Chapter One of AI for B2B Marketing Leaders shares a story of intimacy and scale — and the dawn of modern marketing. In the quiet German town of Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg tinkered with an invention that would revolutionise human knowledge and communication. Before Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press, a single handwritten Bible took a skilled scribe one year to produce. Gutenberg’s press, however, could produce 180 copies of the Bible in the same amount of time. This transformative ability to scale meant the cost of books plummeted, literacy rates soared, and new ideas spread quickly.

By 1500, printing presses had produced an estimated 20 million volumes. To put this in perspective, this amounted to more books than had been produced by all European scribes in the previous 1,000 years combined. From that single workshop in Mainz, Gutenberg’s humble invention unleashed a tsunami of information that washed away the old world and ushered in the modern era. Fast-forward a couple of hundred years (progress was slow back then), and the first advertisement appeared in an English general-interest magazine.

The Dawn of Modern Marketing

From that humble edition of The Gentleman’s Magazine came a watershed event that started a new era in marketing. By advertising in magazines, businesses could reach niche demographics, laying the groundwork for today’s advertising model common across all media platforms. Over the coming centuries, advertising and marketing flourished, but the journey, at its core, is a story of increasing intimacy and scale. Each technological leap has brought us closer to the customer while simultaneously expanding our reach. With the arrival of the internet, CRM, and automation, marketing could get even closer to its audience, but with each advancement came a need for more investment, technology and people to operate it. 

Today, as we look out on a new algorithmic future driven by AI, with its black boxes, human-like responses, and seemingly unlimited capacity for speed and scale, we must recognise that this technology is destined to reshape our future—a future we can welcome or reject but not ignore. 

We have, without doubt, crossed the Rubicon.

So, What Does this Mean for AI marketing?

In just a few short years, artificial intelligence has transformed from a niche research area into a cornerstone of modern business, revolutionising industries from healthcare to finance.

Marketing is no exception.

To help clarify the AI trajectory, OpenAI created a roadmap citing five levels of advancement, which you can read for free in AI for B2B Marketing Leaders.

Connect with the author, David Sloly, on LinkedIn

Subscribe to our weekly AI Marketing Newsletter and stay up to date with all the AI marketing news.