AI in Marketing: Where is the Line?

On the first day of my digital marketing internship in a cozy office suite on Fifth Avenue, I sat eagerly at my desk, toes a bit sore from a brand new pair of silver work flats (I didn't learn until later that one should bring subway shoes.)

I was well qualified for the position — a Middlebury student with multiple prior marketing internships, extremely skilled in Canva and an intuitive sense of professionalism and expectations.

My greatest asset, however, turned out to be laziness. Yes, laziness. Or, in other words, an extreme aversion to working harder than you have to in order to achieve the same exact results you could have gotten in a more efficient way. But it's easier to just say laziness.

My first task was to work on a set of Instagram stories for a young, vibrant, and iconic hotel based in Beverly Hills. I looked at past examples, which were classic and simple; a photo from the hotel's assets, a spunky title, a brief, promotional blurb, and some kind of interactive icon. This client in particular preferred alliteration, simplicity, and cheekiness in their copy, with a focus on iconicness and traditional Beverly Hills-ness.

I began working on my own, a set of 3 stories for a weekend event on the hotel's rooftop, starting with the titles. I brainstormed for 5-10 minutes, then sent these to my manager for approval:

"Celebration under the Stars"

"Iconic Skyline, Iconic Stay"

"Make this Weekend Worthwhile"

"Good start! We have already used the second one, and could you also tweak the first one?"

"Of course!"

I stared at the screen, running through numerous catchy titles and cliches, feeling myself wandering further and further from the actual substance I needed.

I realized in this moment that I could spend 20 minutes building a list of titles that were fine, but could be ultimately rejected by the client, having wasted all of our time, or I could have AI produce a large list in 10 seconds from which I could tweak, draw from, and expand upon to find the perfect copy.

I put in the prompt:

"I am creating instagram stories for "Hotel Name." Here are past examples (Attached past story examples.) Make title ideas for the 3 stories. Make the language engaging and catchy. This story set is promoting a weekend event on the rooftop with an open bar."

Within seconds, AI generated this list:

Sunset to Starlight

Rooftop Rendezvous

Golden Evenings Await

Drink Up, Wind Down

The Weekend Starts Here

Sips in the Sky

Good Times, Elevated

Sky High Spirits

Sip Above Sunset

The Art of the Evening

Weekend in Full Swing

Skyline Soirée

Some were generic or off-brand. But mixed in were gems. From this list, I was able to pull about 10 strong contenders to refine further.

From that day on, I used AI in nearly every creative process I touched. It wasn't a crutch — it was a collaborator. The technology didn't replace my creativity; it accelerated it. It allowed me to produce more, faster, and with sharper clarity. Instead of getting bogged down in the repetitive parts of ideation, I could focus on tone, cohesion, and the final visual polish.

But as I leaned into this partnership, I began to ask myself: where is the line?

The Human Foundation

My relationship with creativity didn't start with AI — it started with books. Growing up, I was the kid who always had a novel in hand, who built entire worlds in my imagination before dinner. I loved English class in high school so much that I won an award for love of literature. Language, to me, has always been an art form. I still write short stories in my free time, not because anyone asks me to, but because the craft itself matters to me.

That foundation is precisely why I can use AI effectively. I know what good writing feels like. I can sense when a phrase lands and when it falls flat. AI gives me options, but my years of reading, writing, and imagining give me the judgment to choose wisely.

Without that background, without genuine appreciation for language and storytelling, AI becomes a hollow tool. You can generate copy, but you can't elevate it. The technology amplifies what you already bring to the table — it doesn't create that foundation for you.

What This Means for the Industry

The efficiency AI brings isn't just about doing more work faster. It's about freeing up mental space for the work that actually matters.

When we spend less time on busy work — the endless rounds of headline variations, the tedious resizing of assets, the mechanical parts of ideation — we create room to be more thoughtful.

We can ask deeper questions: What does this product actually mean to people? How does it fit into their lives? What emotional truth are we trying to capture?

This shift gives us the bandwidth to focus on strategy, on cultural relevance, on the philosophical questions that make marketing feel meaningful rather than just transactional. The less time I spend churning out variations on a theme, the more time I can spend understanding why that theme matters in the first place.

AI also solves a problem many creatives face: the gap between vision and execution. Sometimes you have an abstract idea — a feeling, a mood, a conceptual direction — but translating that into concrete deliverables is difficult. AI can help bridge that gap. You can describe the vibe you're going for, reference visual or tonal examples, and suddenly that abstract spark becomes something tangible you can refine and build on.

The Symbiotic Reality

Here's something crucial that often gets overlooked: AI is trained on billions of human ideas, human art, human creativity. It exists because we created first. It learns from our novels, our campaigns, our paintings, our songs. It's a reflection of collective human imagination — not a replacement for it.

That means AI needs us to keep creating. If we stop exercising our own creativity, if everyone defaults to algorithmic output, the well runs dry. Future AI models will have nothing new to learn from. The system only works if human creativity continues to evolve, surprise, and break patterns.

AI is extraordinary at pattern recognition. It knows what sounds good, what performs well, what goes viral. Yet it doesn't know why. It can mimic creativity, but it can't feel it. And in marketing — a field powered by intuition, cultural awareness, and emotional intelligence — that difference matters.

If you're not naturally strong at writing or conceptual thinking, AI can't compensate. You still need the skill to discern what feels authentic, to tweak the language until it lands just right. Without that, your work risks becoming generic — the kind of content that feels polished but hollow.

Good prompting also matters. A vague request gets you vague results. The best marketers are not just copywriters; they're translators — turning brand tone, consumer insight, and strategic goals into prompts that make sense for AI to build from.

And then there's repetition. If every marketer uses AI the same way, across similar brands, with similar tones, we risk erasing the very creativity that makes campaigns memorable.

There's also an emerging cognitive cost: recent MIT studies suggest that outsourcing too much of our ideation to algorithms can dull our natural creative reflexes. The less we exercise certain neural pathways, the weaker they become.

So How Do We Keep Our Edge?

• Hire and empower talented people. Tools are only as good as the minds behind them.

• Rethink the hiring process. Instead of relying solely on portfolios or past experience — which can increasingly be AI-assisted or AI-generated — ask candidates to demonstrate raw creative ability. Have them write a short story about the brand. Ask them to draw a picture that captures its essence. These exercises reveal something portfolios can't: the ability to think imaginatively, to synthesize abstract ideas into original expression, and to connect emotionally with a concept. Someone who can tell a compelling story about a brand from scratch has the creative foundation to use AI as a tool rather than a crutch. They possess the judgment, taste, and imaginative capacity that no algorithm can replicate — and those are the skills that will matter most as AI becomes ubiquitous.

• Encourage creative play. Brainstorm without tech. Try writing taglines by hand. Sketch visuals before opening Canva.

• Build focus groups. Real human reactions will always reveal insights that data can't.

• Practice creativity outside of work. For me, that means reading, writing, and observing — not for output, but for input. Staying inspired in my own life helps me create more authentically for others.

AI can't replace imagination. The future of marketing won't be about man or machine — it'll be about who knows how to use both with intention.

As a Gen-Z marketer, I see technology as a partner, not a threat. The goal isn't to resist innovation; it's to humanize it. Because creativity, at its core, is still about connection — and that's something no algorithm can automate.

As a marketer, I'm driven by curiosity and efficiency. I enjoy finding smarter, more creative ways to connect brands with real people. Whether through AI-assisted storytelling, visual strategy, or human insight, I aim to craft work that feels effortless yet intentional. The future belongs to those who blend innovation with intuition — and who never stop creating on their own.