2025 has begun in earnest and people are sharing their reflection and prediction posts.

AI dominates the reflections. It’s everywhere. It’s changed/changing everything. We can’t ignore it. No, it’s not going away, but we’re not too sure where it’s headed.

Predictions center mostly on how AI is not and cannot be human. Humans and their humanity still have value. Being human is our secret sauce. Our competitive advantage. The thing that will keep us employable.

These arguments are closely followed by comment sections that rehash people’s bad experiences with AI. It hallucinates and can’t be trusted. My former client/current boss is using AI to “write” content even though they know it’s soulless and risky. AI undermines what I can charge for my skills.

Clearly, we’re collectively still processing the sting (dare I say trauma?) of generative AI’s effect on content marketing and creation.

But where do we go from here? How do we work our way out of this endless loop? What should we be focusing on instead?

I have some thoughts.

The Elephant In the Room: AI’s Evolution

By all popular accounts, generative AI has gotten really good really quickly.

How good?

I wish I could travel back to May 2023 to prompt ChatGPT to write some copy so that I could compare it with what it produces today.

Since I don’t have a time machine at my disposal I did the next best thing: I asked ChatGPT itself to generate two passages of copy based on the same prompt. The first version to be as if ChatGPT was “writing” in May 2023, back when it became generally available. The second as if it was “writing” today.

My prompt:

“Describe generative AI’s role in creating content for marketing a health product, include AI’s strengths and weaknesses.”

ChatGPT’s response for May 2023:

Generative AI aids health product marketing by automating content creation, producing blogs, and social posts efficiently. Strengths include speed and trend analysis. However, it struggles with accuracy in health topics and risks creating generic messaging. Human involvement is necessary to refine content and ensure credibility in sensitive healthcare-related marketing.

ChatGPT’s response for January 2025:

Generative AI creates tailored content for health product marketing, leveraging data to craft engaging, audience-specific materials. Its strengths include speed, scalability, and brand tone consistency. Weaknesses involve potential inaccuracies in health claims and a lack of nuanced understanding. Human oversight is critical to ensure compliance, trustworthiness, and ethical alignment with health standards.

This simulation gives me a sense of how AI’s abilities have evolved over the last 18 months or so. It has improved, some. But I wouldn’t say, at either point, what it produced couldn’t be improved by a human. (I also have my doubts about just how honest ChatGPT is about what it sees as its limitations looking back to 2023.)

The Human Element: What AI Can’t Replicate

When we draft marketing content we aim to communicate more than just the facts. We know that the real impact comes from making a connection with our audience – an emotional connection.

That’s not something AI can do. ChatGPT itself (when I asked it) admitted that it cannot truly create a human connection in the way that humans do.

It went on to explain its many limitations that get in the way.

ChatGPT doesn’t experience or understand emotions. It lacks a nuanced understanding of human experiences. Its lack of genuine intent or consciousness comes across as inauthentic. Some have called it soulless. And it struggles with improvising or being spontaneous.

At best, without lived experiences, emotional authenticity, and mutual understanding AI can only produce a simulation of the human connection.

The Human Element: What We Bring

Time and again the argument that AI cannot make a human connection is held up as the path for staying relevant in this new AI-infused world. But what does that look like?

What aspects of our humanity should we be demonstrating in our work?

Open up to your audience

Be genuine and authentic. Tell your authentic stories. Be vulnerable.

Many people say they love starting their day with a hot cup of coffee. But few share the how or why of that experience. Does the aroma take you back to the buzz of your college cafeteria and the excitement for new experiences? Or does holding your hands against your warm mug remind you of cozy conversations you had with your abuela?

Build intimate relationships with your audience by sharing your lived experiences.

Foster personal engagement

Go beyond surface-level demographics.

Honestly, how important is age, gender, or location? Especially when compared with worldview? It’s nice to be able to imagine what my reader looks like. But understanding what they value and hope for is a better guide to what resonates profoundly.

Explore psychographics.

Make ethical choices that matter

Choose consciously. Be transparent. Stand by your decisions, even when it’s difficult.

AI, and the debate about its use, makes navigating the moral maze around marketing and business more complex. People are making judgements and decisions based on whether and how you use AI. No matter where you come out there will be people who disagree and choose not to work with you or buy your product.

Accept that you won’t be for everybody. But that’s not something new.

The Next Big Thing: Connection Marketing

Content marketing needs to evolve into Connection Marketing.

It’s all been said before.

We need to do more than serve up information.

We need to truly get to know the people we are reaching out to – what are their hopes and dreams, and not just what are they looking for.

The only way they will let us in is if we do the same. We connect with humans by being human in our touchpoints and interactions.

Therein lies the rub for AI. Because that’s the thing AI is incapable of.