Working in media, I spend a lot of time thinking about one question: how do we embrace new technology without losing the human element that makes people care in the first place? It’s a question that followed me through my time studying at Harvard Business School, where conversations around innovation often came back to the same idea: being first isn’t necessarily the goal. Using innovation strategically is.
That distinction feels especially important as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in marketing, media, and creative work.
Harvard Art Museums recently explored this exact tension when considering the use of generative AI in a marketing campaign. The concept was straightforward: use AI to animate a canonical work of art in a way that could capture attention and potentially connect with a younger, digitally native audience.
As someone who manages media, I immediately understand the appeal.
We are operating in an attention economy. Museums are no longer simply competing with other museums. Hotels aren’t only competing with other hotels. Brands aren’t just competing with their direct competitors.
We’re competing with TikTok, Netflix, influencers, algorithms, notifications, and an almost endless stream of content.
Sometimes innovation is necessary just to earn someone’s first three seconds of attention.
But attention and trust are not the same thing.
That’s where the conversation around AI becomes far more interesting.
Introducing emerging technology into an established brand raises questions that go well beyond whether a campaign will perform. Does the idea feel authentic to the organization? Does the technology enhance the story or become the story? How will existing customers, supporters, or donors respond? And could a short-term engagement win create a long-term brand problem?
These are questions every modern marketer should be asking.
I don’t believe the answer is to reject AI. I also don’t believe we should use it simply because we can.
AI is a tool.
Photography was once a new technology. So were Photoshop, digital cameras, social media, smartphones, and countless other innovations that fundamentally changed how creative work is made and distributed.
The technology itself rarely determines whether the work is good.
The thinking behind it does.
The brands that navigate AI successfully will be the ones that understand the difference between using technology to replace creativity and using it to expand what creativity can do.
For me, the most interesting applications of AI are the ones that help us explore ideas faster, remove unnecessary barriers, tell richer stories, or create something that otherwise might not have been possible—without removing the human perspective that gives the work meaning.
Because people don’t build meaningful relationships with technology.
They build relationships with ideas, stories, experiences, and other people.
The future of media probably won’t be entirely human or entirely artificial. It will exist somewhere in the intersection between the two.
And as marketers, our biggest challenge may not be learning how to use every new AI tool that appears.
It may be knowing when technology strengthens the story—and when the human story was already enough.
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