Marketers Will Need to Rethink the Role of Digital Platforms

Now it’s taken things a step further by expanding the definition of what it considers to be acceptable content, while also eliminating its fact-checkers. Perhaps Zuckerberg knows that political content—especially the most contentious political content—drives engagement, which, in turn, will increase the number of ad impressions and clicks on his platform. I imagine Elon Musk had the same idea with X, although in his case it completely backfired, driving away the large blue-chip clients with the biggest budgets, leaving only drop-shippers and those touting get-rich-quick ebooks.

You can make a similar case about Google’s generative AI results that now appear at the top of almost every search result. You might think that this is Google’s way of helping the end user—even if the generated text is, far too often, complete nonsense. Alternatively, it’s a way for Google to position itself as not just the through point to information, but rather the source of information.

The little boxes of AI-generated text sit right at the top of the page, just above the adverts; often, the two are the only things you will see when the page finally loads. A cynic would suggest that Google has engineered this to disincentivize people from clicking user-generated content, while encouraging them to click on the links where it receives money. And yes, I am a cynic.

The reek of desperation extends to the industry writ large, particularly when it comes to the breathless promotion of AI, and especially AI agents. The implicit suggestion is that these new products will be the silver bullet that changes everything and starts pushing ROAS metrics in the right direction. Trust me, they won’t. The marketing industry has been using AI for years now—it handles the low-level stuff that naturally lends itself to automation. And, at least for the moment, there is no evidence that AI is capable of tackling anything more complex.

Recognizing the problem

It’s time to recognize that these platforms—the ones which we have relied upon for the past two decades or more—have become rotten. Their cost has gone up without any uptick in campaign performance.

While these companies tout their “innovative” breakthroughs, releasing features and products that nobody asked for, they seem impotent at addressing some of the most endemic flaws within their products. Nearly two decades after Google paid a $90 million settlement over claims that it didn’t do enough to protect advertisers against click fraud, click fraud remains a major problem. (Detecting fraudulent traffic? Gee, that sounds like something AI would be really good at.)