Marketing in the age of AI: who’s in control?

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how marketing teams and businesses operate. What once took weeks can now be done in minutes. Content is generated, audiences are segmented, and campaigns are optimised at a pace that’s hard to ignore.

But with all this momentum and talk about AI replacing professional marketers, it’s worth asking: are you still in the driver’s seat?

5 ways AI accelerates your workflow

Used well, AI is a powerful accelerator. It frees up time, unlocks creative capacity, and brings a layer of intelligence that helps teams move with clarity and precision.

Here are five ways it’s helping marketers, founders and brand-driven business leaders work smarter:

#1. Sharper audience insights

AI tools can unlock deep patterns in customer data, revealing customer preferences, forecasting expected behaviour in minutes, and personalising the customer experience.
For example, Starbucks’ in-house AI tool, Deep Brew, ingests over 90 million weekly transactions, analysing purchase histories, app and loyalty interactions, geolocation data and whether to generate personalised offers and anticipate demand with precision.

#2. Copywriting

With AI, you get polished drafts of emails, ads, blog posts and social media captions in seconds, freeing your team to concentrate on higher-order work like strategy and creative direction, while routine editing and polishing happen automatically. Jasper AI, Copy.ai and ChatGPT are examples of large language models (LLMs) that excel at handling these tasks.

#3. Visual creative generation

With clear instruction, AI is great for building on existing brand image libraries and creating high-quality visual assets. Platforms such as Sora and Midjourney can generate social media graphics, edited product imagery, and polished brand templates without the need for manual design, cutting design timelines from days to hours.

#4. Workflow automation

Existing AI tools today can link content creation and scheduling into seamless processes, reducing manual coordination for marketing campaigns.

For example, tools such as HubSpot’s Marketing Hub leverages AI to automatically segment contacts based on behaviour, trigger tailored email sequences when leads visit specific web pages and schedule social media posts on various channels at optimal times, freeing teams from these repetitive tasks.

#5. Campaign optimisation

AI continuously refines campaign performance by adjusting budgets, creative variants and targeting in real time, maximizing return on investments while minimising manual intervention.

Take for example Google Ads Performance Max, an AI advertising tool that reallocates spending based on which channels drive the most conversions, as well as automatically testing ad headlines and images to improve click-through rates.

AI’s ability to accelerate marketing is undeniable. But does the same apply when it comes to directing strategy?

Why human-led strategy still matters

There’s a growing narrative that AI will replace marketers and creatives. That brand strategy can be automated. That storytelling can be outsourced to machines.

It can’t. Not meaningfully.

This is because firstly, AI generates content by remixing existing patterns. It cannot originate the bold, groundbreaking ideas that give campaigns their unique spark.

Secondly, while AI-driven optimisation fine-tunes campaign tactics in real time, it lacks the foresight to weigh competing priorities or set long-term strategic direction. Those decisions demand human judgment and experience only seasoned marketers possess.

AI can help you execute rapidly. But it doesn’t actually know why your brand exists. It doesn’t understand market dynamics, customer sentiment, or your competitive position.

Only humans possess that depth of insight.

Human leaders define the vision and set the strategic course. Their expertise lies in making the choices that shape authentic narratives and drive meaningful connections.

As such, there needs to be a human-led strategic vision to guide AI in the right direction.

Left unchecked, AI can take you off course

Without strategic inputs, AI becomes a blunt tool – capable of producing volume, but not necessarily value.

We’ve seen what happens when brands hand over the reins entirely.

When Mango deployed AI-generated models that lacked realistic proportions and diversity, consumers cried foul, calling it false advertising and exposing how misguided AI use can erode trust and diminish brand value.

Similarly, Toys “R” Us’s AI-driven holiday ad, riddled with hallucinations and inaccuracies, sacrificing genuine human connection – a core brand promise. Customers reacted with discomfort and criticism, underscoring how using AI as a shortcut for speed and savings can backfire without prior strategic consideration.

What makes a brand compelling is its ability to connect and to build trust by reinforcing a unique narrative. Without ample understanding of context, empathy and strategic judgment, even the most advanced tools can produce work that feels off or, worse, undermines the brand it was meant to support.

AI accelerates, humans strategise

At Legato, we see AI not as a standalone solution, but as a growth accelerator that amplifies human-led strategy.

AI is an extraordinary tool for speed, scale, and efficiency. It is perfect for handling routine tasks so teams can focus on higher-order work like strategy, creative ideation and brand storytelling.

Used well, AI becomes a powerful copilot.

But AI is a tool, not a strategy.

The course still needs to be set by humans.

Harness AI as your copilot: workshop invitation

At Legato, we help brands navigate the AI revolution by exploring how AI can work alongside them, as a dependable partner, in day-to-day marketing.

To that end, we’re hosting an in-person workshop in October for marketers, founders and brand-driven executives to learn to seamlessly integrate AI into their marketing workflow, from insight and strategy to execution.

This hands-on, interactive session will cover:

  • Effective ways to integrate AI into your marketing workflow
  • Bridging human-led strategy with AI tools to optimise efficiency
  • Brand safeguards to ensure authenticity isn’t drowned out by automation

Interested in learning more? Get in touch at hello@legato-asia.com.

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