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Marketers have always had to defend their budgets in the language of finance. AI has made that harder, not easier.

For most of our careers, we have drawn marketing teams around what people make. Content sits here, product marketing there, demand generation and events alongside, with agencies and freelancers filling the gaps. That made sense when making took most of the time.

There is a name for AI output that looks finished but leaves a colleague to do the real thinking: workslop. BetterUp Labs and the Stanford Social Media Lab describe it as AI-generated content that "looks good, but lacks substance".

Many of us learned marketing planning through a framework such as SOSTAC: situation, objectives, strategy, tactics, action and control. It is a sound sequence, and it still works. But it was built for a time when the hard part was deciding what to do. In 2027, for many teams, the hard part is getting the work through the building.

Where Social Media Engagement Actually Is: CIM Midlands Breakfast Recap, Birmingham, 23 September 2026