Marketing teams must own AI or risk “workslop” takeover

AI is now the primary force behind rising martech budgets, yet the actual adoption of artificial intelligence tells a very different story. According to recent research on martech performance, only 49% of martech tools are actively being used, and just 15% of organizations qualify as high performers,meaning they meet strategic goals and demonstrate a positive ROI.

This gap creates a troubling ripple effect across marketing teams, a phenomenon Greg Kihlstrom of MarTech calls “workslop.” It describes the flood of low-quality, generic content that emerges when teams are pressured to use AI to churn out higher volumes of work but with less time devoted to quality control and critical thinking. The belief that AI will serve as a silver bullet for every marketing challenge has fostered operating conditions that impose unrealistic performance pressures, ultimately flooding channels with mediocrity instead of boosting genuine productivity.

A significant part of the issue is that leadership often fails to define clear guidelines for how AI should be used or what success looks like. Marketing departments must take the initiative and own AI adoption themselves.

Who owns AI adoption?

When the C-suite does not take ownership of AI adoption, they are not held accountable for its outcomes. This leads to widespread confusion over who is responsible for what. Even when marketers receive a clear executive mandate, they still need to lead decisions about how AI functions within their departments,though they face considerable obstacles.

Determining who is responsible for AI and its results often falls outside the marketing department’s control. Questions about security and access may be handled by IT, while productivity and tool selection might belong to an operations team,all without marketing’s input. Moreover, marketing departments are frequently just consumers of tools and programs, not their designers. When a platform fails to do what’s needed, marketers often cannot fix it on their own.

Still, marketing can guide the use and implementation of AI by becoming more involved in decision-making early in the adoption process.

What owning AI requires

Adopt a big-picture mindset when approaching AI. Treat it as a transformative tool that can unlock new products, customer relationships, and entirely new categories of work. Here is how marketers can own AI adoption in their companies.

Run an AI usage audit. Create an inventory of how AI is currently being used across your marketing team. Document who uses it, on which workflows, with what data, and under what budget. This gives you a clear picture of where your department stands before scaling up.

Write a one-page marketing AI charter. This mission statement provides a blueprint for using AI. It gives marketers a solid plan to bring to the executive table whenever AI is discussed or planned.

Draw clear boundaries. Establish a clear handoff line within your organization. State which decisions marketing is responsible for, as well as those belonging to IT, legal, procurement, and other departments. Ambiguity over responsibility will inevitably lead to workslop.

Start a cross-functional AI working group. Get all departments involved in AI adoption so no one works in a silo. If such a group does not exist, start one. Templatize operations and assign clear roles so everyone knows their job and there is no confusion about who owns what.

Build, buy, wait. This fail-safe strategy for using AI involves building brand equity, optimizing for AI-mediated discovery, and increasing marketing speed through capability investment. This approach constantly evolves as AI advances, but marketing must own and implement it. Otherwise, the department won’t have a say in its own involvement and may inherit a strategy that does not fit.

Own AI and make a game plan now

Marketers need to own AI adoption, regardless of whether leadership does. They have the power to prevent workslop from taking over and to create an AI strategy with measurable outcomes. Getting involved at the very beginning of the adoption process is essential to help shape and decide what and how AI is used.