Back to the Futile: Episode 3: from slow campaigns to fast ecosystems

Posted by Mike O'Brien on September 10, 2025 in Ai in Marketing, Postcards from the digital frontier | Leave a comment

10 years (to 2035):

Reality today: AI is like a bright kid. The one heading to Cambridge at the age of six. Meanwhile, we are adults are moving from dashboards to decision engines. Welcoem to the hype-cycle hurt locker. Predictive models already guide budget allocation. Real-time optimisation is possible at campaign level.

Projection: By the mid-2030s, AI will no longer be an add-on – it will be the operating system of marketing itself.

• Tesco could build digital twins of households, blending shopping data with health, sustainability, and financial indicators.
• Unilever may run global AI brand studios capable of launching new product lines in days, with real-time cultural sensitivity checks.
• WPP could operate fully autonomous campaign systems that predict competitor moves and adjust strategies automatically.
• Publicis may turn CoreAI into a market-predicting supercomputer, forecasting trends and economic cycles before they surface.
• UK media platforms like Sky and BT could provide the backbone, analysing emotional responses to content and delivering hyper-optimised experiences at 5G edge nodes.

That’s the what.

The why is bigger still. This is where marketing transforms from persuasion to partnership. From short-term impact to long-term trust. From asking “how do we sell more?” to asking “how do we serve better?”

In ten years, AI will give us an ecosystem where everything connects  -brands, customers, communities, even governments. The test will be whether we build that ecosystem around profit, or around purpose.

Summary: Marketing shifts from campaigns and channels to continuous, AI-driven customer relationship ecosystems.