What you need to know this week in AI + Marketing in 15 seconds:

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🔵 TOP AI + MARKETING NEWS/GUIDES

Layoffs expected as marketers face pressure over AI savings, survey finds
Wall Street Journal | ~4 minutes
A new survey shows marketing teams under growing pressure to justify AI investments through cost savings, with layoffs increasingly framed as efficiency wins. Expectations are rising faster than real workflow change.

Why AI might create more marketing jobs, not fewer
PPC Land | ~3 minutes
And here is a totally opposite take. 🙂 This article outlines that AI is automating tasks, but also creating demand for new roles around orchestration, QA, strategy, and judgment. The work is shifting, not disappearing. Fewer busywork roles, more thinking roles.

Ahrefs tested AI misinformation — and proved something else
Search Engine Journal | ~4 minutes
Ahrefs ran an AI misinformation test and found the real issue wasn’t hallucinations, but how quickly unverified outputs spread when humans don’t intervene. My take: AI errors scale fastest when no one’s checking.

The AI search revolution: A commerce brand’s guide to discovery
Modern Retail | ~6 minutes
A look at how AI-driven search is changing product discovery, moving away from keyword tricks and toward structured data, content quality, and brand signals. My take: Being findable is replacing being optimized.

2026 will be the year marketers rediscover the basics
Fast Company | ~4 minutes
After years of chasing tools, this argues marketers will return to fundamentals: positioning, creative, and customer understanding. My take: AI didn’t break marketing - it exposed weak foundations.

AI ads are flopping and sparking backlash at major brands
Business Insider | ~5 minutes
High-profile AI ads from brands like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s sparked confusion and backlash, often due to tone and context rather than tech quality. My take: Taste still matters more than tools…printing this on a shirt for my 2025 learning!

Slowing down becomes marketers’ secret weapon in the AI speed race
PPC Land | ~3 minutes
As AI speeds up execution, some teams are intentionally slowing decisions to protect quality and brand coherence. My take: Slower thinking upstream saves time everywhere else.

Luxury fashion’s AI marketing experiments hit a turning point
Glossy | ~4 minutes
Luxury brands are pulling back from flashy AI use and focusing on subtle, behind-the-scenes applications that protect brand equity. My take: Restraint is the strategy.

AI tools are changing how B2B websites are designed
DesignRush | ~3 minutes
AI is speeding up personalization, testing, and iteration in B2B web design, while human judgment still drives taste and structure. My take: AI builds faster; humans decide what’s good.

Why scalable AI blog content matters for growing brands
Nerdbot | ~4 minutes
An argument for using AI to scale content responsibly, focusing on consistency over viral hits. My take: Scale only works if the foundation is solid.

🟣 LINKEDIN POSTS YOU SHOULDN’T MISS

Maddie Raedts – “What’s next for influencer marketing in 2026”
Maddie predicts a shift toward fewer, more intentional creator partnerships, prioritizing real human perspective and community over follower counts. The future is creator-led thinking and campaigns people actually remember.

María J. Morales – “The biggest marketing trend of 2026”
María says we’ve hit peak content, and AI only made attention harder to earn. In 2026, brands will stop chasing algorithms and invest in real-world moments, experiences you can’t scroll past, that the internet then amplifies.

Alexandra Manderstam – “Brand & content predictions for 2026”
Alexandra forecasts every brand becoming a media company, with online channels for reach and offline moments for connection. She also predicts a rise in long-form content, more individualistic aesthetics, and a move away from traditional lifestyle influencers toward expertise-led voices.

Alex Greenshpun – “From AI tourists to system builders”
Alex observes that marketers are moving past experimenting with AI tools and toward building real systems and workflows. The focus is no longer which model you use, but how tools connect into durable infrastructure.

David Manela – “Great CMOs act like GMs”
David argues the strongest CMOs think like general managers, speaking in unit economics, payback periods, and margin impact. They own growth systems end-to-end and align tightly with finance, product, and sales.

Lenny Rachitsky – “What 1,750 tech workers say about AI productivity”
Lenny shares survey data showing most workers say AI improves work quality and saves time, with founders seeing the biggest gains. Engineers want help with reviews and documentation, while agentic tools are still early.

🟡 LATEST AI MARKETING TOOLS

⚫️ COOL AI + MARKETING JOBS

JPMorganChase - Prompt Engineer (Brand) 

Pinecone - Growth Marketing Lead

Navan - Product Marketing Manager, AI Solutions 

Stripe - Product Marketing Manager, AI Industry  

Huge - Associate Director, AI Content Strategy 

Basis - Narratives & Communications Lead

🟢 EVENT TO CHECK OUT

Las Vegas, Jan 6-9
The biggest brands show off what they've been working on - AI, health tech, entertainment. Great for understanding big shifts that will shape customer behavior. Learn more