Intel's AI Marketing Move: Sign of the Times or CEO Sideshow?
In case you missed it, AI's impact on workforce reductions arrived in force last week. An open letter from Andy Jassy declared that future layoffs will re-shape Amazon's workforce and re-tool skill sets of human workers to better complement AI productivity. At Microsoft, this re-shape has already begun as the co-pilot is taking over controls of one of the world's largest companies. According to the World Economic Fund, 41% of employers worldwide intend to reduce their workforce because of AI in the next five years across industries, so these latest tech moves are expected if not perhaps arriving earlier than some foresaw. This bullish perspective is rampant in boardrooms despite the less than stellar productivity gains realized by generative AI to date. According to the Federal Reserve, gen AI has increased US productivity by an anemic 1.1% in an economy that is arguably ahead of the adoption curve. And while function level reviews show more rapid advancement, most notably a 14% increase in productivity in customer support, with a notable 35% increase in entry-level roles within the field, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, other fields are falling...flat, leaving many to query if gen AI, at least in the 2025 era, is CEO weak sauce for workforce reduction actions.
Enter Intel, who Friday announced that they would outsource their marketing functions to Accenture to run with, yes, you guessed it, generative AI. The news caught wildfire across the marketing landscape for its bold prognostication that the marketing practice is ready for handoff holistically. It caught my attention because I know the size, scale, and complexity of the historic Intel marketing engine well, having overseen the global data center and edge marketing practices at the company. While no one is going to argue that Intel's marketing is anything but a shadow of what it once was, the company did sell over 250 million estimated CPUs in 2024 and is still a global presence operating manufacturing sites across the world. They engage in many market segments with a complex partner ecosystem across hardware, software, and service providers. Even with a falling market position, the marketing of microprocessors is not for the faint of heart, with complex value propositions, better together narratives, and sales and support motions to deliver.
So, what to make of this move? Ironically, this week, TechArena started unpacking our Who's Who in the AI Zoo article series, discussing the current state of classes of AI toolsets from a marketing perspective. I explained in my LinkedIn post introducing the initial article that we've leaned into gen AI for everything we do as a marketing organization since day one. And while our productivity is amazing with these tools, we are still very much in an era where AI is an accelerant to marketing delivery akin to starting your day with a jumbo-sized Red Bull. I've been delighted by how this has especially supported less tenured staff and how it's opened the door for more efficient delivery of services to our clients.
Where are the gaps? Having worked in engineering cultures for the bulk of my career, I'm very aware of non-marketing professionals thinking that marketing is simply easy. After all, it's just words and pictures, right? While the landscape is changing every day, savvy human marketers are still uniquely poised to craft strategy, to choose messaging and narrative, and to nurture relationships across complex industries. And while Intel and Accenture may very well shock the world with outstanding marketing results, I'm viewing this latest move as yet another signal that Intel is waving a white flag for any quick return to industry leadership, and the marketing move is a rounding error towards Lip-Bu Tan's targeted 20%+ layoffs at the company.
The debate over the future of work will only heat up in the coming months as more companies make bold bets on gen AI integration into the workforce, and, at TechArena, we will be diving deep into the conversation across business functions and, of course, the leading edge of tech innovation.
In case you missed it, AI's impact on workforce reductions arrived in force last week. An open letter from Andy Jassy declared that future layoffs will re-shape Amazon's workforce and re-tool skill sets of human workers to better complement AI productivity. At Microsoft, this re-shape has already begun as the co-pilot is taking over controls of one of the world's largest companies. According to the World Economic Fund, 41% of employers worldwide intend to reduce their workforce because of AI in the next five years across industries, so these latest tech moves are expected if not perhaps arriving earlier than some foresaw. This bullish perspective is rampant in boardrooms despite the less than stellar productivity gains realized by generative AI to date. According to the Federal Reserve, gen AI has increased US productivity by an anemic 1.1% in an economy that is arguably ahead of the adoption curve. And while function level reviews show more rapid advancement, most notably a 14% increase in productivity in customer support, with a notable 35% increase in entry-level roles within the field, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, other fields are falling...flat, leaving many to query if gen AI, at least in the 2025 era, is CEO weak sauce for workforce reduction actions.
Enter Intel, who Friday announced that they would outsource their marketing functions to Accenture to run with, yes, you guessed it, generative AI. The news caught wildfire across the marketing landscape for its bold prognostication that the marketing practice is ready for handoff holistically. It caught my attention because I know the size, scale, and complexity of the historic Intel marketing engine well, having overseen the global data center and edge marketing practices at the company. While no one is going to argue that Intel's marketing is anything but a shadow of what it once was, the company did sell over 250 million estimated CPUs in 2024 and is still a global presence operating manufacturing sites across the world. They engage in many market segments with a complex partner ecosystem across hardware, software, and service providers. Even with a falling market position, the marketing of microprocessors is not for the faint of heart, with complex value propositions, better together narratives, and sales and support motions to deliver.
So, what to make of this move? Ironically, this week, TechArena started unpacking our Who's Who in the AI Zoo article series, discussing the current state of classes of AI toolsets from a marketing perspective. I explained in my LinkedIn post introducing the initial article that we've leaned into gen AI for everything we do as a marketing organization since day one. And while our productivity is amazing with these tools, we are still very much in an era where AI is an accelerant to marketing delivery akin to starting your day with a jumbo-sized Red Bull. I've been delighted by how this has especially supported less tenured staff and how it's opened the door for more efficient delivery of services to our clients.
Where are the gaps? Having worked in engineering cultures for the bulk of my career, I'm very aware of non-marketing professionals thinking that marketing is simply easy. After all, it's just words and pictures, right? While the landscape is changing every day, savvy human marketers are still uniquely poised to craft strategy, to choose messaging and narrative, and to nurture relationships across complex industries. And while Intel and Accenture may very well shock the world with outstanding marketing results, I'm viewing this latest move as yet another signal that Intel is waving a white flag for any quick return to industry leadership, and the marketing move is a rounding error towards Lip-Bu Tan's targeted 20%+ layoffs at the company.
The debate over the future of work will only heat up in the coming months as more companies make bold bets on gen AI integration into the workforce, and, at TechArena, we will be diving deep into the conversation across business functions and, of course, the leading edge of tech innovation.
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