8 ways you should be using AI in 2025, according to expert marketers
Top tips from some of the smartest people we know.
Welcome to “Circle Back Week,” that glorious time of year in which all of the work you put off in December comes back to haunt you like Casper the Workaholic Ghost.
In December, we asked some of our favorite marketing experts for predictions on what was in store for 2025 — but marketers are innately helpful people, so they just ended up giving us really good advice instead.
So to kick off the year, we’re sharing their tips on how to use AI better in 2025 and not get sucked into Sam Altman’s volcanic sinkhole of hype. Let’s get to it!
Don’t fall into AI’s complacency trap.
Robert Rose, Content Marketing World celebrity and chief troublemaker at Seventh Bear, thinks marketers need to fundamentally rethink how they use AI:
“Generative AI is a tool that regurgitates patterns, not purpose. The companies that win will stop using AI for faster outputs and start using it for deeper insights, leveraging human wisdom to create meaning.”
To turn raw AI outputs into meaningful content, Rose believes a new class of marketing role — part philosopher, part data scientist — will emerge: “The boldest brands will treat AI as a lens, not a pen, ensuring that their story isn’t just heard but felt. And if we don’t? AI won’t kill creativity, but complacency will.”
Use AI to give your small team superpowers.
Nicole Leffer, a top advisor on AI to CMOs, believes that AI will completely reshape what small teams can accomplish:
"The gap will widen between marketers and marketing teams using generative AI effectively, and those who don't," she says, noting that small teams of 2-5 people using AI intelligently will match — or exceed — the output of teams of 30-50 without AI. "The quality will be just as high, if not higher.”
Leffer also predicts that no-code AI tools will transform marketing teams' operations. "We're going to start seeing AI-forward teams building and deploying AI-generated tools that can be utilized in marketing campaigns… and they'll build these tools in minutes without coding expertise," she says, citing examples like interactive website quizzes and calculators.
Automate the grunt work and invest in uniquely human content.
Joe Lazer — fractional head of content at A.Team and author of popular newsletter The Storytelling Edge — believes the formula for using AI this year is relatively simple:
“Most of the work that marketers do is a soul-sucking time pit. Persona documents. Decks. Landing page copy. Email nurtures. Analytics. Claude and ChatGPT can do most of that at a B+ level. Outsource that work to AI and re-invest your time in the only thing that really works in marketing anymore — developing a roster of internal and external creators/influencers who can actually sway your target audience and build demand at the top of the funnel.”
This reinvestment can take many forms: “It can be voice-y, story-driven, unmistakably human content at the top of the funnel, fueled by unique insights that only you can deliver. Or it could mean personality-driven videos that feel like they were made by a savvy 23-year-old, not an old-school B2B video agency.”
Use AI for the things it’s uniquely good at — not “the flashlights in the front.”
Jay Acunzo, co-founder of Creator Kitchen and host of the How Stories Happen podcast, is tired of everyone fawning over AI’s ability to churn out content when it’s way better at other things:
“Imagine inventing the car only to have a bunch of people shout, ‘IT HAS FLASHLIGHTS IN THE FRONT!’ That's how marketers approach AI. Yes, the tool can ‘generate’ content, but that's not really what it's best for: It's best for spotting patterns we can't or synthesizing data we couldn't.”
Acunzo uses AI to develop a reader persona, feeding it his drafts and asking it to push back on ideas. He also uses it to find patterns in call transcripts with clients and prospects to inform content. These strategic applications tap into AI's true potential rather than its most basic features. "Yes, it has flashlights — but it's also a car. Can we use it for all the car-specific things it can do?"
Treat content like a product, and use AI to understand the target audience for that product.
Ronnie Higgins, founder of Neutral Ground Labs, echoes Acunzo’s sentiment that the most powerful use of AI in marketing isn't content creation — it's revolutionizing how marketers understand their audiences:
“Imagine being able to stress-test a marketing campaign against hundreds of micro-demographic profiles, understanding precisely how a 28-year-old urban professional in Seattle might react differently from a 45-year-old suburban parent in Atlanta — all before spending a single marketing dollar. The most forward-thinking marketing teams will treat AI-generated audience simulations like complex scientific experiments.”
Don’t add more AI slop to news feeds.
Amanda Verdino, director of content marketing at Forma, warns us about the coming tsunami of AI-generated slop:
“In 2025, we're going to see AI expose the false dichotomy of fast vs. perfect in content marketing. Some marketing teams will lean heavily on generative AI to pump out more content than the world needs, and unfortunately, a lot of it is going to bypass human checkpoints in service of speed. The best marketing teams will use AI to strike a balance between optimizing operational speed and slowing down to elevate content quality.”
Stop using your 2015 SEO/SEM playbook — and get on the AI targeting train.
David Johnson, fractional CMO and strategic advisor, predicts a rude awakening for marketers still clinging to their 2015 SEO playbooks:
“People are focused on AI for content creation, SEO, and efficiency. There are a lot of people out there still using exact match, phrase match, and longtail keywords, buried in the weeds of UTM tracking for bidding and budgets… but 2025 is the year those old methods will bite businesses who think they know better than Google and haven't been patient to follow best practices with their accounts and train their models. The display network and video ads driven by AI targeting will be more important as search patterns change.”
Embrace the “messy middle.”
Michael Margolis, CEO of Storied, has a refreshingly human take on how to stand out in an AI-dominated world:
“Embrace the ‘messy middle.’ The best storytelling honors the messiness and complexity of life, even in simpler times. These are complex times, filled with exponential opportunities, cautiousness, and contradiction. So say something that matters. Bold, courageous, heartfelt — these are things few machines can do as well as humans.”
Got advice on how to use AI better in 2025? Reply or comment to let us know what you’ll be doing differently.
Sad dead tool