AI Marketing is Having an Identity Crisis
AI Marketing is Having an Identity Crisis
If AI is so revolutionary, why do tech companies sound so unsure about how to sell it? Maybe because “we’re replacing your job” isn’t a winning ad campaign.
Big Tech is struggling to market AI to the public. Investors hear about automation and cost savings, but consumers? They see a machine taking over their work, and possibly their lives.
AI ads are now everywhere, from the Super Bowl to corporate branding, but they can’t agree on the message. These AI ads are unintentionally hilarious because they reveal just how out of touch Big Tech is with the human experience.
Google tries to make AI heartwarming, until you realize it’s replacing personal effort with a chatbot. Apple suggests AI will make you more productive, but the ads mostly show lazy workers dodging responsibility. And Meta? It proudly shows a guy asking AI to generate a fake memory for his grandfather, because nothing says “family bonding” like synthetic nostalgia.
The real joke is that these companies don’t seem to realize that selling AI like a life coach, therapist, and personal assistant all rolled into one makes it feel more like an overbearing boss than an empowering tool. Maybe AI should write their next ad—it might actually understand what people want.
Read the full article on Intelligencer.
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Dr. Mark van Rijmenam
Dr. Mark van Rijmenam is The Digital Speaker, a world-leading futurist and global AI keynote speaker who helps leaders decide what AI, and the technologies that follow it, mean for their business. He speaks to leadership teams at their retreats and to conference audiences worldwide, and his WAVE framework gives them a way of deciding that they keep using long after he has left the room. His Intelligence Age Scorecard measures how ready an organization is across the four WAVE pillars.
He holds a PhD from the University of Technology Sydney, is a Certified Speaking Professional and Global Speaking Fellow, and ranks among the world’s top futurists on the Global Gurus list (#1 in 2025, #3 in 2026). Salesforce named him one of its 16 leading AI voices. He has written six books, most recently Now What? How to Ride the Tsunami of Change, writes the Synthetic Minds newsletter on Substack, and founded Futurwise. Talk to his digital twin on WhatsApp: +1 (830) 463-6967.
