Why AI’s Real Risk Is Marketing Commoditization
▼ Summary
– Mistaking speed for impact is a major trap in marketing; efficiency gains are symmetric and open to all competitors, leading to commoditization.
– The Red Queen hypothesis explains that when everyone adopts the same tools, competitive advantage erodes, and markets drift toward commoditization.
– Focusing solely on AI efficiency creates a symmetric gain where all competitors move faster, resulting in no net advantage and shrinking margins.
– To get ahead, companies need an asymmetric impact—having or knowing something competitors cannot replicate, such as disrupting their own market.
– Instead of optimizing the current business, leaders should ask if they would start the business from scratch today and how new technologies enable disruption.
One of the most dangerous pitfalls in marketing today is confusing speed with impact. The industry has become obsessed with doing more, moving faster, and building the next AI-powered business. But in the rush, we are overlooking some essential principles.
The Red Queen hypothesis serves as a powerful metaphor for the current state of our field. It describes a scenario where, once everyone adopts the same tools and chases the same efficiencies, any competitive edge disappears. Markets naturally drift toward commoditization.
This idea originates from a scene in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass,” where Alice and the Red Queen run as fast as they can, only to find themselves in the same place. Evolutionary biologist Leigh Van Valen used this to form the Red Queen hypothesis. In simple terms, when every other organism is evolving, you must evolve too , just to survive. It is not about becoming better suited to your environment; it is about staying competitive with everyone else fighting for the same resources, even as they improve.
Why efficiency is the wrong goal for AI-enabled marketers
Many businesses are using the current technological shift to prioritize efficiency. There is no denying that AI can dramatically speed up nearly every aspect of operations. We can go faster. But so can all of our competitors. Like the Red Queen, we will run and run, yet gain no ground.
The core problem with an efficiency focus is that it provides a symmetric gain. It is available to everyone. Imagine your strategy depends on leveraging ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude more effectively. Your rivals have access to the exact same tools. So you sprint ahead, but they keep pace. Everyone prioritizing efficiency gets caught in a spiral of commoditization. Margins shrink, and the only real winners are the companies selling the tokens.
Of course, ignoring these tools for efficiency is an even worse option. But if efficiency is your endgame, prepare to compete in a commodity market.
How to get ahead by making an asymmetric impact
The real path forward is to create an asymmetric impact. This means you must have or know something your competitors cannot replicate. Instead of focusing on competition, shift your thinking to disruption.
If you have been selling widgets for three decades, stop trying to become the most efficient widget seller. Instead, ask yourself what will make widgets obsolete , and how you can be the one to make that happen.
Reframing disruption through loss aversion
Consider disruption through the lens of loss aversion. Psychologically, the pain of losing something is far greater than the joy of gaining it. But I find it more useful to flip that equation. As someone who regularly declutters, I prefer to ask: “If I saw this in a thrift store, would I buy it?” Instead of asking whether to keep something, I ask if I would want to acquire it in the first place.
What to ask yourself to maximize disruption and impact
More often, we need to ask: If I were starting this business from scratch today, would I do it? If the answer is yes, the next question is: How would I build it, and what can today’s technologies do that I could not do back then? We should spend less time running the business more efficiently and more time evolving it as a startup would. Because if you do not, someone else will.
The questions that define the next phase of marketing growth
These are the hard questions every company must ask right now. Those who focus solely on efficiency will end up running like the Red Queen, getting nowhere. Those who confront these tougher questions about disruption will set themselves on a path of evolution and asymmetric impact.
(Source: MarTech)
