When we talk about AI, most marketers picture disruption: new tools, shifting platforms, and a future that feels like it’s moving faster than we can plan for.
But the truth is simpler and scarier.

AI won’t replace marketers. Apathy will.

And the difference between those who thrive in the AI era and those who fade into the algorithmic background comes down to one thing: the details.

The Brown M&M Rule

In the 1980s, Van Halen was the first band to haul stadium-sized productions into small-town venues. Massive speakers, pyrotechnics, and drum risers the kind of setup that could literally crush someone if the stage wasn’t ready.

Buried deep in their contract was a strange clause: no brown M&Ms in the dressing room. Promoters thought it was rockstar ego. It wasn’t. It was a signal.

If the band’s manager walked into catering and saw brown M&Ms, he knew the promoter hadn’t read the technical rider, which meant no one had checked the stage safety specs. The brown M&Ms weren’t about ego or candy. They were a detail that protected the brand.

Marketers today are facing their own brown M&M moment.
The small things, schema markup, broken links, tone inconsistencies, AI hallucinations reveal whether you’re actually reading the rider for your own brand. Because in the age of intelligent systems, details are data. And data drives everything.

“If your details are wrong, your data will betray you.”

From Scent to Sentience

Earlier this year, Jimmy Fallon shared a story about being a guest on Diary of a CEO. When he arrived, the crew was playing his favorite Beatles song.
After the taping, they handed him a book of real-time photos from the podcast quotes and moments printed, bound, and delivered before he left the building.

It wasn’t a stunt. It was an obsession with details.

That level of personalization moved him to tears because it felt deeply human and that’s exactly the kind of connection AI can’t fake, but can help scale.
Smart marketers are using AI not to replace creativity, but to amplify craftsmanship.

Think about it: Ritz-Carlton has a signature scent. Disney pipes in aromas to guide guest behavior. Coffee shops bake sensory memory into every cup.

Those aren’t accidents, they’re emotional systems designed to make people feel something specific.

In the same way, your AI shouldn’t just chase accuracy it should replicate emotional precision.If Disney can engineer nostalgia through the smell of popcorn, you can engineer trust through tone, consistency, and care.

Because emotion, not efficiency, is what makes technology feel human.

AI Is Not New. It’s Normal.

When ChatGPT launched in late 2022, it didn’t introduce something new; it normalized something inevitable. AI isn’t replacing creativity it’s replacing friction.

Travelers once spent hours researching and reading to plan a trip, campaign, or story. Now, large language models collapse that friction into conversation.
The future of marketing won’t be about mastering prompts, it will be about mastering context.

“AI doesn’t erase the human story. It amplifies whether we’re telling a good one.”

The Death of Cross-Posting

A few weeks ago, The Coca-Cola Company dropped a global social post across Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Same image, same caption, same timing.
Eight million followers. Eleven comments.

That’s the cost of automation without intention.
Cross-posting is the modern version of leaving green M&Ms in the bowl it tells your audience you don’t care enough to craft something for them.

In 2026, volume won’t be a differentiator. Everyone can do volume.
The winners will create native, platform-specific experiences that feel handcrafted, even when AI helps assemble them.

The New Scorecard

Traffic and followers used to matter.
Now, they’re vanity metrics like counting confetti after the parade.

In 2026, marketers should measure meaning, not reach.
Try tracking these instead:
– Emotional engagement per 1,000 views — how many real responses, not likes, did you provoke?
– AI readability score — can your content be easily parsed, quoted, or summarized by large language models?
– Promise kept rate — how often did the experience deliver what your brand promised?

If AI changes how people discover, evaluate, and book, our job is to change how we define impact.

The Brown M&M Audit

Here’s your Monday morning challenge: run a Brown M&M Audit on your brand.
And remember, the problem was never the M&Ms. It was the other colors left behind.

When Van Halen’s team saw anything but brown in that candy dish, it wasn’t about ego. It was about attention.
If someone didn’t care enough to remove the other colors, what else hadn’t they checked? The rigging? The wiring? The stage itself?

The same is true for marketing.
Every stray color, every off-brand photo, every sloppy caption, every missing link is a signal.
It tells your audience (and the algorithm) that you didn’t read the rider. That the details don’t matter.

So ask yourself:

What details in our brand signal carelessness or inconsistency?

What signals are we feeding AI are they intentional, aligned, and on-brand?

Where are we choosing speed or convenience over craft and connection?

Because in the age of AI, it’s not about being flawless, it’s about being faithful.
Faithful to your story, your standards, and your audience.

The future of marketing won’t belong to the loudest brands, it’ll belong to the most attentive ones.
AI can automate process. It can’t automate pride.

So wherever you are, whatever tools you have start now.
Look closer. Remove the other colors.

And build something so detailed, so deliberate, that even a machine knows it was made by hand.