Agentic AI — the latest iteration of AI technology — promises to lead marketers to the land of set-it-and-forget-it, smoothly functioning, and seamlessly aligned enterprise content operations.
Or so the hype cycle goes.
In theory, agentic artificial intelligence will execute complex content tasks and autonomously adjust to improve outcomes. But can it fulfill those promises yet? Can leaders take steps now to capitalize on its future potential? We consulted with industry experts to find the answers.
Welcome to the agentic age
“If ChatGPT feels like it will help you get a quick task done or crank out more outputs, agentic AI should feel like all your afternoon meetings got canceled,” says Christina J. Inge, founder of the AI-focused content agency Thoughtlight and creator of the AI marketing certificate at Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education.
Agentic AI centers around an objective statement or problem to solve rather than executing one task, explains Suraj Rajdev, Google’s head of data, AI, measurement, and analytics for home and consumer services. It then dissects that problem into subtasks and executes on behalf of the user’s stated goal. All this happens autonomously with a properly trained agentic AI.
Depending on your viewpoint, agentic AI’s potential to transform and facilitate workflows may sound amazing or worrisome. But dismiss it at your peril, warns Martin Hall, CEO of MOPO, a website AI agent platform. “The objective here is for marketers to future-proof their organizations and their careers,” he says. “And the opportunity is for them to trailblaze in terms of the utility and value that they can get out of AI today.”
What agentic AI could offer marketing leaders
A January 2025 Gartner poll of 3,400-plus webinar attendees found 61% say their organization has invested in agentic AI, while 39% are unsure or taking a wait-and-see approach.
The investors see agentic AI as a game changer for efficiency and productivity, especially for leaner teams. But predictions from more skeptical experts range from an epic fail to a gradual but complex evolution involving trial and error and a large investment to implement.
Forward-thinking companies look to agentic AI to drive outcomes rather than outputs, explains Louis Gutierrez, director of AI at Constant Contact. “It’s not just speeding up production, but helping teams prioritize what to make, when to launch, and how to adjust based on performance,” he says. “If agentic AI can do that reliably, it has real potential to reduce friction and bring structure to marketing operations that often feel chaotic.”
For example, key promises of agentic AI include eliminating process redundancies, filling overlooked gaps, and reducing team stress and bandwidth strain by automating tedious manual tasks. “We could free up time and focus more on the high-level thinking, overseeing a team of agents doing the baseline foundational work,” says Amy Balliett, senior fellow at Material.
Even more promising, if built correctly, agentic AI could turn insights into impactful, self-executed actions. Christopher Penn, co-founder and chief data scientist at TrustInsights.ai, believes that the agentic AI of today can manage and automate parts of the content production lifecycle, particularly if its processes have good recursions and guardrails for regressions.
“Agentic AI is only as good as the agent infrastructure that you put it in and how well you define the tasks that you want it to do,” he says.
But many ‘if’ statements remain
However, Christopher says, agentic AI tech won’t be up to the task of managing the entire content marketing lifecycle or replacing jobs or people soon.
Suraj agrees, and “not just because of the high failure rates, but because you're taking actions on behalf of a user, and the implications of those actions can be far and wide,” he says.
Brands may not want to take a risk that big. For example, a study by Carnegie Mellon finds Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro failed to complete real-world office tasks 70% of the time.
“You have to develop governance, you have to develop policies, you have to develop data lakes, you have to develop new processes,” Suraj says. You also need to consider legal, privacy, and security implications.
Louis says that Constant Contact has an internal AI governance committee to review its tools through the lenses of ethics, security, and standardization.
Agent takeover or much-needed assistance?
In Amy’s opinion, marketers still need to be the “humans in the loop” for the foreseeable future. “In a workflow, we need to make sure that we're checking the work of these agents. We're not just letting them run rampant,” she says.
However, AI agents doing entry-level tasks can pose a challenge for new marketers. “The onus is on us as seasoned content marketers to find ways to up-level people who are entering the career field,” Amy says.
For example, have entry-level marketers build the agentic workflows and train the AI agents. “There's a lot of critical thinking required to train an AI agent and build the right workflows,” she says.
Prepping for agentic AI implementation
If your marketing team prioritizes innovation, you may find first-move advantages outweigh the risks of premature adoption. Still, you need to set expectations, develop a thoughtful strategy, and create a solid foundation on which to build your agentic-powered marketing operations. Start with these steps:
Identify workflow gaps
“Take a look at where you're like, ‘I wish we had headcount for this,’ because that's probably where agentic AI is going to help you,” Thoughtlight’s Christina says. Ask for your team members’ input on the tasks to delegate.
Amy says, “We have to fight for our jobs in a sense and point out our value, so you have to be able to say, ‘Here are the things I want to offload that I know AI can do, and here's the new value I'm going to bring because I'm not spending hours upon hours doing those things.’”
Choose the agentic AI tech stack carefully
“People sometimes go wrong [when] they try to get a cheaper or more limited tool, or use older models that don't really have guardrails,” Christina says.
Think through these decisions to avoid those pitfalls:
Pick the preferred large language model (LLM), such as OpenAI’s GPT, Google’s Gemini, or Meta’s LLaMA. Amy advises considering factors like the date of the most recent major update and the need for self-hosting or developer knowledge. It might also be a good idea to consult with your IT department or tech providers to ensure your selection works well in your tech stack.
Determine integration needs. Figure out which tools and systems will need to integrate with the agentic AI. For example, you might train agents to generate images, gather data and insights from your CRM to create personalized email campaigns, or send status updates and drafts to human team members via communication platforms like Slack.
Consider automation add-ons. If your team lacks the technical know-how, you may need a solution that creates workflows and connects your tools. For example, Amy uses n8n, which automates these processes and allows users to drag and drop agents (and their functions) into a flow chart. (She also likes n8n because it shares other marketers’ workflows for inspiration, and thousands of in-depth n8n tutorials are available on YouTube.)
Build and train agents purposefully and patiently
Once you have your toolset, train the agents as you would new employees. “Just as you wouldn't take a new marketing manager and have them talking to customers the first day because you haven't briefed them, it's the same with agentic,” Christina says. “You have to give it the full picture — your personas, brand identity details, marketing goals, and clear instructions, including what steps not to take and words to avoid.” You may also need a knowledge base that encompasses elements like technical documentation and your blog library.
Prioritize use cases and manage expectations
Beginning with a test pilot and sharing learnings with the team can give you small wins to build upon. “Start with constrained, high-frequency workflows where the agent can learn and improve quickly,” says Louis at Constant Contact. “Success also depends on user trust — teams need transparency into what the agent is doing and why.”
If trepidation exists, point to Google Ads’ Performance Max campaigns, which aren’t exactly agentic AI-driven, but close enough, Christina says. “In the advertising space, AI is already running the show. Teams are putting in the human-centered and brand-safe assets, but then AI takes it over.”
Reimagine your workflow maps
Roles and responsibilities will likely change once with the incorporation of AI agents. “To build the workflow, it's probably going to be one person whose job it is to sit down with each individual subject matter expert,” Amy says.
For instance, the person building the workflow meets with the person doing keyword research to see how to fit in the functions that the researcher needs help with. Then, the workflow designer can determine how the LLM will be trained (and who will do the training), designate where the human checks and balances will be, etc. This process would be repeated with other key team members.
Depending on your team’s comfort level with agentic AI, bringing in outside help or new team members may make sense as well. “If a company is really trying to drive after large-scale transformation with this technology, then I would say an expert in the room is needed,” says Google’s Suraj.
Agentic AI is in its infancy era
Not so long ago, it was hard to imagine the story about the revolutionary impact of the internet and mobile technology on the way people work and communicate. The full story of agentic AI remains unwritten.
“How it's going to be used, we have not imagined yet,” Amy says.
By 2028, Gartner predicts that at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI.
In the meantime, Christina is excited about agentic AI’s potential to level the playing field for smaller brands struggling to find marketing operations talent. “They will be able to do what a big brand with a very deep team has been able to do for a long time. Now more of us can just do what the big kids can do,” she says.
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