“AI won’t replace me” declared a CMO from a global consulting firm, “but it will replace those who don’t embrace these tools.” The Brxnd.ai conference audience nodded in wishful agreement. Of course, these were the early adopters. The ones who are not just creating words and pictures faster. These folks are making stuff, crazy-imaginative, differentiating stuff. They will be fine. But what about everyone else?

The Harsh Reality

Allow me to get bleak for a sentence or two. Marketing jobs will be lost, from bottom to top. If you are a mediocre writer, designer, BDR, strategist, data analyst or you name it, there’s a person-aided-bot gunning for your job. Either you figure out how to leverage these tools to improve your skills and accelerate your output, or you’ll be like the proverbial frog in the gradually warming water.

Even CMOs are at risk. We’ve already seen a couple hundred B2B CMO roles eliminated in tech land as PE firms slash budgets in search of short-term EBIDTA bumps. In many of these cases, a VP of DemandGen assumed the top marketing job. Was GenAI connected? Not directly but there’s little doubt that investors are banking on increases in efficiency from marketing departments – and there’s an unstated hope that GenAI will be part of the solution.

The Opportunity for CMOs

Here’s the irony. CMOs are perfectly positioned to realize the true potential of GenAI and lead the GenAI transformation [that I see as inevitable]. CMOs already have the largest tech budgets and are used to assessing, acquiring, and deploying tech. They also have the broadest perspective on all the stakeholders including employees, customers, prospects, and partners. And they have one more characteristic that is dearly lacking in other departments–imagination. Great CMOs understand the power of well-executed big ideas. They have the curiosity to seek the answer behind the answer behind the answer. They live in a world fueled by ANDs, not ORs. Brand AND Demand. Creativity AND LLMs. Humans AND Machines. They connect dots that others simply can’t for lack of imagination.

The Impact of Gen AI

Here’s how I imagine GenAI making its biggest impact: Helping imaginative CMOs differentiate their companies by building target-delighting stuff around one big idea. Stuff they didn’t have the time, budget, or know how to create in the PG (pre-GenAI) epoch.

Sure, they’ll also use these tools to personalize at scale, to localize at scale, and to find THE insight from thousands of hours of interviews in minutes. And they’ll accelerate the testing of every little thing. Lots of optimization will happen. But the gold?

That will be found in imaginative tools that capture mind space. Like the stuff Jenny Nicholson (see QueenOfWords.co) creates week after week at her kitchen table. She’s not a developer. Or coder. But she’s cracked the code of GenAI.

Her advice to CMOs? You’re the artist. GenAI is just the paintbrush. Paint the future.

Written by Drew Neisser