While marketers find AI a great help, they are increasingly concerned about organizational readiness and the technology’s long-term impact on the profession. That’s according to a new academic study, “The AI Paradox in Marketing: Fascination, Resistance, and Reinvention.”
For the study, published in the “Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity,” researchers interviewed 24 marketing professionals from organizations worldwide. Participants said AI’s handling of routine and repetitive work is giving them more time for strategic thinking.
“Even if you spend a few hundred dollars a month on AI, it feels like you’ve gained an entire team,” said one participant. “It’s honestly mind-blowing.”
They also said the technology supports them in ways few expected.
“AI acts as a real psychological support,” another participant said. “It helps reduce stress related to work overload by automating certain tasks, which allows me to save time and focus on more strategic aspects.”
How will new marketers learn the job?
AI’s immediate benefits are clear and appreciated by marketers. Their unease starts with what it means in the longer term, as AI is increasingly doing the work that builds marketing expertise.
Writing copy, testing campaigns, refining messaging, and analyzing results aren’t simply production tasks. They’re where marketers learn what resonates, develop instincts, recover from mistakes, and earn the judgment that prepares them for more strategic roles.
The interviews also exposed organizational gaps that make AI adoption harder.
Chief among them are shortages of AI expertise, rapid skill obsolescence, and resistance to changing established ways of working. One participant pointed to “a real lack of essential skills” needed to carry out AI projects.
AI isn’t just another software rollout
The researchers argue businesses need targeted training that combines technical capabilities, such as prompt engineering and tool selection, with nontechnical skills, including creative judgment, ethical reasoning, and change management. Rather than treating AI as another software deployment, organizations should approach it as a workforce transformation that requires trust, experimentation, and ongoing learning.
AI is getting easier to adopt. Building teams that know when to trust it, when to challenge it, and how to use it responsibly is becoming harder.
Participants said that as AI takes on more routine work, skills such as prompt design, data analysis, and technical fluency become more important because marketers increasingly evaluate AI’s work instead of producing every first draft themselves.
10X your SEO with Semrush for Enterprise.
The world’s most powerful SEO platform, purpose-built for Enterprise.
Request demo
That puts judgment at the center of the profession. Someone still needs to recognize when AI misses customer context, draws the wrong conclusion, or produces an answer that sounds convincing but isn’t right. Participants identified creativity, ethical judgment, cultural understanding, and relationship building as the capabilities AI is least likely to replace.
Marketing organizations face a challenge well beyond AI adoption. As AI handles the work that once taught marketers their craft, companies will need new ways to develop the judgment, creativity, and experience that have traditionally come from doing the work.
The study can be downloaded here. (No registration required)