The Decline of "AI-Powered" in Marketing

I opened Outlook to send a simple email. Instead, Microsoft greeted me with my “AI companion.” We didn’t ask for a companion. We didn’t agree to it. And I certainly don’t need a bot writing my emails. But now, thanks to forced bundling, I’m paying more for software I’ve used for decades, just so I can not use the AI features. This isn’t innovation. It’s forced adoption. Ted Gioia said it well: “This is how AI gets introduced to the marketplace—by force-feeding the public.” And he’s right. We're watching the largest tech platforms quietly embed AI into every corner of our digital lives—without consent, without opt-outs, and without delivering real value. Here’s what else we’re seeing: - New research shows that labeling a product as “AI-powered” actually reduces consumer trust and purchase intent. Especially for high-risk items like cars, insurance, or financial tools—when AI is mentioned, people hesitate. - A Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management study found that consumers prefer products described with generic terms like “advanced technology” over “AI-powered.” What people actually want is reliability, not artificial hype. - And only 8% of people say they’d pay for AI on its own. That’s not a business model. That’s a warning sign. Compare that to every major innovation in history—radio, TV, electricity, the internet. Consumers wanted those. They paid for them. They trusted them. AI? Not yet. And not like this. Even my LinkedIn Learning courses—practical, consistent performers—have seen engagement drop as the platform pivots to algorithm-driven visibility and surface-level trends. We’ve now tracked three separate “waves” of decline across LinkedIn. Each one more visible than the last. Posts from educators, creators, and industry experts throttled or hidden. Organic reach suppressed—sometimes within hours. And the creators who actually offer value? The ones helping, teaching, guiding? They’re being buried under the noise of AI summaries and trend-chasing content. Let’s be clear about something: If you’re building with your audience in mind—teaching, guiding, building trust—you’re going to be fine. If you’re chasing shortcuts, that’s what will get exposed first. Innovation should solve problems—not create distrust. We don’t need louder tech. We need more honest, useful marketing. #DigitalMarketing #AI #ConsumerTrust #MarketingEthics #ForcedAdoption #TechBacklash #MattBaileyVoice

Hot take: Customers don’t really care about your new AI feature. 🔥 We ran a controlled study with 767 people (featured in Kyle Poyar's Growth Unhinged Substack) to find out if "AI-powered" actually drives value. Turns out: it doesn't. The data shows that adding "AI" positioning to your homepage: ⛔️ Makes some users trust you LESS ⛔️ Doesn't justify higher pricing ⛔️ Can even lower performance expectations Wild, right? What to do instead:  💡 Focus on benefits, not AI jargon—Canva’s “Magic Design” makes design effortless, not “AI-powered.” 💡Make claims concrete—GitHub Copilot says developers code “55% faster.” 💡Leverage the Endowment Effect—consider a reverse trial for AI features. 💡Use “AI” wisely—tie it to a clear use case or user need. Product teams: this means rethinking how we position AI features. Lead with outcomes, not buzzwords. Full breakdown (including what actually works) in Growth Unhinged. Link in comments! 👇 What about you? Has your AI-powered feature driven conversion? Are you more or less likely to try a product if it’s  "AI-powered"? #ProductStrategy #AI #BehavioralScience

The pendulum on AI-first marketing may have swung too far. Outbound is tanking. SEO is saturated. LLMs are flooding the internet. So what’s left for growth? At SaaStr’s Be Better Turnaround, Guillaume "𝑮" Cabane from Hypergrowth Partners (ex-Segment, Drift) delivered a powerful update: AI alone isn’t cutting it anymore. The future is AI-augmented humans. Take Attention's flywheel with our friends at AirOps: we capture live sales convos, AI score and autotag them using Attention, then feed that into AirOps to generate SEO-ready content - verified by humans before publishing. Trust is the new growth currency. It’s why Klarna is bringing humans back to customer support. It’s why brand, community, and referrals - things AI can’t replicate - matter now more than ever. It’s not about less AI. It’s about smart AI - with humans in the loop.

If AI is *everywhere* now, does it have any value as a differentiator?  First off, I was curious if AI is really as ubiquitous in B2B as it seems. I did a quick analysis of 50 prominent non-AI-specific B2B brands – i.e. not looking at brands specifically focused on AI content generation. It was a semi-random sample but with an effort to represent major market categories – sales, marketing, project management, design, etc. For each site I looked at the placement and volume of mentions around AI on the brand’s homepage. The scoring was very simple: Headline = 10 points Subheadline = 5 points Every other mention = 1 point The results? AI really is just about everywhere. 78% of the brands speak to AI in some way on their homepage. Just under half – 42% – have pretty significant talk around AI as part of their offerings. And 14% are downright intense in their focus on AI. The top 3 scoring brands were: Intercom (30pts), Miro (24pts), Clari (22pts) Intercom mentions “AI” 6 times in their masthead alone. 😳 Zooming out – with that level of use across brands I think it’s fair to say that you’re not going to stand out because of an AI integration. It really has been reduced to table stakes value. You could make the argument that because it’s so common that it’s made the full journey from: Differentiator... ⏩ to value-add ⏩ to just noise. In other words by definition, if AI is now table stakes value, customers will assume it’s available – and beating them over the head with it becomes more of an annoyance than a benefit. My guess is that a lot of these All-In brands started building their ultra-heavy AI product and marketing updates 12+ months ago…back when AI hadn’t seeped into every crack available. Now that these efforts are finally being released the market has shifted. It’ll be interesting to see how this chart changes over the next 12 months. My guess is that we’ll see more and more movement to the Low Key side. A light reminder of AI here and there but mostly a focus on the *value* being provided instead of the *tech* that provides it. In the meantime, AI isn’t likely to set your brand apart from the competition. If you want to differentiate you gotta go back to basics. Focus on the unique value your brand delivers. Work on your positioning. Conduct research. Here to help if you need it. 🔥 #positioning #messaging #ai

Every marketer is bragging about being "AI-powered." But here's the problem: lots of your customers hate it. New research from Washington State University just showed something that may surprise you. When they split-tested identical products, one described as "AI-powered" and another as "new technology," the AI version consistently LOST. Here's why. When customers see "AI-powered," you hope they think about efficiency or innovation. Lots don't. They think job losses, privacy breaches, hallucinations, "pizza glue," and machines making decisions they don't understand. The divide gets worse with age and money. Among customers 65+, 32% said they'd be LESS likely to buy AI-labeled products. These are your most affluent buyers—the ones with actual disposable income. HBS legend Theodore Levitt nailed it: "People don't want a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole." Stop bragging about your tungsten carbide, diamond-enhanced AI bits. Give them faster holes, cleaner holes, more holes. If you ask people if they want to talk to an AI chatbot, they'll say no. Ask if they want instant, reliable problem resolution, they're all-in. The bottom line: Focus on benefits, not buzzwords. Until your customers feel they MUST have AI in their products, don't go out of your way to mention it—even if AI is making everything better behind the scenes. What's your experience? Are you seeing AI fatigue in your customer conversations, or are you still betting big on AI messaging? #CustomerPsychology #Marketing #AI #BehavioralEconomics