If you’re managing a marketing team in 2025, there’s a good chance AI is already a part of your daily toolkit—or at least lurking around the edges of your to-do list like a helpful (yet slightly mysterious) assistant. From writing content to automating emails and optimising SEO, AI is already changing the game. If you’re trying to introduce AI into your marketing team, it's essential to do it with purpose, transparency, and, of course, a little bit of flair. You don’t want to just throw a bunch of tools at your team and hope for the best. You need a roadmap. So, here are some practical tips to help you lead the charge and make AI an integral (and valuable) part of your team’s delivery.
1. Get a Pulse Check: Who's Using AI, and How?
Before you start rolling out shiny new AI tools, it’s time to get a lay of the land. Set up a meeting with your team to find out who’s already playing around with AI, what tools they’re using, and most importantly what’s working (and what’s not). Are your content creators already flirting with ChatGPT or Jasper AI? Is your email marketing team using Personalize or Seventh Sense?
Knowing where your team stands is crucial. It gives you insights into existing knowledge and adoption levels, and sets the stage for deeper conversations about what could be improved or expanded. It’s like finding out what snacks your team secretly hoards in their desks.
2. Assess Knowledge & Anxiety Levels: Address the Emotional Rollercoaster
AI isn’t just about tech it’s about people, too. Some team members might be excited about the possibilities of AI, while others might feel more like a deer in headlights. (Hello, “what if AI takes my job?” anxiety.) As a leader, your role is to address these emotions head-on.
First, find out where everyone stands. Who’s keen for training? Who’s a bit nervous about the tech? Who’s ready to take it to the next level? Having a frank conversation about expectations and fears will help create a sense of transparency. No-one will lose their job to AI, but they may lose it to a person using AI.
3. Try It Out: Give Your Team a Hands-On Challenge
Now that you’ve got a good sense of where your team is at, it’s time to test some tools in the wild. Assign each team member just one AI tool to use for a week based on their area of expertise (free trial). It could be something like:
Email Marketing: Personalize or Seventh Sense
Content Marketing: Jasper AI, ChatGPT
Social Media: AI features in platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn, plus ChatGPT
SEO: Surfer, KeywordsAI
Analytics: Amplitude, Whatagraph
Encourage them to explore, experiment, and test the tools in real campaigns. Get them to share some of their discoveries with the team along the way. You never know someone might uncover a gem you didn't even know existed.
4. Review, Reflect, and Decide: Let’s Talk Results
After a week of AI exploration, it’s time for a check-in. Set a meeting to go over everyone’s findings: what worked, what didn’t. What benefits have they noticed? What challenges popped up? The goal is to evaluate which tools are worth the investment, which ones need more testing, and which might not be the right fit for your team. Check back in on those job worries and emotions.
Hard Talk: This is also the moment to discuss budget and costs. AI tools can get expensive, so it’s important to balance the potential return on investment (ROI) with your overall marketing budget. In other words, you don’t want to go all-in on a tool that ends up gathering dust in a virtual drawer or doesn't do anything better for a skilled team member.
5. Lock It In: Standardise the Tools for Your Team
Once you’ve identified the AI tools that work best for your team, it’s time to make them part of your standard operating procedures. Make sure the tools are set up under your business account—this way, it’s the company owning the software, not any individual employee. Keep everything branded and aligned with your marketing goals for smoother future use. Plus, you don’t want to risk someone leaving the company and taking all your precious data and prompts with them.
6. Be the Gatekeeper of Quality: Don’t Let AI Do All the Thinking
AI is a powerhouse, but it’s not magic. Just because a tool is delivering content, emails, or insights doesn’t mean it’s doing so perfectly. As a manager, it’s important to check the prompts your team is using and make sure they’re well-crafted and aligned with your brand and strategic goals and objectives. Slow down the delivery and double check.
Lazy or inexperienced prompting is a marketing concern. Push your team to create smart, strategic inputs that produce better results. If your team needs some extra training to level up their AI skills, get it for them. Senior managers should oversee the final quality, but marketing managers will be on the frontline ensuring that the data is getting IN and OUT of the AI tools adds value.
Stay Real: Ensure that the team still develop their overall marketing abilities in writing, content and strategy in the real world without AI. They won’t have AI in their next verbal interview for a promotion.
7. AI Is Here to Stay: Make It a Regular Agenda Item
AI shouldn’t just be a one-off experiment. To stay ahead of the game, make AI a permanent part of your marketing conversations. Add it as an agenda item in your weekly or monthly meetings. Review how the AI tools are performing in comparison to previous human-generated content and task . Are you saving time? Improving quality? Do your customers respond better and buy more? Are you getting a solid ROI? Has it enabled your team to do more? If you’re not seeing those benefits, it might be time to reevaluate.
Take an AI Break - Have a week without AI. Go back to team skills and see the impact. Avoid AI burnout as delivery gets faster and faster. This week allows everyone to slowdown and assess.
AI tools are not magic wands—they’re just supercharged versions of the tools we’ve always used. They save time, improve quality, and help us do more with less. But they need to be continually fine-tuned to make sure they align with your brand’s voice and goals. It easy to get carried away on a tidal wave that then goes off brand and away from business objectives.
8. Adoption Will Be a Journey, Not a Sprint
AI is very much on everyone’s radar, but everyone is also just at the start of the change that AI will bring. Adoption will be slowed by budget, understating and the value it provides for businesses. As marketing leaders, it’s our job to balance enthusiasm with caution, creativity with strategy, and innovation with quality and take everyone along together maintaining the team ethic. For marketing directors and managers, leading the introduction of AI means fostering an environment where experimentation and innovation can thrive while keeping quality and business top of mind.
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