When Marketing Bots Do the Heavy Lifting

Marketing is changing rapidly. There seems to be a whole new kind of marketing technology in town — and it’s not just empowering marketers, it’s doing the work for them, or so a recent feature published by the Marketing Center suggests.

They launch campaigns, move budgets, change CRMs, publish content, and keep the engine running with almost no human guidance.

This seems effective, doesn’t it? But here’s the problem: If these agents and intermediaries handle all the tasks, who is left to do any of the thinking – to strategize, express opinions, and formulate judgments?

The article explicitly asks this question: “If everyone is automating different parts of their jobs, who will be left to do the tasks that cannot be automated?”

Many organizations and marketers are accustomed to working with basic AI tools: custom, chat-based GPTs for brainstorming, research, or copywriting.

There were actual claims, and humans had to follow them. The turn is now toward agents who act rather than wait.

It plugs into workflows, connects to CRM, ad platforms, analytics system, and basically manages full campaigns.

I’ll admit that part of me is thrilled about the potential, the prospect of freeing human marketers from needlessly repetitive tedious work to allow them to focus on larger creative and strategic challenges.

But another part of me is cautious because autonomy carries real risks. And when an AI agent posts that clip, makes a budget adjustment or identifies an issue to fight, the risk of something going off-brand and leaking sensitive data, or just going wrong in some way, increases dramatically. The article notes: “With independence comes risks.”

There is more than just internal risk here. A recent study commissioned by Capgemini published globally in July 2025 found that nearly 70% of marketing leaders believe autonomous or multi-agent AI can be transformative – but only a slim majority claim to have seen strong marketing effectiveness from its use.

So here’s my belief, based on what they’ve told me: The winners of this next phase won’t be those who automate the fastest.

Those who govern best will be the ones who build structures that protect brand integrity, ethical compliance, data security – and the human spark.

The work will be done mostly by machines; Thinking, tone, strategy – these are still human beings.

Some questions I would ask now if I were a marketing leader:

What aspects of our process should not be automated because they need a human touch or branding nuance?

How do we guide clients who manipulate live systems?

Is our workforce increasingly orchestrating AI workflows, rather than actually performing the actions themselves?

Do we have any kind of governance structure in place – permissions scheme, audit trails, brand review – before an agent can get direct access?

Because, let’s face it, delegating ‘doing’ to machines can be a great thing – but if we delegate ‘thinking’ without a plan in place, it’s dangerous terrain ahead.

Ultimately: Agents will handle most tasks, but humans will always have the voice, values, story, and creativity.

If we lose that, we lose what makes marketing human. And to be honest, that’s what I’m afraid we’ll automatically remove.