In my recent past I ran across this story about future advertising jobs and thought it interesting in light of the increasing presence of AI. The story is part of Ad Age’s Future of Advertising 2030 series exploring how marketing, media and creativity will evolve over the next five years. I thought it worth sharing. Credit Lindsay Rittenhouse, senior reporter, Ad Age.

As the advertising industry transforms, the skills needed to climb the ladder are as well. At the top, chief marketing officers may take on new duties as others in the C-suite are replaced by AI; at the entry level, young marketers need to develop targeted and differentiated skills to stand out against work that could be automated.

And the relationship between the highest and lowest workers may change as the need for apprentice-like models emerges to maintain the talent pipeline.

“Some agencies are now rethinking how junior roles are comprised…By 2030, they’re going to be looking for generalists, more client-facing junior employees, more strategists versus the intern-type tasks, the reporting and those technical kinds of jobs.”

Ad Age Insider podcast transcript

Parker Herren, host: Let’s dig in to today’s topic: inside the rapidly changing job market and how talent can plan ahead for their career paths. Jack, how will the CMO job look different in 2030?

The CMO of 2030

Jack Neff, editor-at-large: For CMOs, AI may actually help them to some extent in that AI is good at what a lot of CMOs aren’t good at: data, analytics, legal logistics, product science, things of that nature. And some folks believe that AI will lessen the role of other participants in the C-suite and increase the role of marketers.

The new entry level

Parker: Lindsay, I know you had perspective on the opposite end of the industry. How will entry-level jobs change by 2030?

Lindsay Rittenhouse, senior reporter:From my reporting, AI is going to drastically change the role of junior employees. So a lot of the tasks that they’re doing right now in media, there’s reporting and certain technical tasks—AI can take over, which threatens their jobs. But some agencies are now rethinking how junior roles are comprised.

They’re building junior roles. By 2030, they’re going to be looking for generalists, more client-facing junior employees, more strategists versus them doing the intern-type tasks, the reporting and those technical kinds of jobs.

The new AI workflow

Parker: AI seems to be a recurring theme. So let’s popcorn over to Garett Sloane, Ad Age’s chief technology reporter. Then we’ll go to senior agency reporter Brian Bonilla and media reporter Brandon Doerrer.

Garett Sloane, chief technology reporter:I’m sure we’re going to hear a lot of this throughout the package, this sort of angst about whether AI will be taking jobs, how much it will replace. And when you talk to the experts, it’s always, “AI will supplement your job,” and, “it’s going to just be an assistant,” and, “it’s going to make you do more work, not less; we’re going to need more workers, not fewer.” 

I think that may be a little optimistic. I think some of these AI agents being developed and other tools built on AI—these are going to replace a lot of work that is currently being done. You’re going to have to be working with AI and someone who’s knowledgeable about it to manage a lot more and do a lot more with less. So I think we have to be ready for that.

Brian: There’s a few different things here. Again, with AI, we’re seeing resumes being catered to AI-specific roles. And a lot of times, people are looking for people who understand how to prompt-engineer specific tasks. And we’re seeing [applications] that have specific tests for different AI functions. Talent needs to be thinking about getting prepared for that, just like how when I was growing up, I was prepared for certain questions. I think these are going to be very common. 

Beyond AI, we’re seeing a few different rises. Social media accounts, in general, are growing within agencies. I’m expecting a rise in social media expertise, same as strategists and consulting-type roles, especially as agencies like VaynerMedia, for example, they’re investing in this new product called Co-Lab, where the whole premise is basically having agency teams built within in-house teams at brands. And they believe that by 2030, this can make up 50% of their revenue. That is not a traditional advertising agency role. 

So how do you prepare for that? You need to start thinking more strategically. How are you building your consulting expertise just as much as your creative thinking expertise?

Brandon: I spoke with Matt Moorut, who is an analyst at Gartner, for my 2030 checklist story, and we talked a lot about how the unpredictability of the next five years makes it a lot harder to justify hiring specialists anymore, particularly in media. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to hire people who have a lot of hyper-expertise on one platform or a small handful of platforms. It seems like marketers are going to benefit from having a broad skill set and being generalists.

Parker: How can talent start preparing right now for that unpredictability?

Brandon: Something that Matt and I talked about is that it makes more sense to train the employees you have right now to be more generalists, give them a broader set of tools, especially in the media landscape. Get them familiar with all the different places that they can help a brand show up. These people already know the needs of a brand, of a company, and it’s going to be easier to train the people you already have than to hire new generalists and get them familiar with everything that a brand needs.

Parker: Who else has a tip for marketers? Jack?

Jack: [Marketers] should probably work on becoming adept at managing AI as part of their workforce essentially, and becoming conceivably the force within the C-suite that is better at working with AI than anybody else.

The emerging apprenticeship model

Parker: Okay, I’m seeing a hand. This is Creativity Editor Tim Nudd with a little nuance on this AI conversation.

Tim Nudd, creativity editor: One thing I think is interesting and important as agencies and brands get ready for this new structure is finding ways to maintain the excitement in the creative department. One interesting thing is that people worry about what’s called “cognitive atrophy” when it comes to AI, which is where if AI does a lot for you, then you start to think less yourself and maybe you lose skills. And I think that can be true in creativity as well, where if AI is coming up with most of your ideas and you’re just curating them, that could have a negative impact on people’s creativity. 

One thing that agencies can do to prepare is to think about how to guard against that. If you think back to the Renaissance, there was this apprentice model where the young folks learning a craft would have direct access to the master. Creative departments could end up being structured that way too, where juniors work more directly with senior creatives much earlier in their careers. That doesn’t happen a lot now. 

So, to guard against AI doing all the work and people not actually learning any skills, marketers and agencies would do well to really focus on human mentorship and really getting people to learn those skills, the fundamentals of creativity, fundamentals of advertising earlier in their careers, or really [give] access to the top folks.

What this may end up doing is hollowing out the middle management within creative agencies, where you really have the seniors who can work directly with the brands, and then you’ve got more juniors who are learning the trade directly from them. In some ways, it could end up being a throwback to the centuries-old model of learning from the master within advertising too.

Parker: Garrett, take us home with a last thought on how talent can prepare for the industry’s future job market.

Garett: They should be incorporating AI into their general daily work. You’re using ChatGPT every day—I’m sure people are already doing that. It’s already become part of the basic computing tools we’re using. 

A fun term to come out of my future of ad tech story is a topic known as “vibe targeting.” Vibe targeting is using AI in sort of a jazzy, freestyle way where you’re prompting it to come up with new ideas and for targeting in programmatic advertising. It’s about finding new audiences, just going with the flow to figure out the best way to come up with a target audience, feeding AI different pieces of data so you can uncover new trends maybe from social media or from something about your brand. And then having AI assist you with just good vibes.

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for selected short stories and personal insights on life and its detours.