A few months ago, I was sitting with a group of founders when someone asked what has become one of the most common questions in business right now: “What’s your AI strategy?”
It wasn’t a surprising question. In fact, I probably hear some version of it every week. What struck me wasn’t the question itself, but the assumption sitting underneath it—that AI is the strategy.
The conversation moved quickly into tools, automations, content generation and productivity gains. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone had a platform they were testing. Everyone was trying to work out what the future might look like.
As I listened, I found myself thinking about how many times I’ve sat through this exact conversation before.
Twenty years ago it wasn’t AI. It was websites. Then it was Google. Then social media. Then mobile. Then influencer marketing. Then short-form video. Every few years, something arrives that promises to completely reshape the landscape, and to be fair, many of those things do change how businesses operate. What I’ve found fascinating, however, is how little they change the fundamentals.
After working with business owners for most of my adult life, I’ve become increasingly convinced that the biggest challenges in business are rarely the ones we talk about at conferences. Most businesses don’t struggle because they’re using the wrong software. They struggle because they haven’t clearly defined who they serve. They struggle because they’re inconsistent. They struggle because they’ve stopped listening to customers. They struggle because they’re trying to solve operational problems with marketing solutions.
That’s partly why I’ve become cautious whenever a new technology arrives and everyone starts treating it as the answer.
Tools accelerate. They don’t clarify.
And clarity has always been the real advantage.
The founders I see getting the best results today aren’t necessarily the most technical people in the room. More often than not, they’re the people who are remarkably clear on what matters. They understand their customers. They know where the business is headed. They understand what makes them different. Technology simply helps them execute faster than they could before.
What I do think is changing—and changing quickly—is the value of human perspective.
For years we’ve lived in a world where creating content was difficult. Businesses needed designers, writers, agencies and production teams. Today, almost anyone can generate a blog, a video, an email sequence or a social post in minutes. The barrier to creation has collapsed.
The obvious assumption is that this makes content more valuable.
I think it does the opposite.
When everybody can create, creation becomes a commodity. Perspective becomes the differentiator.
The people I follow online aren’t necessarily the most prolific. They’re the people whose thinking I find interesting. The founders who share observations. The operators who explain why they made a difficult decision. The entrepreneurs willing to talk about what worked, what didn’t and what surprised them along the way.
That’s why I believe founder-led brands are only going to become more important over the next few years. As AI-generated content becomes easier to produce, audiences will place a higher premium on genuine experience, original thinking and human judgement.
Maybe that’s the irony in all of this.
The future of marketing is undoubtedly being shaped by technology, but one of the things technology may end up doing is reminding us how much we still value people.
I don’t know exactly what search will look like in five years. I don’t know which platforms will dominate. I don’t know what new tools we’ll all be using.
What I do know is that every major shift I’ve witnessed has eventually rewarded the same kinds of businesses: the ones that understand people, earn trust, communicate clearly and keep showing up long after everyone else has become distracted by the next shiny thing.
The tools change.
People don’t change nearly as much as we think they do.
And if I was betting on what will matter most over the next three to five years, that’s probably where I’d place my money.