What Skills Will Marketers Need in 2025?
With AI hitting the scene, here are some AI-proof skills to focus on so you don’t get left behind
In the next five to seven years, a lot of digital tasks currently performed by marketers will be done by Artificial Intelligence or Cobots (Digital Assistants). Currently, we already have AI tools that perform tasks along the RACE framework (Reach, Act, Convert & Engage) created by Smart Insights. Some tasks include personalized content creation, programmatic media buying, propensity modelling, predictive analytics, ad targeting, dynamic pricing, and chatbots (but you know all this already).
Don’t worry, although AI seems to be taking over, there are still many things it just can’t do. In fact, the AI that is currently in use is called weak AI or narrow AI because it is only able to perform one task with exceptional efficiency and accuracy.
Will we see strong AI in our future? Perhaps. To give you an idea of where we are with strong AI, here’s a statement from the University of Berkeley:
At present Strong AI development is overshadowed by the immediate applications of Applied AI, as that field yields more tangible and quantifiable results. In addition, development in embodied systems has not progressed beyond the most basic constructs without the overall intelligence of even a cockroach. However, it can be argued that the single largest stumbling block to Strong AI is the lack of definition of intelligence. (Copeland) Strong AI’s ultimate goal is to make an intelligent computer that can think and understand, but those terms remain ambiguous and undefinable; hence, there is no general measure of “success” in the field of Strong AI.
The futurist Dr. James Canton believes the take over of the AI Economy is coming fast and we can control and shape it to our benefit and make our world better. He also predicts eight trends with the AI Economy, including human advancement. His belief is that deep learning will transition into deep thinking in the future, which will be a new type of cognitive machine intelligence.
So what then? What would you be doing as a marketing professional in 2025?
Artificial Intelligence, as wonderfully beneficial as it is and will be, can detect and respond to emotions, but only humans can feel and experience emotions, which is an important element in being able to display Emotional Intelligence.
A recent article by Macat reports,
The reality is that artificial intelligence cannot truly outperform human thinking due to the subjective, ever-changing, and highly individual nature of most scenarios. Where AI fails to compete is in the learning process by which individuals are constantly taking in new information and expanding their personal databases (i.e.: their brains).
AI also may find it difficult to display the interpersonal skills/soft skills necessary for collaboration and connecting. Areas like critical thinking are unique to the human mind and might be impossible to replicate with AI. And while AI could be (and will be) the future of innovation, the humanness of creativity can’t be replicated.
So take some time to hone in on and improve these non-digital skills that will be crucial once the bots take over.
Emotional Intelligence Skills
Emotional intelligence is a psychological concept and quotient that speaks to our ability as human beings to regulate our emotions in a variety of situations, as well as recognize and deduce emotional states in others.
According to an article on AI and EI by Megan Beck and Barry Libert,
Those that want to stay relevant in their professions will need to focus on skills and capabilities that artificial intelligence has trouble replicating — understanding, motivating, and interacting with human beings.
As marketers, we sell products and services to human beings. There are things we feel and experience that a Cobot or any other AI just can’t. This makes it important to further develop our psychological understanding of people, especially on an emotional level. This will be needed in a time where every touch point is automated and controlled by cognitive intelligence. As I have always said, people like to talk to people.
Individuals with high emotional intelligence are considered to be more self-aware, understanding, and empathetic. Other benefits of increasing your EI include handling stressful situations better, sensitivity to individuals from different backgrounds, better team leadership, and sussing out feelings more accurately in a room of people. But one of the most important benefits is that it assists with decision making in difficult situations that involve emotions.
Creativity Skills
Can you imagine leaving a bot to come up with the next creative concept for your campaign? While bots can give invaluable insight and predictions into the behaviour of our audience based on historical data, the nuances involved in coming up with the right creative campaign for your audience is something only us humans can master based on the fact that we are social animals. Psychologist Dr. Glen Geher for Psychology Today suggests, “People who are rated as highly creative are rated as such by other people — thus, there is an inherent social aspect to creativity.”
Creativity in marketing is not just about adobe, writing, images, and copy. Creativity in marketing is about the experience, and any experience should get the consumer looking at your brand in a way that makes them feel valued and involved. This need for an experience will never die, no matter how far you look into the future. It’s intrinsic to our nature.
Human Skills
It sounds redundant but these are skills needed to make and sustain human connections. You might think we are all humans, so we should have these skills. But for some, the skills needed to build connections are lacking and need shaping and nurturing as a result of personality traits and other environmental factors.
If your company has a psychologist or performance coach, then you can work on these skills with them. If you’re in your final year or just starting university and need support, your university counsellor or lecturer should be able to help.
These skills are very important to advancement in your career as a marketer, as forging relationships with co-workers, clients and customers can increase the likelihood of your corporate climb in the coming age of the AI Economy.
Soft Skills
We all know what soft skills are. We all probably know that they are invaluable in the workplace, especially critical thinking and collaborating. The ability to look at situations pragmatically is one of our biggest differentiators with AI. Analysing the data and suggesting a course of action is one piece of the equation—but the other variable to the equation involves feeling out the situation. This is what sets us apart, and that’s why these are skills we need to work on and enhance to stay in the game.
A recent survey from Manpower Group found that employers struggle to find these skills in new employees:
Finding talent with the right skills mix is a challenge; employers say communication, problem-solving, organization, and leadership are also the hardest skills to find in candidates.
In the AI Economy, these skills will be like gold in a field full of data.
Presentation Skills
With AI doing more of the mundane data work in the future, marketers will need to master presentation skills. This refers to the presentation of yourself, your company, and your strategy. Public relations skills essentially. The ability to manage perceptions internally and externally to impart a good impression.
It will no longer be enough to just have the technical knowledge in your field—in the AI Economy you will need to have and develop skills that aid you in demonstrating and presenting this technical knowledge. Public relations courses are a great way to develop your overall presentation skills.
Learning Skills
Marketers today need to adopt the mentality of continuous learning throughout their professional and personal life. This will be a necessity in the future where new methods and technologies emerge that require training.
The Manpower Group survey mentioned above explains,
Employers can no longer rely on a spot market for talent. We need people with learn-ability — the desire and ability to develop in-demand skills to be employable for the long-term. Employ-ability today is less about what you already know and more about your capacity to learn.
This mode of thinking is destined to continue into the future as more concepts come to life and prove applicable to the marketing profession. What may be of significant importance—and play a difference in the future—is the concept of AI in human advancement. Futurist Dr. James Canton says, “Increasing mobility freedom, learning, refreshing cognition, personalized medicine, consumer genomics, synbio and genetic engineering all will become part of the human enhancement future.”
Digital Skills
I know you must be thinking: I’m sure I just read that the skills for the future are non-digital. So what’s up with this section? The idea is to strike some balance. The things that make us human are important for the future of work, but we cannot fail to mention the importance of digital skills. If you are reading this article you might take this statement for granted because you already have the necessary digital skills to perform your job, navigate your way to this article, and chat on Skype.
However, according to an EU study on digital skills, 15% of workplaces surveyed in the EU indicated the existence of a digital skills gap in their workforce. With technology increasing with rapid force, all marketing professionals need to have mastery over intermediate digital skills. These intermediate skills include the ability to:
- Use a word processor
- Create a spreadsheet
- Search for, collect, and process information using ICT
- Communicate through ICT using an email
- Communicate through ICT using social media and video calls
- Use software for design, calculation, or simulation
The study also suggests that in the future, 90% of jobs will require some digital skills.
We may feel that if AI takes over and performs all the digital tasks for us, then we don’t need to learn or further develop digital skills. But specific human skills like connection, understanding, and interaction will be mandatory in the future, and the platform we will use to exercise these skills is digital.
Conclusion
It’s these human capabilities that will become more and more prized over the next decade. Skills like persuasion, social understanding, and empathy are going to become differentiators as artificial intelligence and machine learning take over our other tasks. — Megan Beck and Barry Libert in “The Rise of AI Makes Emotional Intelligence More Important”
It’s true—don’t get left behind. AI is coming and we need to be ready for it. Whether you’re just starting in your career or a veteran, these skills will help insulate you against the coming of AI.
