7.1 Turning the Page on Marketing Tools

Modern marketing thrives on data, personalization, and the ability to quickly adapt—and generative AI is shaking up every one of those areas. Unlike traditional automation or earlier forms of machine learning, generative AI isn’t just a predictive tool. It can craft new content, come up with fresh ideas, and help us make decisions faster—all while mimicking human creativity. Whether you need tailored messaging, eye-catching images, or dynamic videos, generative AI can jump in and help at every level of your marketing strategy and execution.

Before tackling smart marketing, let’s start with an example everyone knows something about, smart TVs. What makes a smart TV different than a traditional TV? Smart TVs understand verbal commands and can quickly take us to our favorite TV shows or bring up a list of newly released movies to watch. Smart TVs can suggest programming that we may enjoy based on our past viewing habits. And smart TVs learn. As our pool of watched programming increases, a smart TV’s suggestions improve.

To really appreciate what makes this technology so special, it’s helpful to look back at its roots.1 AI as a field took shape in the 1950s, when John McCarthy first coined the term while writing a summer research proposal. Back then, AI was mostly built around explicit “if X, then Y” logic, so it could only do what it was specifically told. By the 1980s and 1990s, machine learning and neural networks changed the game. Computers began to recognize patterns on their own as they trained on ever-bigger datasets. Then came deep learning, driven by more powerful hardware, which enabled multilayer neural networks to excel at tough tasks like recognizing images or transcribing speech.

And now? We’ve moved into the age of generative AI powered by large-scale, foundation models trained on large and diverse datasets. These tools don’t just look at past data to make a guess. They create entirely new things: fluent text, striking images, compelling videos, or even original pieces of music. Unlike earlier AI, they can work on more open-ended and creative tasks. You can ask a generative model to write a poem, design a logo, or draft a video script with only a brief prompt—and it will come up with something new that feels surprisingly human.