I had a marketer tell me AI was just a fad and now she's using it every day - what changed?

About 8 months ago at a local marketing meetup in Denver, I sat next to a woman who had been running paid ads for 15 years. She told me straight up that AI tools were just hype and would never replace real strategy. I didn't argue with her, just asked how she handled A/B testing for headlines. She said she still did it manually, spending around 4 hours per campaign on variations. Fast forward to last week, I bumped into her at the same meetup. She pulled me aside and admitted she now uses ChatGPT to generate 30 headline options in 5 minutes and runs them through a sentiment checker. She said it cut her prep time by 60% and her click-throughs went up 12% in the first month. But she also added that she still tweaks every single suggestion because the AI misses brand voice stuff. So here's my debate: is AI a time saver that still needs heavy human editing, or are marketers who lean too hard on it going to lose their edge? Has anyone else seen a skeptic flip like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

barnes.brian1mo ago

Lol she pulled a full 180 on AI. Guess those 4 hour headline sessions finally broke her.

wade7671mo ago

Ngl I see it differently. Calling it a 180 feels dismissive when people can genuinely change their mind after seeing how AI actually works in practice.