Newsflash to no one – AI has already replaced web designers, content marketers and designers!
Back in the late 1980s, Apple introduced the Macintosh computer, and a flurry of companies (some of them household names now, some you’ve never heard from again) introduced software to streamline typographic services and design services. Whole industries changed to using these new tools – but the change was mechanical. People just used new tools. We produced pages that were sent to film production companies and that film was used to print stuff. Then came the internet, and we stopped sending film (service bureaus went out of business), and started sending files. Then smartphones and we stopped producing publications (and catalogs and mailers) in favor of online digital marketing. Magazines folded or went online and then folded. There are still magazines, of course, and catalogs, and books have resurged with a new generation of readers looking for tactile experiences.
When I started my career, executives had secretaries typing letters, memos, and they were delivered by interoffice mail envelopes. Nobody has a secretary anymore, they do have administrative assistants but they don’t type letters or memos, they have actual jobs, often involving event planning, scheduling, office administration, sometimes even HR and bookkeeping tasks at smaller firms.
But the change from what we have now to AI agents working for us is going to be radical. Even in this industry, on this blog, for this company, change has already come. You can “vibe code” a website using an AI tool in 2 minutes. You can’t create a complex website in that time of course, but you CAN and you WILL be able to it soon. A client of ours used Claude Code to recreate the functions of 4 WordPress plugins and about 25 steps, into about five steps and he has never coded a day in his life. It’s brilliant! He still works with us on maintaining his WordPress website though, because it’s complex, things don’t always work and vibe coding won’t fix it (yet.)
Another client used AI to create product illustrations – something she paid for in the past. She uses it to write blogs, something she paid for in the past. These are tools and options that clients are choosing – and smart marketers, developers and designers are wise to recognize that a lot of the work they paid for in the past will be done by clients who can now do it themselves, and often deliver a better product for themselves. If you paid, a year ago for a video production company to produce videos with actors, you can now use an AI app to select people (agents) who will read your script and get training videos in minutes, not weeks or months.
What is the role then, for a marketing, design, web development agency? Strategic thinking and creative strategy are still human tasks that can’t easily be replicated. Working with clients to come up with direction and approach and letting them execute will likely be the way forward. As my AI agent works with your AI agent, to get the things I need, will advertising still be necessary? Right now I can say “I would like a pair of leopard print track pants in size M” to my phone, (without even turning it on), and I could get that delivered in minutes with an agent doing the work, and confirming the purchase through my already approved shop AI agent (shop pay is a good example of this). If I need a part for something, I can type in the serial number, the problem and an AI agent can have it sent on it’s way and deliver a Youtube tutorial on it. Already, today.
As marketers and designers and developers face down what we’re seeing as an industry, it’s not like the past – where tools made us faster, better and smarter – it’s replacing almost all the mechanical, hourly, contracted work we did with amazing tools clients can use. They still need us (for now) to think strategically with them.
And for many of us, who are seeing this handwriting on the wall (or AI agents writing it), we’re adopting AI so we’re faster at our jobs – but many of us are also looking at income streams that are different: 1:1 coaching, for instance, is something that I’ve long done here for clients at Marketing Acuity and love, and that’ll be an area of expansion. Products (especially custom ones) is another area, and our three sister companies (which utilize all the skillsets honed over a career) are delivering revenue and also satisfaction. Much of marketing’s work is never done. But products are made, shipped and completed. It’s very satisfying.
The above image was created with AI (Adobe Express) in an app that replaces most designerly activity (although I use Adobe Illustrator every day as I have since about 1988). I didn’t pay for it (although I have an Adobe subscription.)
Human to human interaction is still a big deal (for some people). I am an ambivert but I’m told by my introverted friends that if they can do something and not interact with a human, it’s better for them. Most of my work lately has been 1:1 coaching, technical expertise and support over new development and design. I still do production design/art as I create custom products every day for our Boat Registration Stickers, Championship Regatta Graphics and Michigan MC Numbers businesses, but even that will likely streamline for me using AI as a tool to create those files which we then print and cut on vinyl. The custom product business is still going to be there for a long while.
Human to human interaction – small businesses, or community organizations – is something many of us are craving right now. Tactile crafts are hugely popular, the business of in person sports and hobbies has never been busier.
Humans have always adapted to technological change – some better than others of course – but we’re seeing the future and it involves more humanity and less, all at the same time.