The resulting network moves in nonsensical circles, takes twice as long to traverse, and confuses anyone trying to navigate it. Right now, marketing organizations everywhere are doing the same with artificial intelligence.
We are under enormous pressure to adopt AI. We purchase tools, license co-pilots and train teams in rapid engineering. But in our rush to modernize, we often take our existing, complicated, approval-intensive, siled workflows – think of them as our corporate cow aisles – and simply add AI to them.
The result is that bad processes happen quickly. Applying AI to a workflow full of friction will create chaos faster than efficiency.
As I prepare for my upcoming MarTech Conference session on March 4 on rethinking marketing workflows, I want to offer a different approach. Before purchasing a license for another utility, check the path yourself.
Avoiding random AI acts
In my work helping organizations transition to AI-native enterprises, I see a lot of what I’ve been calling random AI acts. This happens when teams adopt tools individually. A copywriter uses ChatGPT to compose emails. A designer uses Midjourney for mockups. A data analyst uses a plugin to clean up spreadsheets.
At first glance, this seems like progress. But if you look closely at the way work flows through the system, not much has actually changed.
- The copywriter still has to email the draft to the manager.
- The manager leaves it in their inbox for another two days.
- The designer is still waiting for the approved copy before starting the layout.
- The ultimate asset remains stuck in a compliance review cycle.
We optimized the tasks (writing, designing) but ignored the system. We paved the cow path, but we still walk in circles.
To truly build a hyperadaptive organization (one that can sense, respond, and evolve in near real-time, using AI), we must stop treating AI as a tool for individuals and start treating it as a catalyst for systemic redesign.
In my upcoming book ‘Hyperadaptive’ I introduce the concept of the dual motor. This is the idea that you need to run two workflows at the same time:
- Process optimization: Identify and remove friction from your workflows.
- AI integration: Apply technology to the optimized steps.
You can’t do one without the other. If you optimize without AI, you miss out on exponential gains. If you integrate AI without optimization, you automate waste.
Dig deeper: Implementing AI seamlessly is a fast track to failure
Improve the flow together with AI
This is the practical four-step methodology we use in our applied AI workshops to improve workflow for we touch the tool.
Map the friction points
Gather your team in person or virtually and map out a specific marketing process, such as launching a campaign or creating assets. Don’t map out what should happen. Map out what actually happens.
Look specifically at organizational friction and loss of loyalty.
- Friction: Where does the process stop? (e.g. Waiting for regulatory approval, Waiting for data access, Manually formatting slides).
- Loss of Fidelity: Where is information distorted? (For example, the creative brief is passed three times and by the time it reaches the designer, the original strategy is lost).
AI thrives on clean data and clear signals. If your current process relies on hallway conversations and implicit approvals, AI will fail. You need to identify these friction points and ask yourself: Is this step necessary, or is this just the way we’ve always done it?
Dig deeper: It’s time for AI to join your workflows
Apply the AI automation inversion
Most leaders wonder, “What tasks can AI automate?” I want you to turn that question around. If machines were to take on the routine work, what unique human capabilities would we need to enhance?
When we worked with a marketing team on their newsletter process, they realized that their current workflow included five handoffs to four people. Even with AI tools, the process took four days due to holds – the time work sat in someone’s queue.
By reversing the problem, they realized they didn’t need a faster writer; they needed an automated workflow. They redesigned the process so that an AI agent could detect a new blog post, compose the newsletter snippet, generate the image, and automatically prepare it for review.
The human role shifted from writing and pasting to assessing and strategizing. The cycle time decreased from four days to one hour. That is the power of fixing the flow.
Go from augmentation to agents
Finally, determine the level of intervention.
- Augmentation uses AI as a tool (for example, help me write this subject line). This is good for individual tasks.
- Automation (agentic AI) allows AI to perform a workflow (e.g. when a lead comes in, scores it, researches the company, composes a personalized email, and adds it to my draft map).
The biggest productivity gains in 2026 will come from the switch from Augmentation to Agents. But agents need structure. They need clear rules. They require a paved road, not a dirt road.
Dig Deeper: How AI Agents Will Reshape
Don’t let busy work derail you
The irony is that we are often too busy to get our processes in order. We are drowning in the very manual work that we claim we want to automate. This is the AI time paradox. We are too busy pumping water to close the hole in the boat.
To break this cycle, you must be willing to quit. You need to make time to map the value stream. You have to be willing to look at a process you’ve been using for five years and say, this doesn’t make sense anymore.
When you take the time to solve the workflow first, AI is no longer just a tool to manage. It becomes the engine of a new way of working.
Join the conversation
On March 4, I will be joining Brianna Miller and Moni Oloyede at the MarTech Conference for the live panel “Say goodbye to busy work by rethinking marketing workflows.”
We go beyond theory and dig into the reality of:
- Which specific areas of marketing activities are most ripe for automation?
- How to deal with the messy middle of transition.
- How to build a workflow that supports innovation, not just execution.
Stop paving the cow path. It’s time to build a highway.
View the March 4 MarTech conference agenda and register here for free.
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Contributing authors are invited to create content for MarTech and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the martech community. Our contributors work under the supervision of the editors and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. MarTech is owned by Semrush. The contributor was not asked to make any direct or indirect mentions of it Semrush. The opinions they express are their own.
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