AI solutions are likely already part of your daily life. From content creation to predictive analytics, artificial intelligence is woven into the fabric of how we work and do marketing. I’m not here to explain how to use CustomGPTs or share the best prompts, as we’ve covered that in our guide post. Instead, I want to highlight emerging areas where AI is expanding beyond the obvious, and where marketers should pay attention next.
These are five of the most notable AI trends currently shaping the marketing landscape.
1. AI influencers – The new faces of engagement
The influencer economy has evolved. Beyond traditional Instagram creators, we’re now seeing the rise of hyperrealistic AI-generated influencers complete with voices, personalities, and brand deals. These digital figures, such as Aitana López and Lil Miquela, attract millions of followers and secure sponsorships from global brands.
For marketers, AI influencers are cost-efficient, always available, and infinitely adaptable. They can be localized for different markets, tailored to audience sentiment in real time, and even co-created with human influencers for hybrid campaigns. This movement opens the door to AI-driven brand storytelling at scale, although it also introduces new questions regarding authenticity, disclosure, and other issues.
We also created an AI influencer. See how it went >
2. AI-Powered shopping – You’re not the shopper
Platforms like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity are transforming digital shopping. Instead of browsing categories, users can now converse their way to a purchase: “Find me a laptop with strong battery life and good for travel.” The AI dynamically curates and refines results. That’s how I acquired my latest smartwatch from a previously unknown brand to me, which outperforms others in its price bracket.
Or take a step further and ask an agentic AI to do the shopping for you!
For marketers, this changes the game. Traditional SEO and paid campaigns will increasingly share space with conversational commerce optimization (CCO), which is the art of designing product data, brand tone, and dialogue flow for AI-mediated discovery.
Forward-thinking brands are also building AI shopping companions that integrate directly into e-commerce platforms, offering contextual upselling and post-purchase engagement. The line between chatbots and sales representatives is blurring rapidly.
3. AI wrappers – From concept to product in days
One of the most under-the-radar trends is the explosion of AI wrappers—custom applications built around existing AI models. Instead of developing proprietary models from scratch, companies now build branded solutions on top of APIs from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Mistral.
And you know why this is not promoted that much? Because people don’t want you to know you’re paying full price for something that one person wrapped together in a garage in one night, instead of spending years to develop it.
AI wrappers dramatically reduce time-to-market: what used to take months of development can now be launched in a week. For marketers, that means two things:
- As a buyer, you will need to evaluate whether you’re buying a wrapped product or not, as it can have future sustainability implications for your operations.
- As a creator, you can save time and development resources while producing a better end product, or at least testing the idea before investing hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars into it.
Wrappers aren’t just shortcuts; even if they may feel like it, they are a smart utilization of modern technology to fulfill a need with ease. You’re not paying for the development work anyway; you’re paying for the solution and its value.
4. Vibe coding – Building digital products without developers
For good or for bad, we’re moving toward a world where “if you can describe it, you can build it.”
“Vibe coding,” a term that has gained traction with tools like Lovable, Replit Ghostwriter, and Cursor, enables anyone to generate production-ready applications simply by prompting an AI. The system handles logic, design, and even deployment.
For marketers, this means faster MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) and POCs (Proofs of Concept). Imagine creating a microsite, analytics dashboard, or interactive landing page—all within hours, not weeks. The marketer’s role expands from briefing developers to co-creating live experiences directly with AI.
Though, to be fair, it’s beneficial to have a developer in the loop when you’re diving deeper than the MVP or POC level, as issues such as scalability, security, and code efficiency come into question. Quality assurance and understanding the output remain valuable to avoid AI-generated content that lacks quality.
5. Advanced digital likeness – Scaling human presence
Today’s advanced digital likeness technology can recreate not just a person’s appearance but their voice, tone, and even reasoning style.
For brands, this unlocks two significant opportunities:
- Personalized communication at scale: Imagine your CEO “personally” delivering a video message to every prospect or an influential person speaking to people at scale as an AI.
- Evergreen brand ambassadors: Influencers, trainers, or spokespeople who can continue representing your brand indefinitely without scheduling conflicts or creative fatigue.
And the list continues to whichever use cases are the most appropriate for you.
Why you should care as a marketer
These five movements are not theoretical; they’re here, growing rapidly, and reshaping marketing ecosystems. Or the whole business ecosystem. Whether you’re building campaigns, customer journeys, or digital products, AI will increasingly be the invisible infrastructure beneath it all.
To stay ahead, marketers need to:
- Experiment early with new AI-powered formats.
- Develop internal guidelines for the ethical and transparent use of resources.
- Partner with tech-savvy marketing teams (or fractional CMOs) who can integrate these tools into strategy and operations.
We’re in the middle of an AI wave that rewards curiosity and penalizes hesitation. The question isn’t whether AI will reshape marketing, but it’s how fast you’ll adapt.