Summary
This recap from Akhia explores key insights from the 2025 Marketing AI Conference (MAICON) — including how AI’s integration into everyday tools marks a turning point for businesses across all industries, not just marketing. The post covers:
AI inevitability and adoption: Why AI’s “Move 37” moment means every organization must learn to integrate, experiment, and adapt.
Strategy evolution: How “AI strategy” will soon disappear, much like “internet strategy” did — replaced by everyday application and learning through use.
Search transformation: The new landscape of SEO, GEO, and AEO, and what it means for content visibility in an AI-driven search world.
Human differentiation: Why creativity, opinion, humor, and emotional intelligence remain irreplaceable advantages for humans — especially in writing, storytelling, and innovation.
The takeaway: AI won’t replace people who know how to use it — it will empower them. Whether you’re in marketing, manufacturing, or operations, success depends on combining human creativity with AI capability to stay relevant, searchable, and distinctive.
-Enjoy-
Eric Foreman: Hey can I go to Van Stock with the guys this weekend?
Red Foreman: What the hell is a Van Stock?
Eric Foreman: It’s like Woodstock, but... with a greater emphasis on vans.
After three days at MAICON in Cleveland (OHIO!), this exchange from “That ‘70s Show” popped into my head for a couple reasons. One, because you can adjust the dialogue for this event.
Me: I’m going to MAICON this week.
My wife: What the hell is a MAICON?
Me: It’s like COMICON, but… with a greater emphasis on Marketing AI.
And two, because when you’re immersed in an event devoted to one specific topic, your mind gets flooded with all things about that topic. AI in this case. And the rest of the world tends to fade away. If I went to a Hammer & Nail Conference, my mind would be swimming with how the modular hammers with interchangeable heads is changing the game.
That is to say, the things one takes away in the moment gain added perspective when one is removed by space and a little time from the event. That being said, I have a few takeaways that stick with me after the hype and sugar rush of the event.
The Move 37 Moment for AI: It’s Officially Inevitable
Dennis Duffy: Businesspeople need beepers.
Liz Lemon: No, they need cell phones.
Dennis Duffy: Beepers are gonna make a comeback. Technology’s cyclical, Liz.
This “30 Rock” line, “Technology’s cyclical,” is one of my all-time favorites. It’s so ridiculous, but Dennis (played by the great Dean Winters) is all in on his belief. He’s wrong, but I get where he’s coming from. He’s invested in beepers. His focus means he’s ignoring advancements. New tech shouldn’t get in the way.
But it’s always on its way. And it pushes the old out of the way.
As Ben Brugler pointed out in a recent AI Roundup, “Move 37 is the move AI made that left everyone stunned. It’s when the number one ranked Go player in the world, Lee Sedol, lost to Google DeepMind, an AI program designed to play the game.” That was 10 years ago.
A similar type of Rubicon was passed at MAICON, IMO. The ease of use for AI, the ubiquitousness of it in our work tools, the unprecedented investment and the constant nudge to get people to try AI all make AI like an oncoming storm… you may like it, you may not, but it’s coming no matter what and you better be ready. Even as the conference left me dazed and confused at times, more often it left me relieved. They were saying what I knew. Talking about things I have already done. Confirmed my perspectives. I was “getting AI” in ways I didn’t even a year ago. And if I can figure it out, everyone else can too.
Make the Inevitable Work for you
Matthew Brock gesturing to his computer screen: Internet?
Beth, walking by quickly: InterNOT!
This scene from “NewsRadio” ––I didn’t have the exact link, but the one above shows a super famous podcaster in his early days––captured my feelings of the Internet back in 1996. I was “ehh” about it. It seemed like a lot. One more tech to learn and understand. We got along fine without it before. And would it really take off or was it some overhyped… (trails off)
Keynote presenter Michelle Gansle made this point relative to something new becoming something always: You don’t have an Internet strategy at your company now, do you? You just use it without really thinking about it.
So it won’t be long before you don’t even have an AI strategy anymore, because it just is. Gansle made the point that you need to dive in, use the tools, have “the freedom to fail” at it because that’s how you will learn. And AI will learn you. Your teams. And be that assistant, partner, advisor, colleague you need at the ready.
The Search Is (Not) Over: SEO, GEO, AEO
Lauren Heller: Just say you’re a Creative Director.
Kelsey Peters: What’s a Creative Director?
Lauren Heller: Nobody knows. Nobody cares.
No matter how much I searched, I could not find this exact clip from “Younger,”––a super show, check it out––but I had actually saved this clip on my phone years ago. Yet while cleaning it out, I got rid of it, thinking, “When am I EVER going to need this clip?”
The world works in mysterious ways.
Same with the new alphabet soup world of SEO, GEO, AEO…
AI has turned search on its head. And search was a huge topic at MAICON this year. Even sessions that didn’t have “SEO” in the title made a point to include it. As a discussion point, it was popular. As a certainty point, it was less so. I got the sense panelists, presenters and attendees were trying to figure it out. “How do we get our work seen?” How do we rank better?” Andy Crestodina posited that not only is “zero-click not a thing” but success these days is more about “position” on the ever-populated Google page rather than ranking. So current and older models of scoring your results may not validate like before.
Beyond that, a couple quick tips: “Un-gate” your content. If you hide it, it’s less likely to show up on search. Plus, that info is the kind of unseen and unknown components that this new world of search seeks. Also, find the gaps in the Internet. For example, if no data exists on a topic (ask ChatGPT that question), then get the data and share it (i.e., fill the gap.)
From my perspective of a content creator in which SEO helps ensure my awesome work gets seen, I was happy to learn at MAICON that there were ingredients to our work that AI can’t reproduce as well, and which also can position such work higher in search. And it’s why I…
…Thank God I’m a Writer. And a Human: Creating What AI Can’t
Legend has it that Chris Pratt adlibbed this line on Parks and Rec by the way.
One final thought from MAICON, as they made a point I back 100%. Humans who know how to use AI won’t be replaced by AI. AI will make their work better. And their work will change. But the key is “their work.” You own it. You better own it.
From a writing and content creation viewpoint, yes, AI can scrape the Internet, make the analysis, deliver information and a tone of voice. But––and this is related to search to as you make your content a true destination that rises in position because people want to see it/find it––AI can’t create the following:
And finally, I’ll go one better. AI isn’t funny. It can repeat a joke or try to emulate Jerry Seinfeld (“What is WITH all these basic prompts? Is it 2022?”), but the AI comedian that makes you laugh for real is a ways off.
My argument for that claim? My original research? My opinion? My emotion-provoking case?
It’s in these quotes and sitcom clips peppered in this blog. AI doesn’t have the comedic timing to pull these off. Humor––a joke, a one-liner, a witty repartee––comes from a moment that can’t be repeated, a moment made for the joke. AI mimics funny. But us humans are legitimately funny creatures.
And it’s one example of how we “humans in the loop” ––another oft-repeated phrase on the MAICON Bingo card––are really humans who control the loop. Because things like humor, opinions, research and knowledge, imagination and more… all of it––like humans––is evolving. And when we choose to learn much, explore often, fail enthusiastically and build on success, we still may not stay ahead of AI, but we will be distinctive from it. MAICON helped show me how.