14th May, 2025
Parity Consulting was proud host to a panel-discussion event: AI in Marketing 2025. The evening proved to be a showcase of incredible of tech, honest fears, and practical gold – wrapped in ethical commentary and optimism for life and workplaces supported by AI.
Hosted by Parity's Vanessa Lalani, and joined by experts Kelly Slessor(Founder, The Ecommerce Tribe) and Josh Frith(Founder, The Dubs), we tackled:
The tools actually worth your time
Where AIshouldstart (hint: it’s not external)
What jobs are coming—and which are going
The scary side of avatars, deepfakes, and ethics
Real ways to save time (like, 10+ hours/month)
Key Takeaways
With tech evolving faster than most of us can keep up, our panel cut through some of the noise.
1. What's the Difference?
We hear terms like Gen AI, Agentic AI, Predictive AI, but what do they actually mean?
Generative AI (Gen AI): Combines data to produce new content.
It is great for writing and creative ideation.
Early versions were prone to hallucination, but now outputs are cleaner, and you can also get sources.Predictive AI: This is statistical analysis.
It uses data modelling and statistics to predict outcomes (e.g., customer behaviour).Agentic AI: Performs multi-step tasks autonomously (e.g., prompting once to get multiple outputs). Think: a virtual assistant that doesn’t wait for your next instruction. It actually does functions for you without you having to keep prompting it.
"It's like asking your 15-year-old to pick up their jacket—and then they go ahead and clean the whole house too. That's Agentic AI."
HOT TIP: It can act as a digital marketer, producing content for you but without you constantly having to prompt it.
Don’t get too caught up in these terminologies – it’s all AI and no need to complicate it with terminology.
2. AI Tools Beyond ChatGPT
AI Tools the Experts are Using Right Now
Josh and Kelly shared what's in their current toolkit:
Perplexity AI:
For deep research and editorial planning.
Couple it with doing basic editorial content through ChatGPT, and then localise or customise the research using Perplexity.NotebookLM:
Audio overview feature can turn documents, slides, charts and more into engaging discussions with one clickHeyGen:
Used to clone company execs in video, creating multilingual avatars who can appear anywhere, anytime.
This scenario may sound familiar - Why haven't we launched in Italy this week? Well, because the marketing manager is on holidays for two weeks, and they do the translations. When speed is a critical factor, HeyGen can step in to transform your regional content into multiple languages with seamless in pronunciation.Attention:
AI agents that learn from your best sales conversations.
This sales enablement tool listens to sales calls and flags conversion signals or objections, which is marketing gold, to then uses to create tailored content aligned to what the client needs to address those issues and educate a particular part if the market.
In this model, digital media is involved, AI is involved, and human interaction comes in for the last mile.Custom GPTs(within ChatGPT or Google's Gem):
GPTs are a new way for anyone to create a tailored version of ChatGPT.
You train it to mirror brand voice and tone, powering SEO, content planning, and repurposing.
NOTE: It's not necessary to add customer data and your IP.Replit:
A no-code platform to build websites and prototypes using natural language (possibly an over-share but Kelly built one in bed in 20 mins).Sora:
OpenAI's video generation model, designed to take text, image, and video inputs and generate a new video as an output.
Use it for turning still images into branded 3D videos—ideal for thumb-stopping content on social or ad campaigns.Manus:
A research agent that automates competitive analysis, report writing, and localised market insights.
Josh shared,“We have an industry publication called Financial Marketer, providing the latest trends and insights in financial services marketing, branding and communications and marketers all around the world read it.
We used to have writers all over the world. Now, we have a few seasoned sub-editors who are subject-matter experts using AI to speed up their research—we’re producing 10x the content with half the cost.”
3. “What about copyright with AI-generated imagery?”
Josh responded: “Scaling your image library safely with AI must be considered. You don’t know what datasets the imagery tools have been trained on—and that’s risky for finance.
In the financial services sector, we’re now seeing brands (and ourselves) start to train their own models or avoid AI images altogether.”
Kelly added, always pay for generated images to avoid future IP disputes and turn off data sharing in your ChatGPT settings (“so you are not training the beast!”).
4. “Is AI moving too fast for finance to adopt safely?”
Josh proposed:“Finance and healthcare are best placed to lead. We’ve got the governance and the care factor already embedded in our sectors.”
Kelly agreed—but added caution:“Don’t wait too long. Internal testing is key. That’s your sandbox. Get familiar before the rules catch up.”
5. Ethics, Avatars & Deepfakes
One of the most provocative parts of the night was the use ofavatars—cloned video versions of CEOs or execs who could “interview themselves” or “speak” multiple languages on demand.
One example: a CEO interviews her own AI-generated twin (avatar)—switching seamlessly from English to German to Turkish. Initially created by unscripted recorded conversation, and a script loaded to trigger the interview format.
Possible application/s:
The most in-demand senior people who need to be in 50 places in 50 time zones for a key message or release. Marketers can script them; get it approved and play them in real time in any language.
Introverts and amazing minds who typically don’t like the camera can now share their intelligence in a way they couldn’t before.
Audience Reaction - Many concerns flew around about:
Transparency (do you label the avatar clearly?)
Consent (what if an employee leaves?)
Legal grey zones (HR, privacy, IP)
Kelly’s advice:
The rulebook of the ethics and all of the disclaimers are all up for grab and being written now. But naturally you should always disclaim when using avatars—especially public-facing.
For now, a great place to start is to use AI internally for training or content drafts, where the stakes are lower and you can test it without fear.
Be prepared: “Some companies will face legal fallout. Get your ethics sorted before the law tells you to.”
6. What are the Future Roles in Marketing?
What’s new and what's coming in the next 12-18 months?
Prompt Engineers (already earning $400k+ overseas)
Vibe Coders – Kelly’s term for natural-language website/app builders
AI Content Strategists – blending brand voice with AI-generated work
AI Governance Leads – especially for regulated industries
“AI won’t replace humans, but humans with AI will outpace everyone else.” – Kelly
Audience Share:
“I’m leading marketing in our business, but my team won’t use the tools”
One attendee spoke honestly about struggling to get their team to use AI meaningfully: “They’re just using it like Grammarly. I’m ready to KPI innovation!”
Panel advice:
Show small wins (e.g., 10 hours saved in planning).
Encourage side experimentation with personal tools like ChatGPT.
Block time for “AI play” like Google’s 10% innovation model.
Get leadership buy-in—if the top won’t shift, neither will the team.
In Summary
Start small but start now. Play in safe zones like planning, ideation, internal comms.
Train your AI like a team member. Upload brand tone, SEO docs, FAQ sheets.
Use the right tools for the right jobs. Don’t rely on ChatGPT alone.
Ethics matter. Disclaim avatar usage. Know where your data goes.
AI is an enabler—not a threat. Use it to scale your strategy, not just content.
Your human skills are still the secret sauce. EQ, intuition, adaptability will only grow in value.
“This isn’t just a marketing shift. It’s an industrial revolution. You can be scared—but don’t be static.” – Kelly Slessor
Some feedback from our Guests:
Thank you for hosting such relevant and useful event and bringing in Josh and Kelly who have fantastic practical experience to talk about. Maike Enghardt
Thank you for hosting such a useful and topical event! Enjoyed hearing about the practical insights and real world applications. Monika Veith
Thank you for having me along last night, it was a really insightful session. I’ve already shared some of the key takeaways with my wider team this morning. Matt Bilac
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