How Neil Patel and Eric Siu actually use AI in marketing

Executive overview

Most marketers treat AI as a content factory, but current AI output is mediocre at best and tanks results when used without human editing. The real opportunity lies in analytics, data synthesis, and tool creation — not content generation.

People overestimate AI's short-term impact and drastically underestimate its long-term potential. Ranking in AI-driven search follows the same signals as Google: backlinks, authority, and volume of credible content.

AI saves time on specific tasks, but human judgment remains essential for quality output.

AI tools worth using now

• Opus.pro / Peach: clips long video into short-form content, rates virality potential, adds captions automatically
• Cast Magic: generates show notes, tweet storms, titles, and descriptions from podcast audio
• Bard (now Gemini): produces better output than ChatGPT for many queries; Google's data advantage is significant
• WithDelphi: combines everything a creator has ever said into a queryable personal AI — early alpha stage
• HubSpot's ChatSpot: lets you query business data (e.g. average LTV) in real time instead of waiting days for a report

Where AI underperforms

• Pure AI content consistently loses to manually written content in traffic and rankings
• Ad creative and full campaign management via AI alone tanks results
• Image tools like Midjourney lack clear practical application in most marketing workflows
• AI voice cloning is close but still choppy for many queries

Where AI genuinely wins

• Tool creation: AI can draft simple calculators (e.g. A/B testing calculator) that developers then refine — these attract natural backlinks at scale
• Data synthesis for infographics: AI can pull stats and structure arguments quickly; a designer or tool like Canva finishes the job
• Automation and augmentation: most current "AI" is automating or augmenting tasks, not true artificial intelligence

The three types of AI

• Automated intelligence: rules-based task automation
• Augmented intelligence: AI assists human decision-making
• Artificial intelligence (true AI): the system thinks, responds, and acts autonomously — most current tools do not reach this level

Ranking in AI-generated answers

• AI search pulls from the same top-ranked sources as traditional search
• Backlinks, domain authority equivalents, review signals, and brand mentions all matter
• Volume of indexed content is a factor — 2,500+ podcast episodes creates significant surface area
• Shortcuts (black hat tactics) work short-term but always collapse; white hat compounds over time

The right mindset

• Test AI on real campaigns and measure results — don't form opinions from articles
• Think bigger than content creation: ad spend analytics, real-time campaign alerts, and data querying are where the value is
• Agency businesses will benefit from AI raising gross margins, which can improve exit multiples
• ChatGPT launched November 2022 — less than a year old at recording; the long-term potential is far from priced in