“There’s no shortcutting expertise. You have to do the work.”
On today’s episode of The Marketing Companion podcast, Mark Schaefer talks with Paul Roetzer, founder of the Marketing AI Institute. Every single time I hear Paul speak, I learn something.
In this conversation, Paul talks about the new trend of vibe marketing and vibe coding. Yeah, it’s easy to ask an AI to put together a marketing campaign plan, or build a form on your website. But if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to be in trouble the minute someone digs one inch deeper.
As soon as someone asks a question about it, you won’t have the answer because you don’t understand how it works.
I attended a fantastic session by Tyler Stambaugh 🧲 today on vibe coding. Tyler is smart because he asks the AI to teach him what it is doing, as it is doing it. Plus, he has human backup on his projects. So when/if an edit comes up, he can address it. If he’s just relying on AI-written code, he won’t know where to begin when it comes time to fix it.
Getting back to the podcast, Mark mentioned that if you’re curious, you’re going to thrive. Now is the time to ask questions and learn. Everything is moving quickly, so you must put time aside to learn. Find small groups that challenge each other.
I built my first personal website in 2002 because two of my coworkers and I challenged each other to build our portfolio websites. It was motivating to come in each day and talk about our progress.
Can you start an AI counsel in your workplace? Are you part of any communities that are trying new things? How can you challenge yourself to build something so you can learn these new tools? I’m sure you’ve had an idea at some point where you said, “I wish [something] existed.” Now, you can use a system like Cursor or Windsurf to build your idea.
But you have to ask questions and understand what is being built. If you want to be an authority, you can’t outsource your critical thinking to AI. Otherwise, you’re just adding to the glut of AI-generated slop, and you’ll quickly be exposed.
