If you are a marketing professional, or in any field where you use a computer, you’ve likely heard of the various AI chat tools available worldwide — such as ChatGPT, Microsoft’s CoPilot, and Google’s Gemini, just to name a few. You’ve almost certainly used one of these AI tools in the last two years, perhaps even unknowingly.
The power of the AI chatbot and its seemingly limitless capabilities has garnered the concern of many, and several are asking the question: Are our jobs in danger? Moreover, is the world of marketing in danger of becoming completely automated?
The Brief History of ChatGPT
In order to answer that question, we must look back at the start of this AI revolution. OpenAI, Inc. (the company that developed ChatGPT) is an American artificial intelligence organization founded in 2015 in San Francisco, California. Its goal is to develop “safe and beneficial” artificial general intelligence, which is defined as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.”
Founded by investors and tech titans like Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Greg Brockman, OpenAI received over a billion dollars in capital startup funding. Following ChatGPT’s initial release in November 2022, the software exploded and is credited with being the catalyst to widespread interest in generative AI. Social media and online forums alike are calling it the AI boom of the 2020s. Even institutions like Stanford, in their 2025 AI index report, are saying “We believe AI is poised to be the most transformative technology of the 21st century.”
So, what does this mean for the marketing world? What would take one person hours to do can now be accomplished in minutes. Photo generation, ad copy development, and even creative ideas–all can be generated through ChatGPT. AI software is used to mass produce social media content, generate captions on videos, and determine what messaging will likely resonate with certain audiences. As marketers, how are we expected to keep up with software that can produce in seconds what might take us all day?
The Human Element
The story of John Henry is deeply rooted in Appalachian culture and history, originating at the Great Bend Tunnel near Talcott, West Virginia. The story goes that John Henry was hired by the C&O Railroad as a steel driver for the tracks. The company, unsatisfied with the pace of the human workers, brought in a steam drill to speed up work on the tunnel. It was said that the steam drill could drill faster than any man. See where this is going?
John Henry was known as the strongest and fastest worker. He had a competition with the steam drill to prove that man could go farther and faster than the machine. The legend says that the machine was only able to drill nine feet, while John Henry drilled 14 feet. He beat the steam drill only to die of exhaustion soon after.
As far as speed goes, there isn’t a human alive that can outpace AI in how quickly content or suggestions can be generated. In the world of marketing, you can’t beat ChatGPT, but there’s something that we learn from the story of John Henry. The human element matters more.
A growing complaint on the internet and in workplaces utilizing ChatGPT is that the content developed by AI is missing a key human element. Everything it creates–while close–misses the mark on what really, truly feels human. This is where marketers take back control of the industry, job market, and creative process. ChatGPT takes creativity and authentic human interaction and makes a high-quality copy–while high-quality, it is still a copy. Consumers and producers alike are able to feel the lack of authenticity in messaging and can tell when the messaging they’re receiving isn’t human.
AI generated image
A Resource Not A Threat, Especially for Marketers
Again, are our jobs in danger? The answer to this growing concern is simple: No. Why? AI cannot and will not replace our humanity. Rather than fearing that AI will be replacing marketers, consider utilizing it as a resource to grow and develop ideas or content at a faster rate. If you need to develop titles for a blog post, tell ChatGPT to “Create 20 blog titles about AI taking human jobs.” Use it to create the base for ideas or as a bouncing board. Just as we have utilized Google to fact check for decades, consider using ChatGPT as a starting point of feedback and growth for your individualized, uniquely human ideas.
The power of marketing is not the ability to monotonously create content, write, or analyze data, but it is the power of ideas and critical thinking to develop new concepts based on data and current trends. Whether you work in content development or in data analysis, your ideas, creativity, and humanity are what drive branding and unique campaigns to go viral or create a return on investment. AI software cannot replace making your audience feel something that challenges or uplifts them, but it can be a tool to grow and do more.
Equality and Distribution
The quickly growing world of AI and the internet can feel scary, especially when software is capable of lying, being malicious, or developing bias in answers. However, during its initial stages, OpenAI wrote that AI “...should be an extension of individual human wills and, in the spirit of liberty, as broadly and evenly distributed as is possible safely.”
ChatGPT and other softwares like it are still very new, and undergoing continuous edits, updates, and adjustments. While not perfect, it’s already proving to be a useful resource to marketers around the globe, from ideas and content development to data analysis and beyond. AI exists to make our lives easier and should be seen as a resource rather than a threat.