The case of the marketing agency that wanted AI but needed automation
Working with a team at a marketing agency, I heard the following statement:
“I need AI to automate the repetitive things so I have more time to think about branding, generate ideas, and do innovative brainstorming.”
And, at first glance, that seems to make sense.
But there’s a conceptual error here.
AI should not be automatically associated with repetitive processes.
The main point is understanding the nature of the problem.
AI was made to deal with uncertainty, interpretation, and idea generation.
It was made to think.
That doesn’t mean AI can’t execute repetitive processes.
It can.
But it’s a better tool when the result is not unique, when it can vary, and still be considered correct.
Like in the example of a poem.
If you ask for 100 poems, you could get 100 different results.
And still have all of them be correct.
Now think about another type of problem:
“Calculate the size of a beam that will support a building.”
If you ask 100 different engineers, they all need to arrive at the same result.
This is a deterministic problem.
Here, you don’t want variation.
You want precision.
AI could do that calculation.
Just like a person could too.
But in this case, an automation tends to deliver a better result.
More reliable.
More predictable.
Back to the case.
The team was right in their objective.
They wanted to free up time to think.
But they were choosing the wrong tool.
The right thinking would be different.
Use automation to handle repetitive deterministic tasks.
And use AI to help with thinking, ideas, and brainstorming.
And this is where business systems thinking comes in.
An efficient system doesn’t just use people. It doesn’t just use automation. And it doesn’t just use AI.
It uses each resource for what it does best.
That’s what building an efficient system for your company means.
People are different.
They think. They create. They innovate.
And artificial intelligence does too.
Like people, artificial intelligence can generate something it has never seen before.
It can produce new answers.
AI can create a poem it was never taught.