🐸 Are You the Frog in AI's Boiling Water?

Change Goes Slowly, Until It Doesn't.

Author

Alec Newcomb
May 09, 2025 • Reading Time: 7 minutes

In partnership with

I was at a conference this week with 25 senior leaders. On the low end, $12M in sales; on the high end, over $1B…

The conversation turned familiar: Marketing costs are up. Volume is down. Google CPM/CPCs rising. The usual suspects.

But none of them realized it: They were all frogs in the AI waters.

Remember that analogy? Put a frog in boiling water, it jumps out. Put it in cool water and slowly turn up the heat... well, you know how it ends.

🚨 Change goes slowly until it doesn't. 🚨

What happens when AI crosses from "sometimes tool" to "market maker"?

Let’s get cooking…

Cook Wok GIF

Gif by seowl_app on Giphy

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The Temperature Is Rising (Data Points) 🥵

  • Aug 2023 ChatGPT had 100 Million monthly users > May, 2025 North of 1 Billion

  • ChatGPT is used by 92% of Fortune 100 companies and 60% of college students in the U.S

  • $700 Million in 2023 Revenue for OpenAI to north of $12.7 Billion for 2025

  • 52% of US population is using AI

    • 72% have used ChatGPT,

    • 50% have used Google’s Gemini

    • 39% have used Microsoft’s Copilot

    • 20% have used Meta’s LLaMa

    • 12% have used xAI’s Grok

What's Changing Under the Surface

  • Consumer behavior shifts as Search is fragmenting

    • Starting on Google → moving to ChatGPT for comparisons

    • Product discovery moving to Instagram/TikTok/Pinterest

    • 27% of Gen Z now starts product research on TikTok instead of Google

    • Local search is still Google-dominant (for now)

The Flip Points (When Markets Suddenly Transform)

Marketing history is full of "flip points" – moments when gradual change suddenly accelerates:

  • Desktop → Mobile: By 2016, mobile traffic exceeded desktop after years of steady growth

  • Traditional → Digital ad spend: Crossed the 50% threshold in 2019 after a decade of shift

  • Text → Video content: YouTube and TikTok went from novelty to necessity as video became primary

How Not to Be The Frog > Adapt

Quadrant 1: URGENT & IMPORTANT (Do First)

These are high-priority investments that deliver immediate ROI in the AI-transformed landscape:

  • Email & SMS Marketing (1st Party Data): As Google/Meta targeting weakens, owned audience data becomes your most valuable asset

  • AI-Enabled Content Creation: Human + AI to create more content in less time with higher quality, to then distribute over more channels

  • Data Pipeline: Essential in training the differences in your brand from the others. 

  • Voice/AI First Search Optimization: Preparing for how people actually search with AI tools

  • Automate Repetitive Workflows: Free your team from manual drudgery by automating routine tasks (reporting, scheduling, data cleanup)

Quadrant 2: IMPORTANT, NOT URGENT (Schedule)

Strategic investments that pay off over time as AI reshapes consumer behavior:

  • YouTube: It's the new TV and discovery platform for 75% of the US population

  • TikTok/Instagram Content: Visual discovery replacing traditional search in certain categories (fashion, beauty, and growing)

  • AI Assistants/Chatbots: Building direct relationships through conversational interfaces. We have been talking and telling stories since we had fire. 

  • Data Curation Systems/Semantic Layer: Creating a competitive moat with proprietary training data and brand curation. Taste matters.  

  • Attribution: Last click is dead. As the context window grows, AI will be able to assemble the buyer journey at scale. 

Quadrant 3: URGENT, LESS IMPORTANT (Delegate)

Tactical responses to immediate changes that don't require your full attention:

  • Adapting new Ecosystems: Quick wins through existing AI platforms (ChatGPT, Copilot/Bing, Perplexity, Gemini, and Grok)

  • AI-Ready Content Seeding: YouTube, Reddit, Medium, easily digestible by AI crawlers

  • Perplexity/ChatGPT AI Search Optimization: Optimizing for AI search engines

  • AI-Driven Personalization: Moves beyond basic segmentation to true 1:1 marketing

Quadrant 4: Eliminate or Reduce

Declining channels that will see diminishing returns as AI transforms search and discovery:

  • Google PPC (Declining ROI): Costs rising while performance drops as traffic shifts to AI platforms

  • Traditional SEO/Organic Traffic: Decreasing as direct search CTR declines 

  • Display Banner Advertising: Less effective as attention fragments

  • Manual Content Creation: Too slow and expensive in the AI era

Discuss AI With Your Peers (And Me) 🥳

Want to talk through these AI shifts with other senior marketers?

Join me at one of these upcoming events:

Are you feeling the temperature rise in your marketing? Hit reply and tell me where you're seeing AI's impact.

Happy Friday,

Alec

P.S. The water's getting warmer. But unlike the frog, you have a plan.

P.P.S. My Mega Prompt Guide For Marketers is a great starting point to familiarize yourself with prompting like a pro (even for beginners).

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