This article is based on Brian Kracik’s insightful talk at the Chicago Product Marketing Summit. PMA members can enjoy the complete recording here. 

Throughout my career, I’ve had the good fortune of being on the front lines of three major technology revolutions. 

The first was mobility – I was designing wireless networks whilst our subscriber base was doubling every six months. It was an intense and exciting period.

The second was a little thing called the Internet. We saw the dot-com boom and bust, navigating through all the cycles. 

And now, we’re living through the third revolution: AI.

We’re moving from the wow to the how and the now. The pace of change is incredible, and every day, more and more of our customers are not just exploring generative AI but putting it into production.

So today, I want to talk about the marketing models we’re using, how AI is impacting them, and how you can apply these insights to your work to drive efficiency. This isn’t about AI replacing us – it’s about how to use it as a tool. I’ll even show you some examples of why it’s not replacing us anytime soon!

So, come with me on a journey through the possibilities of AI.

Making sense of the AI revolution

We’ll start with a couple of key questions:

  1. Who’s using AI? 
  2. More importantly – are they using it effectively?

To start to answer this question, let’s take a step back and look at how AI has evolved in real-world applications. Think about the contact center experience over the years.

  1. The old days: You’d call in and speak to a live human.
  2. Interactive voice response systems: Suddenly, it was press 1 for this, press 2 for that.
  3. Chatbots: We all remember those early bots. The frustrating wait times. The vague, unhelpful responses.
  4. AI agents: Now, we’ve entered the next phase: multimodal AI. These systems process and respond quickly, creating a conversational experience that feels more human than ever.

And this isn’t just theoretical – 35% of customer service calls no longer go to a live agent because customers are getting their answers before they even need to escalate. That’s real business impact.

What does AI mean for marketers?

The biggest question is how will AI impact us as marketers?

The short answer? It will impact us across the entire marketing model. AI is already reshaping our workflows, from narrative creation to demand generation.

At Google Cloud, we’re using a whole host of AI models and tools, from Copilot to ChatGPT to Gemini. Just within Gemini, there’s a whole ecosystem – Gemini Pro, Gemini on Samsung devices, Gemini in Workspace, Notebook LM, Gen AI Studio, and more. You can even create custom AI models tailored to specific products.

The key is to find the right AI tool for the job – and keep experimenting. If you’re not experimenting, you’re not learning.

The next generation is already ahead

A lot of my inspiration comes from my kids – they’re in university, and they’re way ahead of the game.

Professors tell them not to use Gen AI. But let’s be real – students are using Gen AI to write their papers, then running those papers through another AI tool to make them look less AI-generated. I’m not joking. This is actually happening.

That means the next wave of marketers will enter the workforce more AI-savvy than many of us – unless we start practicing now. I, for one, am not about to let my son outpace me on this. It’s time to get serious.

The bottom line? AI isn’t something to fear – it’s something to master. The sooner we embrace it, the better equipped we’ll be to lead the future of marketing.

With that said, let’s dive into five ways you can start harnessing AI to take your product marketing to the next level.

1. Using AI to democratize data and speed up narrative development

AI is revolutionizing how we create and refine marketing narratives. It’s not just about automating tasks – it’s about accelerating strategic thinking and making data-driven storytelling accessible to everyone.

One of my team members, just two years out of college, is incredibly smart but has zero experience in telecom. However, I needed a narrative for AI-driven telecom – a strategic positioning document outlining how we’re helping the telecoms industry leverage AI.

So, what did we do? First, we loaded AI Studio with key resources – a 30-page strategy brief, a Gartner report, a bunch of customer success stories, and our sales presentations. 

With all this data in hand, AI Studio generated the first draft of our new narrative. Was it perfect? No, but it gave us a solid foundation to build on. That’s the power of AI – it doesn’t replace expertise, but it accelerates the process and makes complex knowledge more digestible.

2. Harnessing AI for content creation