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Future-Proof Your Job: 6 New Marketing Career Paths
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In this I marketing podcast episode, Dan Sanchez and his brother Travis have a candid conversation about the future of the marketing profession, forecasting a significant shift starting around 2026 where AI agents begin to replace junior-level roles. They discuss the concept of "cross-tab work" as the current barrier protecting marketers, analyze how writers and developers are already feeling the heat, and outline six distinct career paths marketers can pursue to remain indispensable in an automated world.
My Favorite AI Tools
- Tella (AI screen recording app I record all my solo episodes with) - https://danchez.com/tella
- High Level (My all in one marketing platform) - https://danchez.com/highlevel
- Zencastr (Best AI podcast tool) - https://danchez.com/podtools
- n8n (my favorite AI automation tool) - https://danchez.com/n8n
Resources Mentioned
- ChatGPT - https://openai.com/
- Anthropic (Claude) - https://www.anthropic.com/
- Perplexity - https://www.perplexity.ai/
- Opus Clip - https://www.opus.pro/
- Suno AI - https://suno.com/
Timestamps
- 02:29 - Dan’s grim prediction: AI is coming for 20-30% of marketing jobs.
- 06:41 - How developers and writers are the "canaries in the coal mine."
- 11:58 - The difference between junior execution and senior strategy.
- 19:41 - "Cross-Tab Work": The one thing currently keeping marketers safe.
- 24:00 - Why 2026 is the year AI agents likely take over basic tasks.
- 40:25 - The 6 future career paths for surviving the AI shift.
- 55:51 - The "Small Business" counter-argument: Why humans are still needed.
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction and AI Forecast Discussion
00:00:05
Dan Sanchez
Welcome back to the AI-Driven Marketer.
00:00:05
travis
morning.
00:00:07
Dan Sanchez
I'm Dan Sanchez, and I'm joined by my brother, Travis Sanchez.
00:00:10
travis
good morning
00:00:12
Dan Sanchez
Normally, we cover the news and what's going on in AI, but we're all kind of expecting ChatGPT to drop some big updates next week, so I'm like, going to hold back. There's been updates. There's been things going on, but today I want to bring you a special episode. In fact, I haven't really prepped Travis on much of this, we're just going to let him react to this whole thing. Because I think enough time has passed. It's been three years since ChatGPT has dropped that I want to drop a forecast for marketers out there. And I've posted this on LinkedIn. I've let my friends grill this. So it's not completely unsubstantiated. I'm looking at the tea leaves here and trying to figure out what the heck is going to happen over the next couple of years when it comes to marketing marketing.
00:00:53
Dan Sanchez
roles and marketing jobs. And honestly, like my prediction is not looking good.
The Role of AI in Marketing: Predictions and Impacts
00:01:00
Dan Sanchez
So I want to give you guys a fair warning. I want to give you my possible, I've been thinking hard. i'm like, okay, what if, if this is the truth, if, or this is the prediction, what can we start doing about it? What will then take place out there so that we can all have like a fair warning. And if you're like, Dan, show me the data. I'm like, look, it's a prediction.
00:01:23
Dan Sanchez
If I had perfect data, then it wouldn't be a prediction. It would just be reality. You got to remember like the research reports, the big stuff, that only measures What's happened, which is why academia is always so far behind when it comes to this stuff.
00:01:39
Dan Sanchez
So I'm going to be here on a podcast doing what podcasters do. Come on. That's why you listen to podcasts. That's why you're not listening to some like academic journal out there somewhere with peer reviewed, perfect researched stuff.
00:01:51
Dan Sanchez
is because you want somebody who's reading all the stuff, has a deep expertise of the craft of marketing, and is looking around, talking to people, talking to peers, also doing the same thing, and coming up with their best like educated guess on what the future is going to be. So that's what this episode is. If you want this episode...
00:02:07
Dan Sanchez
like Here it is. If you don't like this episode, then you know you can go to the next one and we can dive into the things that are practically working now. But I think this is a something that I want to hear about. I want to hear people not only talk about you know the wave that's going to come in. Certainly, I'm not the only one talking about that. But in this episode, we're going dive into some practical solutions for that wave, or at least the best that I can figure out now. So let's dive into it.
00:02:34
Dan Sanchez
when I look at the future of AI and marketing, I don't see marketing jobs becoming more. I do see them becoming less. Obviously that has implications. Cause like if, what, what if that happens to all white collar work? You're like, dude, nobody knows. I don't have a solution for that one. Okay. Nobody does. And the solutions that I have seen out on the table of universal basic income, like it's, it's just laughably bad math. So yeah,
00:03:01
Dan Sanchez
What are we going to do? I do see that AI is coming from marketing jobs. How many of them? I don't know. i do think it could be as high as like 20 or 30%. And I think that would be on the conservative side. But here's my reasoning for it. Here's the evidence that I'm seeing already.
AI's Impact on Writing and Development Roles
00:03:19
Dan Sanchez
It's already happening. It's already happening. And it's it's happening and in things analogous. It's happening to your friends. If you just ask around, you could see it happening. It happened to writers first. All our copywriter friends.
00:03:34
Dan Sanchez
Like if you have if you have a lot of copywriter friends and you know because they're already feeling it because it's already happened to them.
00:03:39
travis
Yeah.
00:03:39
Dan Sanchez
It started happening almost as soon as ChatGPT came out. I know two companies personally, let' cry where i personally know the founders who used to hire and and and employ copywriters before that have all of zero now.
00:03:55
Dan Sanchez
Zero. One had a single copywriter and one had five copywriters.
00:04:00
Dan Sanchez
They both let go of the copywriters for other reasons, and then they just never replaced them. They never did. They didn't need to. AI was good enough to take it And you'd be like, well, AI can't write as good as humans.
00:04:14
Dan Sanchez
It doesn't matter because it's based on the opinion of the person doing the hiring. And if they say chat GPT is good enough or clot or whatever they're using, then it's good enough. And truth be told,
00:04:26
Dan Sanchez
Both of these founders are actually pretty good writers themselves. So they get to make good calls and they they they think sending their stuff into ChatGPT to exp the expedite, they just become the writers.
00:04:37
Dan Sanchez
Or they hand it off to another person in the company to do the writing, but AI is doing the writing now. They don't to outsource it to a writer. And I've talked to many copywriters and they say it's happening the same thing to them.
00:04:49
Dan Sanchez
Have you heard about any writer's draft that's happening to you
00:04:53
travis
I haven't heard about any writers that have been let go. I mean, I know how prevalent copywriting and articles are and and how much I've used it. But no, I haven't personally.
00:05:05
travis
But I don't doubt that they have been let go.
00:05:08
Dan Sanchez
painful in freelance writing too, unless you have a platform or unless I've seen some people, some writers get really smart and shift to AI writing, but essentially they're just essentially saying like, I can write more better for you. Let me manage your AI teams as a writer and I will curate them and make sure they don't sound like AI. This is how a lot of writers are doing it in freelance.
00:05:29
Dan Sanchez
And of course, some writers are thinking good enough and have their senior enough. They have enough relationships that people are still reaching out. So I'm not saying writers went away. I'm just saying easily 20, 30% of that in industry got hit of of copywriters and data.
00:05:44
travis
Okay.
00:05:45
Dan Sanchez
It's just kind of moron. It became hard to be a freelance copywriter or a full-time copywriter looking for jobs. Like how many job posts have you seen for full-time writer? They're out there.
00:05:56
Dan Sanchez
Sometimes everybody went up in arms when chat GPT or open AI was hiring a content writer director or something like that. And they were pairing them like a half million dollars or something crazy like that. Maybe it was a quarter million. And they're like, see, see.
00:06:11
Dan Sanchez
And I'm like, That doesn't mean it's not happening across a lot of small businesses or mid-sized businesses that employ writers.
00:06:16
travis
Thank you.
00:06:18
Dan Sanchez
so And we all know they've tried to get away with it, but you know some of their presentations have had really silly mistakes in them. So hence their hiring content marketer.
00:06:28
Dan Sanchez
So it's happening with them, but that's not the only one. It's beginning to happen to developers. They're on the beginning stages. They've been feeling it for maybe eight months now.
00:06:40
Dan Sanchez
they're on the beginning stages of feeling the same burn that have happened to writers. And it always starts with the junior level people and then kind of works its way up. The senior level people are pretty safe though, for the most part.
00:06:51
Dan Sanchez
And the two companies I'm thinking about for writers, they all they're all gone. But that's also kind of because the the CEOs of both those companies are actually pretty good writers.
00:07:02
Dan Sanchez
But it's happening to developers because AI can write code and the only place you need to write code is in one application, right? Most devs just have their, their code app and they just commit from there. Shoot. They even push it through their like stage processes from that place. Usually it's like, yep. Push it to get up. Okay. Push it to staging. Okay. Run it back. Like it's like a whole control panel. They're just, they like staying at their keyboard so they don't have to click around, you know?
00:07:31
Dan Sanchez
So it's happening to devs. AI is beginning to eat all the bottom jobs of that role because all the bottom development jobs are just AI now.
00:07:41
Dan Sanchez
And senior developers find they can go a lot farther, faster. And of course, a lot of people are trying to do it all with AI and that's that's a mistake and it writes a lot of bad code if you let it go unsupervised for too long, but it's happening.
00:07:54
Dan Sanchez
So what's protecting marketers Gosh, there's a lot of junior level marketers out there. And they're more like, let's be honest, most marketers are marketing managers, marketing coordinators, but they're really like glorified project managers who copy and paste marketing materials and have a little bit of a marketing vocabulary.
00:08:17
Dan Sanchez
What protects them?
00:08:19
Dan Sanchez
Want to take a guess?
00:08:23
travis
I mean, I was thinking of somebody my current job who hustles, gets work done, has great focus, really is a team player, easy to work with, but doesn't have – she uses ai but doesn't – she's not, like, really read up on it. So she's constantly asking me to do things for her using AI. Yeah.
00:08:47
travis
But I'm like, what what would make her desirable? It's the execution. Like she gets stuff done. She moves the needle from X to Y all the time, constantly. She is that administrator who just will take on any task and make sure it happens with excellence. So...
00:09:04
travis
ai hasn't reached that place of agency yet where you can give multi-layer tasks as simple as, can you just go work with that person on this project? And there's like, i already know you'll know the details of questions that will need to be asked. I don't even need to explain it to you because we work so closely. So I'm like, there is a level of agency and
00:09:27
travis
i guess individual... responsibility that AI is still not crossing that threshold. So I'm like, yeah, in terms of marketing,
00:09:36
travis
there's just multi-layer steps to almost every single thing. And we're not seeing that agency from, from AI happening quite yet. Right. But I'm like, even execs,
00:09:47
Dan Sanchez
But what is that agency? Like, what is that? What do you mean?
00:09:52
travis
Well, it's it's it's looking at the data, analyzing where someone is in their marketing plan and their marketing journey. taking that data and going, okay, here's our here's our plan for the next three months.
00:10:05
travis
Here's the 10% of that plan that we need to focus on heavily to make sure, because I think this is the lowest hanging fruit, execute that plan, track the data and see if it's working.
00:10:15
travis
But I'm like, AI is not multifaceted enough from that from you know being an agent to look across from the data to making the plan to executing the plan and then recalibrating the data again.
00:10:27
travis
Like that's not happening.
Junior vs. Senior Marketers: Strategic Differences
00:10:28
Dan Sanchez
Yep.
00:10:29
travis
yeah
00:10:29
Dan Sanchez
Yep. So most marketers, most marketers can't do that.
00:10:30
travis
And, and, and you and I both know.
00:10:34
travis
Yeah, but you, but, but also execs, execs.
00:10:34
Dan Sanchez
Right.
00:10:39
travis
We, okay. If you've read the book by Patrick Lencioni, I forget which one, it where he's like, executive should be executives because they execute the most.
00:10:43
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:10:49
travis
This was to the definition, right?
00:10:49
Dan Sanchez
Yes. Yeah.
00:10:51
travis
But we know that there's a lot of executives that don't want to execute the most and they just want to use their authority to hire people that do execute the most. Right?
00:10:59
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:11:00
travis
So they don't want to hire. They're not going fire people that are getting the freaking job done because they think AI is going to take those mark, those leader marketing goals.
00:11:07
Dan Sanchez
They can, they will, if they think AI can execute at the same level of quality as the as the person they've hired. So I think there's two things going on. One, most marketers can't actually assess a company, look at all the data, even know where to look, what questions to ask to pull out the right things and then begin to go execute the plan.
00:11:25
Dan Sanchez
Right. that's that's one That's one marketer that I think is actually pretty safe at the moment.
00:11:30
travis
Oh, really?
00:11:31
Dan Sanchez
But that's your senior level marketers. Your junior level marketers, what keeps them safe? They're the ones usually doing a bunch of the busy work at the bottom. And I think the one thing that keeps them safe
00:11:41
travis
Can you, okay. Can you give us a 30 second pitch on what a junior level marketer is to see if anyone who's listening falls into that category in terms of responsibility? Is this people that are just thinking about social posts, maybe the content in an email have a link to a an article that then has a link CTA to a donation page or to a product page.
00:12:03
travis
Like what, what is a junior level marketer thinking about?
00:12:07
Dan Sanchez
Gosh, I see it all the time. I see it all the time. But every marketer thinks they're strategic until you actually like go through the like the ringer a few times and you read all the books and you're like, oh, there's been a better way to deal with this all the time. Everybody thinks they can come up with a content plan.
00:12:24
Dan Sanchez
Every college student thinks they can come up with a content plan. Because it's easy to come up with, oh, okay, yeah, if I was going to start a social media channel for this company, let's go find out what they – like it's not a bad thing to just start and answering frequently asked questions or come up with fun things, especially if you're kind of from that industry-ish, right? If they're college students writing for college students, you're like, oh, yeah, let's put this in there. Let's put this in there. That part's the easy part.
00:12:50
Dan Sanchez
It's how do you come up with why they would want to do it. What differentiates it? You start going a few levels deep and it's really hard. Like, how do I convince someone to buy this thing that's essentially a commodity that my company sells and differentiate it from the competitor who does the same thing without lowering the price?
00:13:08
travis
Almost like story brand level. What's who's the enemy?
00:13:12
Dan Sanchez
that's The story brand is starting to get to it, but it's so much more than that.
00:13:12
travis
What?
00:13:14
Dan Sanchez
It's positioning, the offering, the packaging. It's all the strategic reasons why you would buy from somebody. It's the positioning. It's going to interviewing your customers and asking them very strategic questions so you can get an insight into why they're really buying it.
00:13:30
Dan Sanchez
Not why they say they're buying it, but why they're really buying it. Or what tweak they might be able to make if they could really want to buy it And they're just kind of buying it before because it was convenient. Maybe convenience is the thing. So there's a bunch of different things a strategic level senior marketer does that a junior junior marketer has no idea.
00:13:46
Dan Sanchez
A junior marketer understands the vocabulary of marketing, but they don't really know how to think through it quite. And I would say AI is actually even better at them than think at thinking through it strategically.
00:13:58
travis
And they wouldn't even understand as AI repeating it back to them what they're reading. Like, yeah, they they wouldn't they wouldn't they wouldn't have comprehension on on the higher level thinking because they just haven't walked long enough.
00:14:10
Dan Sanchez
like I met with someone, a marketer that was like better like that was much better than me a couple of years ago. And I thought I knew a lot. And I'd already even read this book on how to develop a persona, which is a strategic marketing function. I'm like, oh yeah, I've done personas.
00:14:27
Dan Sanchez
And she's like, well, have cool. Then can you run the process for us? I'm like, yeah. Do you want to have a brainstorming meeting? She's like, brainstorming meeting? No, you don't want have freaking brainstorming meeting. You go and interview a bunch of customers. That's what I was doing. and Now you need to do it.
00:14:40
Dan Sanchez
I'm like, oh, okay. Well, what questions are you asking? her She's like, it's in the book. Didn't you read the book? I'm like, yeah. She starts schooling me and walking me through the process. I'm like, oh,
00:14:52
Dan Sanchez
That's how you develop a persona. You ask them questions and then you take all their answers and you start f freaking color coding them to the right types of things that you're looking for.
00:14:54
travis
Great.
00:15:00
Dan Sanchez
And then eventually you quantify it all in the back and you take all that qualitative data, you quantify it, and the data starts to tell you what the personas are. And then maybe you come up with a creative name for it afterwards.
00:15:11
Dan Sanchez
But it's not a brainstorming meeting on what you think the personas are. There's a quality there's a like a highly valuable way you can approach it. And then you have to go and do it and then run through how hard it can be to like stick get everybody on the phone, ask them the questions.
00:15:25
travis
Right, right.
00:15:26
Dan Sanchez
It's all that experiential stuff that makes the difference.
00:15:26
travis
right
00:15:28
Dan Sanchez
Because even if I had remembered the book, there's a big difference between reading the book and remembering it and actually have done the process a few times and landed at something and seen that it works for yourself. She was at a different level of strategy strategy on that particular thing.
00:15:42
Dan Sanchez
And that's junior level marketers. They don't know, they haven't done any of that on across multiple fronts, value propositions, positioning, how to write a strategic landing page with great copywriting frameworks in order to capture attention and walk them through the buying stages of writing pages. they can't They can't do all those things. There's so many different like levels of depth when it comes to marketing strategy. So what do they do?
00:16:07
Dan Sanchez
Well, you know, they handle the newsletter.
00:16:11
Dan Sanchez
And they put out social posts, but it's usually trickling down from somewhere else. And whether it's strategic or not, they're the ones who just kind of coordinate it.
00:16:20
travis
do you Do you see people that are like social media managers are like entry level marketers?
00:16:28
Dan Sanchez
Most of the time. There's a big... Most social media managers are entry-level managers, for sure.
00:16:35
travis
You mean marketers?
00:16:35
Dan Sanchez
Now, the big... div Huh?
00:16:38
travis
Social media managers are entry level marketers.
00:16:41
Dan Sanchez
Almost always.
00:16:42
travis
Okay, you said social media managers are almost always managers. So I just wanted to...
00:16:46
Dan Sanchez
Sorry, yeah, they're almost and almost always entry-level marketers. The big difference, in my opinion, it's funny, as I started my career, my first one of my first marketing jobs was a social media manager. So I thought I got social media. No.
00:17:00
Dan Sanchez
I didn't understand social media for a much, much longer.
00:17:01
travis
Yeah. You were just posting and seeing what stuck. Yeah.
00:17:05
Dan Sanchez
Social media is actually really hard. There's a whole different, I don't even put them in the same category. I don't even put it as a career next step because it's so far removed, but there's social media manager and then there's being a creator.
00:17:21
Dan Sanchez
And there's so far removed that I don't, I don't even put them as a progression. You don't go from social media manager to creator. The only difference between the two is that one knows how to grow an audience.
AI's Current Limitations and Future Potential
00:17:31
Dan Sanchez
But the amount of things you need to learn in order to go from knowing kind of how to put something that looks professional and makes sense on social media to learning how to grow an audience is substantially different.
00:17:38
travis
Right. Right. Yeah, totally.
00:17:43
Dan Sanchez
but
00:17:49
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:17:55
travis
And that's where I'm saying AI is not quite even... Like I can't get AI... i mean, you can get it to post for you, but you still have to come up with the content. You can't just go... Hey, chat, run a content plan for me for the next month. Think about the visuals, the physical posts, the videos that need to be created, the the copy from based off my website, and then go ahead and create that calendar. Go ahead and create the media. Go ahead and post it for me. Comment and like everything that is happening or coming through so that there's conversation and community being built.
00:18:25
travis
And then send the link to the people that are really interested in the product. That's not that's not happening. And I don't think it's going to be happening for a while to a level that executives are going to go, yeah, that's the kind of stuff that we, that's, this is the quality that we can let go of the social media manager. We can let go of the marketer. So
00:18:42
Dan Sanchez
There's one thing that's missing.
00:18:42
travis
what
00:18:44
Dan Sanchez
And once AI can do this, social media managers are going to have a hard time.
00:18:48
travis
the Zapier of ai
00:18:51
Dan Sanchez
It's not the Zapier of AI necessarily because you don't need Zapier where it's going.
00:18:56
travis
or Zapier, whatever you say.
00:18:58
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. The thing that's protecting entry-level marketers right now is that it's what I call cross-tab work.
00:19:05
travis
Cross tab work, right. is that a Is there a different term for that? Because that's what I've been trying to talk about in terms of agency of just...
00:19:12
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, that's I was asking questions to see if you'd connect the dots. I was throwing out. I was throwing out questions. But cross-tab work, the ability to take information from one application and move it and do something with it, manipulate it and put it into another.
00:19:18
travis
I don't...
00:19:29
Dan Sanchez
it's
00:19:29
travis
Right.
00:19:29
Dan Sanchez
It's copying, pasting, clicking and thinking.
00:19:33
travis
Right.
00:19:34
Dan Sanchez
That's it. That's most of our jobs. That's pretty much all knowledge work is that thing.
00:19:36
travis
Right.
00:19:39
Dan Sanchez
is copying, pasting, clicking, and typing into your keyboard.
00:19:43
travis
We were saying the same thing, at just different terms.
00:19:45
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, a i can do it. And it can do it a lot better than it could a year ago. It came out a year ago. in fact, Anthropic launched this like beta super beta rough thing where it could like go in and like open up a virtual browser and go and like book hotels for you and stuff.
00:20:00
Dan Sanchez
It was rough. it was even It was beta. And you had to download this weird application to get it running. And then OpenAI launched their own called Operator in February of this year.
00:20:06
travis
gross.
00:20:11
Dan Sanchez
And it was only available to Pro users.
00:20:11
travis
Right? Right?
00:20:13
Dan Sanchez
and None of us had access to it, right? I remember I didn't even, it many was it it was still beta.
00:20:15
travis
Right?
00:20:17
Dan Sanchez
It wasn't even good. So even when I had Pro for a month, I didn't even use it. The deep research was so much more fascinating because that was workable. That they could do stuff. But then this summer, everybody got access to it and they made it like a combination of deep research and the operator. So now it can think and research and then kind of look, it can move around a screen.
00:20:38
Dan Sanchez
And then they launched their own browser. chat GPT did. In fact, Perplexity now has this feature too. fact, I think Perplexity had it first in their browser comment, an AI browser. And you could be like, hey, do the work. And then it takes over your browser for you and starts thinking. And it has access to all your past chats. It has access to whatever you had in the chat right now. So it has like information, but it can work across tabs, open up new tabs and go and execute things for you.
00:21:04
Dan Sanchez
That's the current state. It's gotten a lot better in one year. Is it the level that it's dependable and fast? No, it's still slow. It's still clunky and it still makes mistakes.
00:21:11
travis
Right.
00:21:12
Dan Sanchez
There's also some huge security vulnerabilities with it and prompt injection stuff.
00:21:15
travis
Yikes.
00:21:17
Dan Sanchez
But I imagine at the rate of change we're seeing sometime in 2026, it's going to start becoming decent.
00:21:27
travis
It's like, I know you, I know you like, I know you like Dave Ramsey.
00:21:27
Dan Sanchez
Not great, just decent.
00:21:31
travis
So I emptied your Roth IRA account and made sure to put that cash back in your you know bank account so you could pay your debt to your mortgage. And I put all of that money. You're like, wo
00:21:42
Dan Sanchez
Exactly. So that level of work for AI, that's the thing keeping marketers safe right now because you still can't, as smart as ChatGPT and Gemini are, like it can't execute past you putting information.
00:21:43
travis
Right.
00:21:56
Dan Sanchez
it like You even have to literally still put it in a doc unless you automated a process where it automatically puts it in a doc for you. But that has to be something that you do regularly. So that's that's happening. People are automating more.
00:22:07
Dan Sanchez
It's getting easier to automate processes. Yeah. But you can really only automate 20% of business processes. And it's a man, if you ever get to that level, you'll fricking be flying because that's a lot, but
00:22:15
travis
Right. and And how many people are doing that? How, how many people are doing that who use AI 0.01%. Okay.
00:22:24
Dan Sanchez
Exactly, because it's no good. It's not good right now. But once it's good and they make it easier and it's fast and reliable, then it will go up because it's so good at eliminating extra work.
00:22:35
travis
okay
00:22:35
Dan Sanchez
So imagine you don't have to delegate to a junior level employee, hey, this is the steps for the newsletter. You could just be like, oh, there's no automated process for this. Hey, ChatGPT, every time I click this button, just run through the process of taking this, send it to Gemini, you know,
00:22:51
Dan Sanchez
Put it out, look, double check to make sure the links are correct then put it in, double check, send it to yourself, double check, and then send it to me and then I'll give you the final word. And that's the process most junior level employees run through some kind of process like that, whether it's social media or project management or some kind of thing.
00:23:00
travis
Sure.
00:23:07
Dan Sanchez
This is what keeps them safe. This is going to start going away next year. This is my forecast. The thing that's happening to writers already happened, is still happening. The thing that's happened to developers happening now, go talk to any of them in the job market or have been in the job market recently.
00:23:21
travis
And you think this is going to happen 2026? in twenty twenty six
00:23:24
Dan Sanchez
I'm thinking this is going to start happening in 2026 because this is my prediction of where that technology going and how businesses work.
00:23:28
travis
You think they're...
00:23:32
Dan Sanchez
Businesses are always looking for the most efficient path and humans are not efficient.
00:23:33
travis
but Okay.
00:23:38
travis
By the end of 2026, cross-tab work will become so prolific.
00:23:42
Dan Sanchez
Will... No, I think it will start becoming good enough. Right now, AI is a fantastic writing writing tool, but it didn't start that way.
00:23:47
travis
For some roles.
00:23:52
Dan Sanchez
At first, it was kind of rough and it can only do short things.
00:23:54
travis
Yeah, and it was making mistakes and hallucinating, yeah.
00:23:56
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, yeah. And it was only reliable enough to kind of give you a Facebook ad copy. In the very beginning, that's kind of like the only thing it was good at, was coming up with headlines for Facebook ads.
00:24:03
travis
Maybe. Right. yeah
00:24:07
Dan Sanchez
And like, give it to me preachy, give it to me funny, you know? And it wasn't even that funny, but like it could give it to you in different tones.
00:24:10
travis
yeah
00:24:13
travis
right
00:24:13
Dan Sanchez
That was the first wave, but a lot of copywriters were doing that. So it's like, boom. So it happens in stages, it happens in degrees, but I think we start filling it next year. Now, I will say I've made predictions on the show and we still need to do a what did we predict last year and the year before and what's actually happened. Some of my predictions are year late because there's things I predicted two years ago that have totally happened this year and didn't happen the year I predicted it would come in. So I could be off, but I'm pretty sure this is an inevitable thing.
00:24:40
Dan Sanchez
Again, we're talking prediction land here. We're like looking at where everything's at, the signs of where it's happened before, and trying to think of when it's going to happen to marketing. And that's what I see.
00:24:52
travis
Here's what goes through my brain. And maybe this goes through some of the people that are listening.
00:24:56
travis
When that cross tab work happens,
00:25:01
travis
I'm always thinking, man, how easy is this thing to use? Do I have to have some level of development, even if it's not code, to create connections? I mean, it's like using Zapier.
00:25:12
travis
You have to, oh, man.
00:25:13
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, it's a freaking pain.
00:25:14
travis
Everyone's like, man, yeah, it integrates. Sure, you can say it integrates, but can you actually get that connection? to integrate So I'm thinking of when there is that crosstab work, how user-friendly is it? How can the common executive who has been in the role for 20 years, he's not being fired. Like, is he going to be able to learn this quickly without having that?
00:25:35
travis
and And I'm guessing by the end of 2026, it's not going to be friendly. It's not going to be something that, you know, you can learn just by,
00:25:44
Dan Sanchez
it will It actually is user-friendly already. That's not the hard part. The hard part is coming up with these systems in order to make sure that you clearly delegate.
00:25:53
travis
Sure.
00:25:56
Dan Sanchez
There's that. So there's there's kind of like a capturing system where it's like you have to actually know what it's capable of in order to clearly delegate and make sure that you you delegate what you want done.
00:26:07
Dan Sanchez
otherwise And then systems for verifying that the work was done.
00:26:10
travis
sure
00:26:11
Dan Sanchez
because it is it will go off and just start doing it. I mean, this is a true agent. This is something that can take a objective perspective And then think through the process that it needs to take. You don't even have to dictate the process. It's probably going to be, in the beginning, it's going to be way more reliable if you have a, hey, go and check the SOP, the standard operating procedure you do this, right? Every time you run this play, run this SOP, here's the step-by-step test. Those are going to be way better at first, but you already have to do that for junior level employees.
00:26:43
travis
Sure, but then if you have someone who knows.
00:26:43
Dan Sanchez
If you don't do that, then they're probably a plus junior. They're probably like junior level employees that were already like on the fast track to be managers if they don't need s SOPs of some kind.
00:26:53
travis
Let me ask you this. By the end of 2026, do you think AI will be good enough if, let's say, a CEO is like, hey, I want to post to Instagram. I want to have a carousel of this thought I had in the shower. Here it is. He he gives it you know a paragraph worth of sentences. Break this up into a carousel with different quotes on it.
00:27:11
Dan Sanchez
Hmm.
00:27:12
travis
You've already, you know, let's just pretend Chachubiti or whoever he uses already knows his design desires. Like he's already approved so many. He goes, I trust you. You know what I like.
00:27:23
travis
You know what I don't like.
00:27:24
Dan Sanchez
Yep.
00:27:25
travis
Go ahead and post it.
00:27:25
Dan Sanchez
Yep. Yep.
00:27:26
travis
Write a caption for it.
00:27:28
Dan Sanchez
You understand our company policies. You understand our culture.
00:27:30
travis
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:31
Dan Sanchez
You understand how we evaluate and i in a decision.
00:27:32
travis
Right.
00:27:34
travis
Our, our, our brand be,
00:27:36
Dan Sanchez
Like, yeah it's gone through all the onboarding an employee would go through.
00:27:39
travis
Yeah, our brand guide, you know what colors we use. Like, I just, you need to go, you go into it.
00:27:42
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. it It knows the stuff.
00:27:44
travis
You think that it'll be one one voice text away from getting all that done at the end of 2026?
00:27:44
Dan Sanchez
That's right.
00:27:48
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yeah. it will begin to feel more like that at 2026. This is obviously, this is good this is a multi-year.
00:27:54
travis
Hey, that's, no, I want a black or white answer. Yes or no? no
00:28:03
Dan Sanchez
I think its completion rate will not be 100% by the end of 2026.
00:28:08
travis
Okay.
00:28:08
Dan Sanchez
But I think its ability to do it reliably enough for the but more basic tasks more versus... Because you can you can be like, hey, make me a whole marketing strategy to correct the down slump they're in.
00:28:21
Dan Sanchez
Well, that's that's a lot of ambiguity in that. It's got to go figure out a lot.
00:28:25
travis
Oh, totally.
00:28:26
Dan Sanchez
That's a lot for it to figure out.
00:28:27
travis
Well, and what checks and balances, does it need to come back and actually prove the marketing strategy, strategic strategic plan for you to like, before it starts moving, you know,
00:28:35
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. But let's, I mean, if it's smaller stuff, because junior level employees weren't doing that, but what do you currently have junior levels employees, employees doing that work that work?
00:28:45
travis
what I just said, first task.
00:28:47
Dan Sanchez
Yes. It'll be reliable enough, not for the CEO, but for the marketing director to begin taking over those tasks. Yes. By end of 2026, that's what I'm predicting.
00:28:58
Dan Sanchez
It's things like your newsletter, which you can't automate well. take It's going to take a a level of autonomy to to be able to do it. I know because i've i've it's one of the things that I've been like stumped by that I can't automate well is the newsletter.
00:29:06
travis
Thanks.
00:29:11
Dan Sanchez
If you want a good newsletter, you can't automate it. You can automate lots of things. It's possible. You can go RSS to email. You can automatically send a news blast. But there's it's just complicated enough and there's enough copy paste and like multimedia and multiple things in it and things you have to think through. Even when I've taken this very episode and drafted a full AI process to turn it into the content, there's still like this middle gap of coming up with the content and getting it into the thing and sending go on high level.
00:29:37
Dan Sanchez
But I have a person helping me with it right now. And she would be a junior level marketer.
00:29:44
Dan Sanchez
AI will be able to do it, my prediction, by the end of next year.
00:29:48
travis
It's like you almost need chat or you need AI to be able to resonate with content, with written, with spoken, because what makes a great marketer is hearing something going, man, that was spicy, saucy, you know?
00:30:04
Dan Sanchez
But we're not talking about great marketers. We're talking about the ones that aren't very good, which is like, it's at least like 20% of marketers.
00:30:10
travis
Yeah, but even not great marketers can see a post and go, dang, that's engaging.
00:30:14
Dan Sanchez
Yes, but they don't know how to make it.
00:30:17
travis
No, they don't know how to make it, but I'm not even talking about making. We're talking about clipping clipping and posting because you know right now you have ai clip some of these you know video posts and it it does okay.
00:30:21
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:28
travis
But even a junior level marketer would be able to clip a better clip based off content they're hearing because a lot of people work in that discernment skill because they can they can't create it, but they can see what is good.
00:30:37
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:30:40
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, the the technology for it to actually pick banger clips is already there, but the software engineers who implement this AI in their systems haven't caught up to it yet.
00:30:54
Dan Sanchez
Just give Opus Clip, and like let's say AI, we publish not another AI API for these developers to go and use their AI tools like Opus Clip does.
00:31:01
travis
Okay.
00:31:03
Dan Sanchez
Like they have to outsource their AI to whoever they get it from, whether it's Gemini or ChatGPT or something. Let's say all the Frontier models stop where we're at. A year from now, Opus Clip will catch up to the point where their clips will be bangers, or at least the best possible thing like that a human editor would have been able to take right now.
00:31:21
Dan Sanchez
Opus Clip will be able to deliver whatever a human editor would have been able to splice out of what you said and the footage you got. It'll be able to do that, that a really good human editor would have been able to pick up and pull.
00:31:32
travis
I believe that. Sure.
00:31:33
Dan Sanchez
we just They just haven't fully tapped into the better stuff we have right now. And it'll be able to edit too, not just like take it, but find like, oh, if I put this and then take what they said over here and put that on the front and then clip this and put it on the back, ooh, that's the banger. Yeah, it could I'm pretty confident that AI would be able to do that already. We just haven't implemented it into the tool yet.
00:31:53
Dan Sanchez
So I think that's already a thing. And it's just this cross-browser work is too compute-intentive and it takes too long, which is why they're building out all these data centers right now.
00:32:02
travis
Sure. Well...
00:32:05
Dan Sanchez
The one thing that will slow this down is if the AI bubble pops soon and like all these data centers become hammered because there's so much demand for AI that they have to throttle back work like this.
00:32:16
Dan Sanchez
It'll slow it down, but it's still coming.
00:32:21
travis
i'm i'm I'm also thinking about just creators when it comes to video or design. And AI is getting there, but I think 2026 will have... because i don't know if you've seen the the clip of Will Smith when the first AI video of Will Smith eating spaghetti came out.
00:32:36
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:32:37
travis
Clearly it was Will Smith, but it looked like a Picasso of Will Smith moving around the page.
00:32:40
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:32:41
travis
And now they have Will Smith eating spaghetti and you're like, okay, the only thing missing is tightening up the sound. The sound is like 50%, 60%, maybe not there. the visual is like eighty five to ninety percent but still not quite there and i'm and And I'm thinking, in 2026, will AI be able to to replace the producer?
00:33:08
travis
Because every AI video is missing one thing. It's missing a producer. I have a friend who's a video editor. he does't he's not He's not just a good editor because he knows how to edit. He's also a producer. We call him a predator because he can edit and produce. But predator has a bad connotation, so we're not going to focus on
00:33:29
travis
Predator in terms of like, you know, alien versus predator kind of thing.
00:33:29
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:33:33
travis
But he he he does such great work because it goes into sound engineering and clipping right at the right time. He's producing a whole three minute clip. So it's like, oh, will AI become a creative genius and become a good producer? You know?
00:33:45
Dan Sanchez
Eventually. But it gets a little bit better every couple of months.
00:33:48
travis
Totally.
00:33:48
Dan Sanchez
It takes a step forward.
00:33:49
travis
The question is, is it going to happen in 2026? We know it's going to happen.
00:33:52
Dan Sanchez
i mean, it's already, it will, in 2026, it'll begin affecting video editors' jobs.
00:33:58
travis
I think so too.
00:34:00
Dan Sanchez
Because I'm a marketer who like unwillingly started getting into video. I mean, i I was excited to actually. well i I wasn't unwilling. I was excited to learn video.
00:34:12
Dan Sanchez
But I had to learn video because that became the game of marketing. market Video became a big part of marketing, so I had to learn it.
00:34:16
travis
Right. Right.
00:34:18
Dan Sanchez
But like if i can have if I, as a marketing director, can outsource more my video to AI and not a person, then I just will. I'll just do it myself.
00:34:25
travis
Totally. Totally.
00:34:25
Dan Sanchez
I'm also the kind of marketer that likes to get my hands dirty and I learn everything. Some won't.
00:34:29
travis
Right. Right.
00:34:30
Dan Sanchez
But let me talk a little bit about like how I think this thing will play out. Because a lot of people hear about the news headlines, and I think that confuses a lot of how this will actually go. Because they hear the news will say, oh, Microsoft laid off 2,000 employees, claims AI, blah, blah, blah.
00:34:43
travis
right right
00:34:44
Dan Sanchez
And you're like, okay, so like are we just going all lose our jobs to
Adapting to AI: Efficiency and Unemployment Concerns
00:34:47
Dan Sanchez
AI? No.
00:34:48
travis
right
00:34:48
Dan Sanchez
Yes and no. Yes, it's going to be because of AI. No, it's not going to be like these mass layoffs, and all of a sudden you're like, hey, AI took your job, Zia. This is what happens. Imagine you have a team of 10 marketers.
00:34:59
travis
Okay.
00:35:00
Dan Sanchez
Okay. And we got a mix of them. Some are channel specialists, some are generalists, and we have a director, different levels in there, but we have 10. Okay. And the leader says, like, you need to learn AI. It's it's now required. You have to incorporate AI.
00:35:14
Dan Sanchez
Of course we have 10. So like the Pareto principle says, some are going to do it. You know, two of them are going to crush it. And they're, they've like five X the amount of work they can do.
00:35:26
Dan Sanchez
A few at the very other end resist and they're creative and they're romantic about it. And they're like, heck no, techno, I'm boycotting this and I'm talking to HR and I'm not going to do this, whatever they do. And then some people in the middle kind like, yeah, they learned a thing or two. They're using it to help check their writing and stuff.
00:35:43
Dan Sanchez
And some do more, some do less. But the increased output, especially by the the two that crush it, they're doing 5X the amount of work that they used to.
00:35:52
Dan Sanchez
Well, now you have extra capacity. And what do businesses do when they have extra capacity? Well, if they're good businesses, then they just find more stuff for them to do. And luckily, marketing is kind of a black hole. There's always more to do.
00:36:04
Dan Sanchez
But then so-and-so leaves because you know they were offended by the AI thing. So they leave left and found a new job. Do we replace so-and-so? No. don't replace so-and-so.
00:36:14
Dan Sanchez
We have extra capacity. Why would we replace so-and-so?
00:36:16
travis
Right. Right.
00:36:16
Dan Sanchez
then we let other person go because they they were a bad fit culturally and causing problems.
00:36:16
travis
Right.
00:36:21
Dan Sanchez
Do we replace that person? No, we don't replace that person. Shoot, the company even grows during this time. We have less people than we did before, and we grew, but we have extra capacity.
00:36:33
Dan Sanchez
Now the bad, and that's that's the good company. That's the good company. And maybe one job becomes completely irrelevant. So they reskill that person, put them on a different part of the company or a different part of marketing. You know, those are the people, those are the companies that care about their people.
00:36:47
travis
Right.
00:36:47
Dan Sanchez
They're not letting them go because of AI. Most companies aren't that. And I keep hearing reports because, again, I talk enough about AI that people send me these reports. They're like, I just found out about a company in my town that let everybody go or let a bunch of people go and then you know posted record profits for the year. It's December, right?
00:37:06
Dan Sanchez
And a lot of it's because of the efficiencies of AI. Not all of it, but a lot of it.
00:37:11
Dan Sanchez
that's most A lot of companies think that way. And they're just like, oh, you're humans are just a bottom line endeavor. And they've been lying through their teeth about this whole family thing.
00:37:21
travis
Pizza party.
00:37:23
travis
My boss says love me.
00:37:23
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, that's why i that's why I'm like, company loyalty, I'm like, yes and no.
00:37:25
travis
and but You know what?
00:37:28
Dan Sanchez
Because the company is going to be loyal to itself. You need to be loyal to you and your family, right?
00:37:32
travis
People aren't loyal to companies. They're loyal to people. And if the people that the person is managing them is a good cover, protects them, coaches them, helps them grow, dream manager stuff,
00:37:41
Dan Sanchez
that's That's a good insight.
00:37:44
travis
It's not just a company. It has to be exactly that person. You know what I mean?
00:37:47
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yep. So that's how I see this panning out. It's going to happen slowly. It's going to happen. It won't. Of course, the big companies will make headlines. The bunch of but small companies will let people go and they won't make any headlines. But we'll just start to feel it.
00:38:02
Dan Sanchez
It'll be really hard to get a job. All of a sudden, a lot of you, a lot of your friends, if if not you, will be unemployed. And that's where we're going. And maybe it begins to happen in 2026. I'm not saying it's going to happen in 2026. I'm saying we begin our journey as marketers on this in 2026.
00:38:20
Dan Sanchez
That's what I'm saying. So there's a lot of people out there and we we're 40 minutes in and there's a lot of people out there saying these kinds of things. I'm not the only one saying them. A lot of people are saying this. This is like old news.
00:38:31
Dan Sanchez
But here's, because this is a show just for marketers, here's where I imagine you can go as a marketer. There's six different paths, options. Because I don't know how much marketing as a field is going to shrink. It's like, i I've seen estimates and anywhere between like a half million to over 1.2 million marketers have careers in marketing.
00:38:52
Dan Sanchez
It's also kind of fuzzy because a lot of marketers overlap with other weird things.
00:38:53
travis
Yeah. Yes.
00:38:55
Dan Sanchez
And it's like, how do you define that, right?
00:38:55
travis
Social media design. Yeah.
00:38:57
Dan Sanchez
So but that's a lot of jobs. To say we lose 20% of them is there's a lot of jobs lost. That's going to be rough. So what do we do?
00:39:08
Dan Sanchez
Here's where I imagine. These are the future roles of marketing that I see. and Again, I've had a bunch of people pick these apart already. It's probably not finished. I would probably add one, remove another, combine them. I don't know. But I'm going to share them to you and then we'll see what you think.
00:39:21
Dan Sanchez
But here's where I think the future is going. This is where you can aim your career. I think, here's let's get the obvious one out of the way. There's going to be a technical marketer. someone get out Someone has to run all those AI systems on a deeper level. you know Has to create the checks and balances to make sure AI doesn't run away with the company bank.
00:39:39
Dan Sanchez
And you're going to work really heavily with IT, but you're still going to be on the marketing function that understands a lot of marketing.
00:39:39
travis
Right. the way. Yep.
00:39:45
Dan Sanchez
This is like what we call marketing ops right now or marketing automation. like that's this This team's going to do well. Marketing ops, youre if you as long as you become AI-driven, if you're in marketing ops, you will be fine because you become a more critical part of this organization because everything's becoming so technology-driven.
00:40:06
Dan Sanchez
So pretty obvious.
00:40:08
travis
Yeah, obvious, yeah. OK.
00:40:09
Dan Sanchez
That's going to be a role. There's going to be the technical marketer. The next one is that, and I'm putting it in an order of like safety, like safety right here. The next one is what I'm calling the strategic leader.
00:40:22
Dan Sanchez
this is not This is a generalist, but with depth across multiple fields, and they're a leader. like They're good at working with people, and it's assumed that they're also good at working with AI.
00:40:33
Dan Sanchez
be Someone's got to have to be the glue between the people that are left and your AI team that leads it.
00:40:38
travis
Right. Because people need people. Yeah.
00:40:39
Dan Sanchez
And it's not going to be an AI. It's going to be a human for a long time.
00:40:43
travis
Yes. Oh, you just described me.
00:40:48
Dan Sanchez
You are safe. this is A lot of senior leaders, this is where most of you will go. A lot of you will become technical or a lot of you will become strategic leaders. This is why senior leaders have a lot. This is also a really, this might be number one. i don't I don't know. It's somewhere between the technical marketer and the strategic leader for the number one most safe because there's always going to need, in good size companies, there's always going to least be one human running all the marketing.
00:41:11
Dan Sanchez
And the yeah strategic leader is maybe not the most technical out there, but the AI will get intuitive enough that you can do a lot.
00:41:14
travis
Right. Right.
00:41:17
Dan Sanchez
So, but you need one one one adult human in the group kind of running the show that really understands marketing to a deep level and is working with AI and the other humans in order to deliver the thing and drive the ship.
00:41:30
Dan Sanchez
That's still going to be a thing. So most of you will land in that. I think a lot of people listening to this show also land into this technical marketer route because I just think that's obviously this one of the safest bets.
00:41:42
Dan Sanchez
The third one is where I think a lot of marketers are going to go. You're all going to launch off by yourself and go solopreneur, become a marketing coach and consultant, specialize in the thing, or you launch a totally different business endeavor.
Future of Marketing Roles: Solopreneurship and Creativity
00:41:57
Dan Sanchez
But you're already a pretty good marketer and AI is making it easier than ever to launch all the other facets of a business that you didn't know about before.
00:42:03
travis
Right. Right.
00:42:05
Dan Sanchez
you Don't know a lot about legal?
00:42:05
travis
Right.
00:42:06
Dan Sanchez
AI is a great legal consultant. Now that's just my opinion. Don't sue me. If a chat GPT gives you bad legal advice and you get in trouble.
00:42:12
travis
smell Legal advice. No, but it steers you in a path that you didn't even know where the path started. So you're like, oh, okay, now I know what to look for, what to read.
00:42:20
Dan Sanchez
That's a whole nother career field that's getting disrupted right now is law. That's another one. Entry level people getting crushed right now by AI. Even though, of course, there's hiccups and people are citing things that never existed with AI, blah, blah, blah.
00:42:32
Dan Sanchez
I'm like, yeah, AI is going to still continue to be used by lawyers.
00:42:35
travis
Bye.
00:42:35
Dan Sanchez
That's not going away. But like you have all these advisors now. And you and then, of course, if it's agentic and it can do stuff for you, it's like you could practically run a... You can be a consultant and run what was would have been a boutique agency at the time.
00:42:48
Dan Sanchez
You can, you can now. So you can take all your really specific domain, specific strategic marketing leadership and go and start stuff. I think a lot of marketers are going to take this route. It's kind of where I'm going, honestly. That's where I want to go. And entrepreneurial is sexy. Like like we won't want one the entrepreneurs. You want to own your own destiny. but It's scary too. So like there's there's hurdles with it. But I think a lot of marketers will exit or they'll get laid off and be like, i'm just going go solo.
00:43:11
travis
Yep. Right.
00:43:12
Dan Sanchez
I have enough contacts. I can rustle up some stuff. Boom. The next one I'm really excited about. I'm like, frick, yes, I could do this full time. Part of me is like, I'm going to build my own company so I can do this just for myself. But it's what I'm calling the experience director.
00:43:29
Dan Sanchez
It was actually the last one I added to this list because I knew it needed to be there. It needed to, that's like, where does the creative person go? It's going into this. Because imagine a day when AI can give you any content you want.
00:43:40
Dan Sanchez
If I want to learn about something, I don't have to go to someone's content marketing blog.
00:43:44
travis
Right.
00:43:44
travis
Right.
00:43:44
Dan Sanchez
Even if it's really good, ChatGPT can just serve it up to me la carte.
00:43:49
Dan Sanchez
So then when I'm starting my shopping experience, what am I going to do? Am I going to go to the website? The website's kind of probably going to be customized for me in a way that's different. Every website's going to look different. you're not even It's a hyper-personalization to the extremes.
00:44:03
Dan Sanchez
So you're going have to have someone incredibly creative and incredibly strategic and not just to build content, but to put parameters around AI so that when someone walks into the store, someone walks into the digital thing, they're experiencing it just for them.
00:44:18
travis
Right.
00:44:21
travis
Yeah, it's like real
00:44:23
Dan Sanchez
It's like a Disney Imagineer meets like an A.
00:44:26
travis
grocery store.
00:44:26
Dan Sanchez
It's like, it's like, it's put that level person in there and you're like engineering what an experience would look like with the music and the video. And is there a movie and they're in it? you Think of like VR in the future, but someone has to coordinate and direct the experience.
00:44:41
Dan Sanchez
They have to be the man behind the curtain, pulling the things with AI know behind the scenes.
00:44:45
travis
Yes.
00:44:45
Dan Sanchez
I think that'll be a job. I think someone's got to be the creative person behind the scene, working with AI to craft experiences.
00:44:52
travis
I mean, it already kind of is with set design. People use it.
00:44:55
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:44:55
travis
I mean, think about think about anthropology, entrance, create creation creation. Do you know anthropology?
00:45:02
Dan Sanchez
Oh, yeah, that this door. Yeah.
00:45:04
travis
Nobody did custom, like, artwork-themed, I mean, amazingness until Anthro showed up and it was like, whoa.
00:45:16
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:45:17
travis
But that's...
00:45:17
Dan Sanchez
Hotels do it right. Hotels spend five to $30,000 just creating a custom smell for their hotel chain.
00:45:19
travis
Oh, yeah. What's that?
00:45:24
travis
Wow.
00:45:26
Dan Sanchez
And the smell has to match. They come in, they match the decor and they're like, what's the experience? What's the vibe we want to get off here? And how can the smell like hook that?
00:45:31
travis
Right. Right.
00:45:34
Dan Sanchez
That's the kind of level stuff. Now we're, most of this is going to be, a lot of this is going to be digital. So we're not talking necessarily smells, but maybe, I don't know. Like who knows what the future has. There's stuff available now. And I didn't think it was going to be around in my lifetime, but,
00:45:45
travis
Oh, speaking of, I saw a billboard that was like of an octopus arm and it was like literally splashing and then water was flowing over
00:45:53
Dan Sanchez
dude that's next level
00:45:54
travis
so it was a digital screen reacting to physical water splashing down onto the ground where it was getting caught in the pool. I was like, there you go. That's what you're talking about.
00:46:02
Dan Sanchez
like you you've seen minority report right
00:46:05
travis
Yeah, of course.
00:46:05
Dan Sanchez
And for our our younger audience, just go look it up. If you're Gen Z listening me to this, you're like, wait, what? Yeah, go look it up. It's Tom Cruise, Minority Report.
00:46:13
travis
Oh. All
00:46:13
Dan Sanchez
They have these like interactive ads that like scan people, and then they like talk to them as they're walking by. Hey, John, wouldn't it be nice?
00:46:18
travis
right.
00:46:20
Dan Sanchez
you know it's It's actually just doing a first name insert. It could be way more. But imagine if you're a direct... like If every ad is an experience people can like easily like click away to and then get immersed in to an experience.
00:46:31
travis
dude, haven't you seen the social media video? This guy walking on the street and this guy's leaning against the building and he goes, Hey bro, you want to buy some of this chocolate? And the guy's like, no, I don't want to buy chocolate. and he walks around him and these kids go, Oh my gosh, you're so old.
00:46:45
travis
What an unk you totally fell for. and the guy's like, what are you talking about? He goes, that was AI. And he turns around. It was like a hologram. Like and he's like kind of going through a, you know,
00:46:52
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:46:57
travis
midlife crisis like oh my gosh I'm getting old and then some other guy walks by him and walks through the kids who are also a hologram and his brain is just like you and said oh dude I should have sent it to you it's amazing
00:47:10
Dan Sanchez
Said it to me.
00:47:10
travis
o
00:47:11
Dan Sanchez
i know I know for a lot right now, this kind of sounds like science fiction to some of you, but some of us are already starting to think that way. That's why I know it's going be a thing because I'm even crafting like, okay, if someone takes this assessment, what is the email sequence going to look like?
00:47:26
Dan Sanchez
And I'm building the email sequence with AI. So I'm literally engineering a prompt per email and I'm going to have to run through it a few times to make sure it's kind of within the parameters if I throw a weird crap at it.
00:47:32
travis
Right. Right.
00:47:37
Dan Sanchez
But I don't know what the emails are going to say. I don't because it's literally going to be customized based on a whole bunch of questions now, not just three, but like like I've done before, but like a whole bunch of things.
00:47:48
Dan Sanchez
I'm to let AI have some more autonomy with writing these emails that are coming after this assessment. Now I'm giving it a prompt to be like, hey, this what we need to hit in this email. Here's a general example. You're going to customize it with this.
00:47:59
Dan Sanchez
But I'm starting to craft an experience. I'm not just crafting a normal email. I am engineering an experience at a small level because it's just email.
00:48:04
travis
Right. huh. Right. Right.
00:48:09
Dan Sanchez
But it's going to be bigger. It's going to be with video. It's going to be with music. Music off like Suno hits now, man. It's like I don't have to generate like 24 tracks to find one track that hits. It's generally hitting first try now.
00:48:23
Dan Sanchez
And it might not be the exact feel I want, but it's not making mistakes hardly anymore, which means I'm like, okay, it's going to be, we're all going to be listening to our custom soundtracks and be like Hey, chat GPT, play music.
00:48:33
Dan Sanchez
I don't even have to specify. It already knows like, Oh, he's, he's had a down day. Let's get something that's like hits that, but then kind of brings them back up. you we Like, you don't just freaking know, just play music.
00:48:43
travis
Sure.
00:48:45
Dan Sanchez
Or it'll ask you, Dan, would you like some music right now? Yeah. Yeah. Like, I know it sounds like sci-fi, but we're moving fast. This is going to be a reality. Okay, so we talk about the experience director. That's number four. Let's move on to number five.
00:48:59
Dan Sanchez
This is probably one of the most strategic ones of all of them is probably going to be the most neglected one of all. But I swear this is going to be a thing because AI can't do this.
Relational Marketing and Industry Adaptation
00:49:08
Dan Sanchez
It's what I'm calling. I don't know what to call but it's the relational marketer.
00:49:13
Dan Sanchez
It's the one who has strategic relationships. And I'm not talking about sales. Okay.
00:49:18
travis
You're
00:49:18
Dan Sanchez
I'm not talking about relationships with clients. So it might be some of those. This might overlap a little bit with sales, but I'm talking about relationships with vendors, gatekeepers, news outlets, influencers, all those people.
00:49:21
travis
you're talking about a development development officer.
00:49:34
Dan Sanchez
Have you like, and I've met marketers who do this already, but they're few and far between, but man, I'm like, I want them on my team because they're freaking good at relating with people and building rapport and getting people to like them and then getting introduced into the company and finding weird partnerships, synergies, cross promotions.
00:49:44
travis
Right.
00:49:46
travis
Right. Right. Yep. Yep.
00:49:52
Dan Sanchez
They're like wheeling and dealing with all the major players. I'm like, dude, this is like one of the best marketing functions of all times. Hardly anybody does it. But I know it's a skill out there. And I know when AI starts to become more prominent, this human connection thing, I'm like, oh, but it'll never be able to do that the way a human can. So it's just different.
00:50:10
Dan Sanchez
And I think that'll be a very strategic play that very few will actually discover. But 10 years from now, they'll be like, dude, there's going to be like five companies that crushed it. And it's going to be because they have a strategic relationship person.
00:50:23
travis
Wow.
00:50:25
Dan Sanchez
It's going be a thing. I can already think. ken you Do you know anybody who plays that game?
00:50:29
travis
The people that play that game are CEOs. typically right now. They are the top, top, top person. Everyone wants to be friends with the top. I don't care if it's a CEO, a pastor, the guy who has the money, the guy who has the authority, the guy who has the the power, everyone wants to have relationship with them. It's like, we're all drawn to have a King in our life, those people. So if that can transition out of the CEOs, you know, world, then yeah, yeah it's hard to think that that it can, but
00:50:56
Dan Sanchez
There's another role and there's there's a few places where you find this role more often in an organization already. And again, they're they usually fall into one of two camps. They work on the sales side.
00:51:08
Dan Sanchez
Those people often, because of their skillset, they're like, they're just like, build relationships with clients, I'll give you money. But they have this skillset.
00:51:14
travis
Right. Sure.
00:51:17
Dan Sanchez
And it's honestly, it's really valuable, especially for enterprise level deals. But like there's something to be said for taking that same skill set and just applying it to the marketing side too.
00:51:28
travis
sure
00:51:28
Dan Sanchez
So they're either on the sales side. The other place I find these people in an organization right now is in PR.
00:51:34
Dan Sanchez
your public relations people. You have some strategic public relations people and they're really good at relationships. And they're using that to build relationships with influencers because influencers like get sent a ton of pitches all the time, but it's the ones who build relationships and maintain those relationships.
00:51:51
Dan Sanchez
You can just fire off a text to somebody
00:51:52
travis
Right. Right. It's true.
00:51:53
Dan Sanchez
And it's like when you hire them, you don't hire them, you hire them in all their relationships because they can step into a new company and be like, hey, influencer, have this new thing. You should check it out. And influencer be like, done, send it.
00:52:06
Dan Sanchez
Why? Because of the relationship. And all sudden you're swimming in earned media, which is the best kind of media of all.
00:52:13
Dan Sanchez
So I think that'll become a strategic thing. So that's number five. I said there were six. The sixth one is sad, but it's inevitable. A lot of marketers will exit marketing.
00:52:23
Dan Sanchez
I promise we're all kind of generally going to try to have to pick one of these five.
00:52:28
travis
Right. Right.
00:52:29
Dan Sanchez
And right now you kind of like start dabbling in it and seeing how it applies to whichever vertical, like wherever you're at, maybe you specialize in Facebook ads or whatever, uh, and paid media. Cool. Like, which one do you want to become?
00:52:42
Dan Sanchez
Like, I think we need to grow up into one of these things. And some of you are already in this. So it's like, yeah, just learn AI. Cool. But some people are going to have to exit and move on to a totally different career. I've seen it happen before. I remember watching it in 2008 when marketers exited and became, went to the health field.
00:53:00
Dan Sanchez
You know, became phlebotomists or whatever. You know phlebotomist is?
00:53:09
travis
I think so.
00:53:09
Dan Sanchez
It's one of my favorite jobs because it pays so high, but it only needs like two weeks of training. It's the person who draws blood. Yeah, that's phlebotomy.
00:53:21
Dan Sanchez
It's like two-week certificate, and then, of course, you have to land the job. That's that's hard too, but I think it pays like $45, $50 a year on two weeks of training.
00:53:33
travis
good.
00:53:34
Dan Sanchez
So that's that's my prediction on where we're going, why it's going there, and then six paths that I see moving forward.
00:53:40
travis
I like it. Sure. Okay.
00:53:45
Dan Sanchez
I will be talking about this throughout the year and giving when I see the warning signs, hopefully just not with confirmation bias, but like, obviously it'll be hard for me not to, because now I'm looking for ai development in this as a signal.
00:53:57
Dan Sanchez
But we all should be, because we all should be figuring out how to leverage it for ourselves and become that. Remember, I gave the story of the 10 and 10 employees and the two became better and they kept their jobs. That should be what we all want. We want to be the ones that keep our jobs. So we better learn AI.
00:54:13
travis
I want to paint maybe lastly, a hopeful picture is that there are millions of businesses that are not Amazon. They are not meta. It is not Google laying off anybody.
00:54:28
travis
There are still millions of businesses that need a new website that need to send emails that need to have a social media presence. Millions. And just because the top technology companies are firing their marketers doesn't mean there isn't work out there. You just have to probably do a a more difficult job of convincing the boomers who have these companies that aren't you know integrating technology that they still need to integrate a marketing strategy for their business. So sometimes these large companies get the headlines
00:55:06
travis
But that doesn't mean that the opportunity, I mean, even the organization i'm with now, they have, they're 10 years behind in their marketing strategy, if not more.
00:55:17
travis
And AI is not going to replace anybody at this point because they don't even know what they need. So I'm just, the
00:55:25
travis
I still think there's opportunity for the next 10 years, even if you are a junior marketer, you just might not be at Google.
00:55:31
Dan Sanchez
I'm just, no, I don't think it's just Google. I think it's a lot of companies. And I think we only begin to feel the pain, but it takes three, four years for it to see it itself all the way through. But I think we start feeling that pain 2026.
00:55:40
travis
I think it's 10 years.
00:55:43
Dan Sanchez
And again, that starting might be 2027.
00:55:45
travis
No, I think they feel the pain from headlines.
00:55:48
Dan Sanchez
Depends on how fast the tech can get developed.
00:55:50
travis
I agree.
00:55:52
Dan Sanchez
But that's where we're at. And I think that's the future. Do you think these six paths are solid though? Did I miss one?
00:55:57
travis
and thats i mean, it's good. It's a solid list.
00:56:00
Dan Sanchez
All right.
00:56:01
travis
Hide your jobs.
00:56:01
Dan Sanchez
That's where I'm Amy.
00:56:02
travis
Hide your marketing. Hang on to you.
00:56:07
travis
keep your head low
00:56:10
Dan Sanchez
Here we go.