AI in Marketing: Everyone Can Cook Now. Can You Cook with Taste?

AI let everyone into the kitchen & you know we can’t trust everyone’s cooking.

Why “No AI Slop” Is The New Creative Standard for AI in Marketing

In marketing today, the conversation splits clean: brands using AI to amplify their message & brands using AI to just produce content. One moves the needle with creativity & one clutters the feed with trash.

Take Heinz, for example. They let AI prove their own brand equity. When they prompted AI tools to generate “ketchup,” every output looked like Heinz without a single brief telling it to. The AI already knew. That’s what decades of consistent brand building do, but that’s for another post. The tool didn’t create the idea. The brand’s equity did & AI just made it visible.

Burger King’s Burn That Ad went a different route. Point your camera at a McDonald’s ad & watch it burn in real time using AR. Aggressive. Memorable. Exactly on brand. One of the many reasons I love the BK vs McD’s beef. The pettiness. Love it. The tool was in direct service of a sharp & clear message.

Dove’s Beauty According to Dove, used AI to make a point about AI, specifically how it distorts beauty standards. Dove doubled down on its core message using the very tool that threatens it. The message came first, as usual with Dove, & the tool served it. That’s strategic creativity.

IKEA Place took the practical route. AR that lets you place furniture in your actual space before buying. Functional, frictionless, & useful. A tool in service of the customer’s decision, not the brand’s ego.

Each of these works for the same reason, & that reason is simple. The message existed before the tool was picked. Heinz used AI to prove brand equity. Burger King used it to torch the competition directly. Dove used it to argue against the distortion of beauty. IKEA used it to reduce friction in the buying decision. The tool amplified what was already there. That’s the play.

These are ideas executed through or with AI. That’s the key distinction to also mention.

The AI Influencer: Smart Business Model, Real Trade-Offs

Then there’s the AI influencer, one of the more fascinating use cases in the space right now.

From a business standpoint, the model makes complete sense. Think of it like a fictional character with full creative control. One that never ages, never ends up doing something embarrassing, never tarnishes the brand deal. No PR nightmares, no off-brand moments, no island scandals. It’s like a character from your favorite movie who only does exactly what the story needs.

The strengths are real: full creative control, zero PR risk, scalable content, & total consistency. The costs are just as real. It feels artificial, there’s no trust transfer, community connection is weak, & there’s no lived experience behind it. Done strategically, though, it works. Disney built decades of trust around fictional characters. The concept isn’t new. The medium is.

A visually perfect AI influencer with flawless posts, perfect styling, & consistent messaging still creates zero growth & zero meaningful engagement if the strategy misses. Perfection doesn’t create a connection. Relatability does. AI influencers scale attention in awareness campaigns, fashion, tech, & controlled brand environments. They struggle in community building, trust-based products, & conversion campaigns. Know the difference before you build the brief. Give it time. The execution will catch up to the concept.

Why The Real AI Advantage Is Speed of Learning, Not Speed of Output

Here’s where the conversation shifts significantly. Before AI, execution was the barrier. Creating content required time, skill, tools, & a team. Not everyone could do it well or fast. That limitation filtered the competition. It kept the pool small & the standard high because only the people with resources & skill could get in the kitchen.

Editing video took hours & slowed output. Writing copy required real skill & limited quality at scale. Design needed software & training, which limited who could create. Production required teams, which limited the scale for smaller operations. All of that friction created a natural filter.

What Changed When AI Removed The Execution Barrier

As a result, execution is easy now. Content is everywhere. Production is instant. The skill used to be making content. Now the skill is making content matter.

After AI, captions are generated in seconds. Videos get cut automatically. Design assets get templated instantly. Ideas turn into content fast. Execution is no longer scarce. So execution is no longer the differentiator.

The new advantage isn’t posting more or creating faster, though yes, you can do that too. The real advantage is the speed of learning. Testing faster. Reading signals faster. Improving faster. That loop is where the edge lives now.

Can AI in Marketing Cook Content That Matters?

Now everyone’s in the kitchen, so the question is taste.

Can you cook content that gets attention? Content with a point of view? Content with taste? If yes, you have nothing to worry about. The noise level is higher now. But so is the opportunity to stand out by being the one thing AI can’t generate on its own: a real perspective, directed with intention, executed with craft.

AI generates. Taste decides.

For a deeper look at how generative AI is reshaping marketing strategy & creative production, McKinsey’s State of AI report breaks down where the real competitive advantages are forming.

Let It Steep

The “everyone can cook” shift is real. What most people forget is that it also has to taste good.

What Speed of Learning Really Demands From Your Creative Process

Before AI, the barrier was production. You needed time, money, tools, & usually a team. That barrier had a hidden benefit: it forced patience. You had to plan before you executed. You had to commit to an idea before you invested in it. The slow pace built discipline. AI removed that friction, which is great & also worth watching closely.

When execution becomes easy, the temptation is to skip the thinking. To generate first & strategize later. To post because you can, not because you have something worth saying. That’s where the slop comes from. The absence of intentional direction before the tool gets touched produces exactly what you’d expect. Nothing worth keeping.

The speed-of-learning advantage only works if you’re actually learning. Testing faster means nothing if you’re not studying the results. Reading signals faster means nothing if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

The creatives & marketers who win in this environment aren’t the fastest generators. They’re the sharpest interpreters. They use AI to run more experiments in less time, then they sit with what the data says, adjust, & go again. The speed of learning requires you to keep learning.