creative standards.
It’s been more than 65 years since American inventor Charles Kettering wrote: “The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.” It’s an idiom that seems just as true now as it has ever been.
Recently, there’s been a wave of negativity – even involving the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee – about the uses of AI that’s been hard to ignore. While it’s important we take a responsible approach to these technologies, the reality is that AI is now at the core of modern marketing infrastructure. According to IAB Europe, 85% of companies are already using AI-based tools for marketing.
Every major shift in technology has had a profound impact on how marketers operate, leading to fears that standards would slip and quality would decline. But what’s really happening is as inevitable as it is revolutionary. New technologies drive reinvention, and what we are seeing is the start of a process that will move digital marketing towards an exciting, prosperous future.
Like spellcheck, AI will become accepted for content production
There are those who dismiss the use of AI in marketing as ‘lazy’ or ‘cheating’. But when the world moved from typewriters to word processors, some argued that spellcheck degraded the work of good writers and editors. Fast forward a few years, and it became part of the everyday writing routine. Now, AI content tools face the same criticisms. Skeptics are suspicious of any use of em-dashes or overly formal language, eager to claim that content written by a machine is devoid of value.
The fact is that using AI as a writing tool for marketing content will soon become as standard as using spellcheck. And this doesn’t replace the human behind the words – to produce good work still requires creativity, clarity of thought, and a point of view. By training AI in the right way, it can augment content and provide innovative thinkers who struggle to articulate ideas with a way to express themselves. It can also make content production more streamlined and cost-effective, freeing up human resources and budgets for more creative and strategic projects.
AI is a tool that can enhance human creative ideas
A narrative that continually crops up around the use of AI in marketing is its impact on creativity. Critics claim AI-generated creative lacks soul, is often generic, and has no charm. Of course, if the original concept is bad, then the AI output will be bad too. AI doesn’t replace creative thinking; it helps refine it.
Take the new Coca-Cola Holidays Are Coming ads, for example. For many people, including myself, these adverts are a big part of Christmas, building anticipation like an advent calendar. Having used AI tools in the 2024 execution of this series – resulting in ads that scored 5.9 out of 6 stars in System1’s effectiveness rankings – the iconic brand repeated the approach in 2025.
And this year, it is once again one of the most talked-about festive campaigns on social media, with a 61% positive sentiment score. While some industry insiders seem critical, the sentiment isn’t shared by consumers. In fact, as The Drum’s Margo Waldrop says, these new ads prove ‘that innovation and nostalgia can coexist’.
When cinema began incorporating Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) at scale, it stirred purists. CGI still has its detractors, but this innovation unlocked entire worlds that could never exist in reality. AI will do the same for marketing. It will not only enable established companies to tell even grander stories, but also give small businesses the power to create campaigns that in the past only giant brands – with giant budgets – could produce.
AI is the next phase in the evolution of marketing
There’s a whole range of technologies that fall under the broad ‘AI’ umbrella that are reinventing marketing. Cross-platform media planning and measurement are being transformed by AI, which enables deep analysis of unique and disparate datasets. This means ad targeting is based not just on identity, but can incorporate signals like viewership behavior, context, and inferred audience journeys. Through secure data collaboration between stakeholders, consumers get a more relevant experience.
‘Secure’ is a keyword here. More than half of people in the UK have reservations over the privacy of their personal information, according to the ICO. While people don’t want to be spied on, 64% still want personalized experiences. And as AI offers businesses a way to build powerful predictive models that enable this personalization without relying on tracking processes, it gives all brands the chance to build cutting-edge ad experiences that don’t compromise consumer privacy.
In contrast to Sir Tim’s assertion that AI could disrupt the digital economy by taking audiences away from the open web, these powerful predictive models will help marketers stay a step ahead of consumer behaviour and meet their customers across a range of other touchpoints.
AI is here to amplify human creativity
Businesses in industries that are most exposed to AI see a fourfold increase in productivity, according to recent research. IAB Europe’s analysis shows more than half of companies are using AI for tasks like reporting, while many also use it for campaign optimization. With AI driving efficiencies, there’s more time for creative thinking. Less headspace – and time – is needed for routine tasks, so AI is helping to build a world where creatives have more capacity for doing what they do best.
AI isn’t cheating, and using it isn’t lazy. AI is the next phase in the evolution of marketing and will enable us to achieve more than we ever thought possible. AI isn’t here to replace human creativity. It’s here to amplify it.