In September, the people who build artificial intelligence stood before the UN Security Council and asked for oversight. The heads of several of the world’s largest AI firms told the council that managing the risks of their technology could not be left to them alone. The UK Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, said “we cannot ignore them. Because they are right.”
I found that moment striking. Here was an industry openly asking for someone to keep a hand on the wheel. Very few of us in marketing will ever sit in a room like that, but the question underneath it, about who stays in control, is one I see playing out in small businesses across the UK every week.
AI in marketing: speed without strategy
Marketing has taken to AI faster than almost any other part of business. The government’s AI Adoption Research found that among UK businesses using or planning to use AI, marketing sits joint top of the list of where they put it to work, at 72% alongside administration. A business owner with no marketing experience can now generate a month of social posts in an afternoon, then publish them in bursts whenever time allows, without a plan behind them or any real sense of what is landing. It looks like marketing. It is not.
Most business owners are doing their best with the time they have, and the speed AI offers is a real help. The trouble starts when the tool begins setting the direction instead of serving it. What comes out is content that sounds plausible piece by piece but does not add up to anything.
The industry’s own figures
The industry’s own figures bear this out. ISBA’s 2026 survey of UK advertisers found that 99% now engage with generative AI, yet only 14% report a significant impact on business results. Three quarters say efficiency is the main aim of their AI strategy, while those who prioritise effectiveness are twice as likely to see a significant impact. Doing more has become easy; deciding what is worth doing still takes someone who understands the business.
Consumers seem to have reached a similar conclusion. Research from Klaviyo and Datalily, surveying consumers in the UK and seven other countries, found that only 7% say visible AI-generated content makes them trust a brand more, while 31% say it makes them trust it less.
Human strategy first
None of this is an argument against AI. Used well, it is one of the most useful things to happen to our industry. What matters is the order of things: a human strategy first, built on a real understanding of the client’s market, with AI doing the heavy lifting underneath. That is where a marketer’s value sits now, in knowing a client well enough to notice when a campaign is drifting, and caring enough to stay accountable long after something has been published.
What I have learned over 20 years, working in-house, as a freelancer, as a franchisee and now as a franchisor, is that talented marketers are rarely short of ability. What wears them down is carrying every part of the business by themselves, with nobody to cover a gap or push back on an idea. Promising a client long-term accountability is hard when you are the only person holding it.
How Activ Marketing approached AI
AI has made that even clearer to me. At Activ Marketing, the marketing agency franchise I lead, we decided early on that handing franchisees a ChatGPT login would not be enough. Over the last 18 months we have built our own AI platform into the back office, trained on our strategy and our brand, to take on the non-billable work that eats into a marketer’s week. Proposals are a good example. The strategic thinking is still the franchisee’s own; the platform takes away the hours spent formatting and organising it into a clear, professional document. Every franchisee is trained to use it properly, so the technology works behind them while they stay at the front with their clients. Treating it as a strategic decision, rather than reacting to every new tool, has become one of the biggest drivers of our growth.
The structure that makes it work
For marketers, the more useful question is not whether AI will replace them, but what kind of structure they want around them while they lead it. Many do not realise franchising exists in their own industry, as a way to keep their client relationships and their independence with the systems, training and support of a network behind them. It is the route I took myself as a franchisee, long before I led the network, and it is why I believe structure matters more now than ever.
The people who build this technology are asking for humans to stay in charge. Marketing should take that just as seriously, because in the end the businesses that last will be the ones where a person, not a tool, is still steering.
Key takeaways
- AI leaders asking the UN to keep humans in control mirrors a question playing out in small businesses across the UK: who is actually steering the marketing strategy?
- ISBA’s 2026 survey found that 99% of UK advertisers now use generative AI, yet only 14% report a significant impact on business results – those who prioritise effectiveness over efficiency are twice as likely to see it.
- Only 7% of consumers say visible AI-generated content makes them trust a brand more, while 31% say it makes them trust it less – a signal that AI content without human strategy is actively damaging.
- At Activ Marketing, a proprietary AI platform handles non-billable work like proposal formatting, freeing franchisees to focus on strategy and client relationships rather than administration.
- The more useful question for marketers is not whether AI will replace them, but what kind of structure – whether a franchise network or another form – gives them the support to stay accountable and lead effectively.
