The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in marketing remains in its earliest stage of the product diffusion process: the innovator phase. This stage is marked by a select group of forward-thinking individuals and companies who are willing to take risks and explore new frontiers in marketing technology.
At Push, we’ve seen this pattern before. History has a tendency to repeat itself. When Ricky and I started our marketing consulting work in 2005, we spoke to some big brands about why they should invest in digital campaigns, particularly with Google. These included a Big 4 bank and several major high street chains.
All of them procrastinated, taking years (not months) to make their first moves into digital. Some even lost their jobs as a result. Ricky and I quickly shifted gears, focusing all our energy on challenger brands. We soon realized that we needed to speak to a specific type of personality: the Innovators.
Understanding What Sets AI Innovators Apart
Marketing's AI innovators share key traits that differentiate them from the mainstream. These individuals possess strong conceptual thinking skills, allowing them to envision potential applications of AI that others might miss. They embrace an entrepreneurial mindset, willing to take on the uncertainty and reap the rewards of being first movers in an evolving landscape.
The contrast between AI innovators and later adopters goes beyond just risk tolerance—it extends into cognitive abilities, particularly conceptual thinking. Innovators exhibit impressive abilities in abstract reasoning, pattern recognition, and creative problem-solving, all critical for leveraging AI's potential in marketing.
These cognitive skills enable innovators to visualize complex systems and their interactions, allowing them to foresee how AI could revolutionize various aspects of marketing. They possess the mental agility to adapt to new paradigms and the intellectual curiosity to continuously evolve alongside AI technology.
The Cognitive Divide Between Innovators and Late Adopters
Late adopters often exhibit less-developed thinking skills, particularly when it comes to grasping abstract concepts and envisioning future scenarios. This cognitive gap shows up in several key ways:
- Limited Foresight
Late adopters struggle to anticipate AI's impact on their industry, often dismissing its potential until it’s too late. - Resistance to Complexity
AI systems can seem overwhelming for those less comfortable with complex concepts, often leading to avoidance rather than engagement. - Narrow Perspective
While innovators understand the broader implications of AI across marketing functions, late adopters tend to focus only on immediate, isolated applications. - Lack of Creativity
Innovators use their superior cognitive abilities to imagine new AI applications, while late adopters often find it hard to think beyond conventional use cases.
This cognitive disparity is creating a widening gap in the marketing industry. We’re witnessing the early stages of a new form of digital Darwinism, where only the most intellectually agile will survive and thrive.
How AI Innovators Are Transforming Marketing
These innovators understand that AI can dramatically enhance marketing efforts by:
- Improving data analysis and insights
- Enabling hyper-personalisation at scale
- Optimising ad spend and targeting
- Automating repetitive tasks
- Predicting consumer behaviour and trends
By leveraging these strengths, early AI adopters are gaining a competitive edge, while others are left trying to catch up.
A Look at the Future Divide Between Early and Late Adopters
As AI progresses through the diffusion process, we will likely see a gradual shift in adoption. However, the cognitive and entrepreneurial gaps between innovators and late adopters may become more pronounced.
Early adopters—those following in the innovators’ footsteps—are likely to be larger companies with the resources to invest in AI technologies. These organisations will be attracted by the competitive advantage that AI offers, but they’ll still approach it with more caution than true innovators.
Once AI solutions become standardised and more accessible, the early majority will follow. This group will benefit from the lessons learned by innovators and early adopters, implementing AI with less risk and more established best practices.
However, late adopters may find themselves increasingly marginalised. Their cognitive limitations and lack of entrepreneurial spirit could relegate them to lower-value, commoditised aspects of marketing. Meanwhile, innovators and early adopters will dominate the high-value, AI-driven segments of the industry.
Will You Embrace AI or Get Left Behind?
For now, the AI revolution in marketing remains firmly in the innovator stage. Those willing to leap now will reap significant rewards—just as the early adopters of digital marketing did—as AI becomes more prevalent. As the technology matures and success stories accumulate, we can expect to see broader adoption, transforming the landscape and setting new standards for the industry.
But the question remains: Will late adopters be able to bridge the cognitive gap, or will they be left behind in this new era of marketing intelligence?
Marketers won’t lose their jobs to AI; they’ll lose them to other marketers who embraced AI early.
