You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow. Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here. -Mark Schaefer
A reader asked me a question on LinkedIn:
“In a world where AI is taking over so much of work, is there still a role for human taste in marketing?”
Here’s my honest answer: Yes —Â but it’s a narrower role than most people want to admit.
Most of marketing has nothing to do with taste. Research, analytics, strategy, planning — these are pattern and data problems, and AI is better at them than most humans. That’s not pessimism. That’s just truth.
Taste enters when you get to the creative work. And I’d define taste this way: The ability to recognize the right answer before you can fully explain it. It’s what separates a creative director who knows something is off from one who approves it anyway. It’s judgment amid ambiguity, shaped by years of exposure to what works and what doesn’t.
AI has pattern recognition that exceeds ours. What it doesn’t have — at least not yet — is the intuition that comes from caring. Taste requires a point of view. It requires you to have been moved by something, to have failed at something, to have strong opinions about what’s worth making.
That’s why taste probably only matters at the top of the creative hierarchy: the CMO, the creative director, the strategist who shapes the brief before anyone touches a keyboard. If you’re executing, AI will keep raising the floor. But if you’re the one deciding what’s worth doing and what isn’t — that’s a human function for now.
But taste can also keep pushing you toward better work. Ira Glass said:
“All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.”
Which brings me to the real answer: the best defense isn’t hoping that taste alone will save your job. The real leverage is building a personal brand around your taste specifically. Not what you make, but what you mean to people. Taste is what resonates with others.
I’ve written before about the future of content marketing being “art” — a genuine interpretation of the human experience. That’s where taste becomes identity, and identity becomes something AI cannot replicate.
One last thought on “taste.” We’re not born with taste. We learn it. As world view models of AI emerge, will bots be able to learn taste? Why not?
Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.
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Illustrations courtesy Mid Journey
