An example I often cite to drive home AI’s importance to our careers is that of Microsoft Office. Back in the 90s, MS Office did not seem like a mandatory tool to familiarize oneself with. It became one over time. Today, you are expected to know how to use Word, PowerPoint, or Excel. That, however, does not mean that you’ve had to learn how to build these applications, only to understand what they can and cannot do and to leverage them. That is the trajectory AI is on.

AI is another major factor. The traditional structures were not built with the requirements of this technology in mind; they were built to address a different set of challenges. So, to understand how marketing organizations should set themselves up to optimally leverage generative AI, let us make sense of why they are currently structured the way they are and why that creates friction in leveraging AI.