#12 Structure + AI = The future of marketing

AI isn’t coming for your marketing job. But structure is.

Hey there,

Let’s talk about AI in marketing.

Depending on who you ask, AI is either:
❌ The beginning of the end (“let’s automate the entire department”)
or
❌ Completely overhyped (“AI will never replace human creativity”)

I get it.

Last November, I spoke at a major marketing conference in Vilnius. Only two speakers didn’t mention AI at all—and the general vibe in the audience?

“Oh god, stop it already.”

But here’s the thing: AI isn’t the problem.​
​Confusion is.

We’re in a strange in-between stage:

• Some marketers try to replace thinking with prompts
• Others reject the tools entirely

Neither approach will take you far.

Let’s get into it. 🚀

My take: The future of marketing is structure + AI

Here’s what I believe:

🧠 The future of marketing belongs to people who understand the structure behind every marketing deliverable—and use AI tools to execute their thinking.

That’s it. And it’s already happening.

Let’s break that down

Take any typical marketing task:

• Analyzing competitors​
• Phrasing value propositions​
• Defining product positioning​
• Crafting creative concepts

Each of these is nothing more than a series of specific steps. So is every other deliverable in marketing.

If you know the steps—if you understand the structure behind the deliverable—you can turn the entire process into a prompt.

And you’re not “letting AI do your work.”
👉 You’re using AI to execute your thinking.

Example: Structuring a product positioning prompt

What is positioning?

It’s choosing the problem you’ll solve for your audience and the angle you’ll use to attack it.

There are many frameworks out there, but here’s the one I like the most:

• Brand​
• Product​
• Target audience​
• Their problem​
• The reason to choose your product

It all boils down to one question:

👉 Why should [target audience] solve [their problem] using [brand’s] [product]?

Any marketer working with any product can cover this—no problem.

But they can also turn this into a series of prompts:

✅ Ask AI to describe your target audience and list unmet problems they face
✅ List your product features and ask AI to map them to specific benefits
✅ Provide AI with competitor names and sample content, and ask it to identify their positioning angles
✅ Mix and match different problems and benefits to find compelling combinations
✅ Phrase your offer by linking a core benefit to a relevant pain point

The more options you generate for each part, the more options for you to choose from.

The moment you see it as a structure, the process stops feeling abstract—and starts feeling doable.

Creativity isn’t immune either

A few years ago, the consensus was:

Reality check: creative work is already being replaced—not because it’s easy, but because there’s structure behind it too.

Want AI to help you generate creative concepts?

Give it:
• The audience description​
• The message (one adjective + one noun)
• A creative technique (e.g. substitutes and analogies, exaggeration, absurdity, humor) with detailed breakdown of specific steps in the process
• A few rules or constraints (e.g. explain the three phases a creative concept should guide the audience through)

When you supply the structure, the creative process becomes a prompt.

And iteration becomes fast, scalable, and shockingly effective.

Why am I talking about this?

Because I believe understanding creative structure is a competitive advantage.

It doesn’t matter whether you have a creative team or not.
It doesn’t matter whether you plan to use AI or not.

If you don’t understand the structure behind what you do, you’ll struggle.
If you do—you’ll fly.

The email version of my Creative Equations course is already doing well, and I’m now in the final stretch of building a much more detailed video version.

It’s going to give you:
✅ A clear understanding of how creative equations are structured
✅ Step-by-step frameworks behind different creative techniques
✅ Real examples with breakdowns and practice tasks
✅ And, in case you want to apply AI, specific prompts so you can practice each technique directly with AI

And remember:
👉 You’re not “letting AI do your work.” You’re using AI to execute your thinking.

Until next time,​

​Tomas

🎯 P.S. Don’t bring a knife to a marketing gunfight—bring structure. And maybe a well-aimed prompt or two. 🚀