Meet the marketer of the future

The "Gen Marketer" will replace Marketing Specialists—here's how to become one

Sep 17, 2025

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I’ve stopped rolling my eyes at startup marketing roles that ask for a marketer who can do it all. You know the job descriptions I’m talking about: The ones that ask for marketers who can orchestrate campaigns and strategies across product marketing, growth marketing, and content & brand. But IMO, these roles aren’t out of touch anymore. They’re the new norm.*

Your career as a marketer depends on becoming more well-rounded marketer, who is well-versed in AI. Today, most scaled-up marketing teams are made up of specialists, with only a handful of generalists connecting the dots, usually in management roles. In the (near) future, this will flip: The majority of marketers will be generalists.

In this new world, the job of a marketer is different. You’re no longer just responsible for a single marketing sub-function. You need to understand how to connect fuel and engine, how to orchestrate across product marketing, growth, and brand, and when to lean on AI—or not.

This is what’s required to stand out in an AI-driven world where channels are saturated, content is infinite, and products are easier than ever to build (or copy). In a landscape this fragmented and fast-moving, specialists alone can’t keep pace. Generalists who can flex across functions, stitch together AI and human work, and orchestrate end-to-end campaigns are the ones who will thrive.

This new role is about to take over B2B marketing; I’m calling it a Gen Marketer!

And yes, I do like to poke fun at the constant rebranding of marketing roles, but I couldn’t help myself here. We need a new name for this new role…and at least I didn’t strip “marketing” from the title and call it an “engineer”!

*Note: I still think many marketing teams are understaffed and need more marketers to get the work done, but I don’t think job descriptions asking for a well-rounded skillset are the problem. The problem is we don’t have the right number of marketers with the right skillset for today’s world. The solution is teams of Gen Marketers, not specialists.

In this newsletter, I’ll cover:

Why your career depends on becoming a Gen Marketer
The profile of a Gen Marketer
Why the AI shift demands more marketing generalists, not specialists
How to evolve your skillset to become a Gen Marketer, no matter your current role
The new marketing org chart, built around Gen Marketers
Plus, updated job descriptions for Gen Marketers & other modern marketing roles for paid MKT1 subscribers

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Meet the Gen Marketer

A new marketer profile has emerged: the marketing generalist for the generative AI era, equipped with the skills to navigate this generational shift in B2B marketing. “Gen” shows up three times here (generalist, generative, generation), so it feels only fitting to call this a Gen Marketer.

This isn’t just another role to tack onto the 25 unique B2B startup marketing roles. For better or worse, the Gen Marketer will replace many of them—some roles will shrink, others will disappear altogether. Instead, teams will be built around multiple Gen Marketers (keep reading for an org chart showing how Gen Marketers fit in.)

Gen Marketers won’t all look the same or all spike in the same functional areas. But Gen Marketers will all share the same DNA: an AI-powered toolkit and the ability to run high-impact campaigns rooted in audience insight.

Put more simply: You need to become a Gen Marketer; your career depends on it. That doesn’t mean throwing away your core competency. But you will need to cover more surface area, using AI to extend your capabilities.

What a Gen Marketer looks like…

This is the high-level profile of a Gen Marketer, which blends skillsets of roles that exist today:

Expert in AI orchestration: Hands-on power user of AI tools who can manage hybrid teams of both people and AI agents
Audience-first approach & strategy: Deeply understands the target audience and uses those insights to guide all marketing efforts and differentiate in an increasingly noisy landscape—similar to today’s product marketers.
High-impact campaign production: Designs and executes cross-channel campaigns that combine fuel (content, creative, messaging) with engine (distribution and channels), with a consistently high bar—similar to today’s campaign managers, demand gen managers, producers, and heads of marketing.
Π-Shaped marketer skillset: Depth in 2+ marketing sub-functions (product marketing, growth/demand, content & brand), but able to operate across all 3

Gen Marketers can exist at any level. Like today’s functional roles like “Content Marketer” or “Growth Marketer”, Gen Marketers can be fast-learning, AI-first junior ICs to Marketing Directors. At the VP and C-level, you should already be a Gen Marketer!

An example workflow for a Gen Marketer works:

Instead of handing a request to a content team and waiting two weeks, a Gen Marketer spins up a draft with AI, checks that it includes audience and market insights, shares the take as an executive LinkedIn post, boosts that post with Thought Leader ads, and follows up with post engagers to invite them to a dinner on the same topic. All on their own (with an AI agent or two helping).

For a Gen Marketer job description, and customizable job descriptions for other roles, check out our templates for paid subscribers.

Use our Job Description Templates

How we got here

Marketing is undergoing the biggest shift in my 20-year career—and maybe the biggest since the dawn of the internet. I don’t think this is the end of marketing as we know it. If anything, I hope it’s a return to the “Mad Men” era, with marketing once again held in high esteem for doing creative, envelope-pushing work, with AI doing the rest. And yes, the Don Drapers of this era are Gen Marketers.*

*Confession: I never made it past season 1 of Mad Men, so forgive me if my references are off.

Every major wave in marketing has reshaped the roles we hire for: The internet created digital marketing. Social media managers didn’t exist until the 2000s. Freemium, self-serve, and PLG motions didn’t have a name until the mid-2010s, when marketers who specialized in them suddenly became indispensable. Every wave of change created new specialties—and armies of specialists to fill them.

But this time is different. AI won’t create more specialists. It will create more generalists.

Why? Because AI makes specialization accessible to everyone, helping you do tasks that used to be out of reach.Generalists who can set strategy, orchestrate workflows, know when to lean on human creativity versus AI automation, and quickly learn when they have knowledge gaps are suddenly more powerful than ever.

Second-order effects of AI on marketing

AI doesn’t just make marketers faster at what they already do, it changes the game entirely. Its ripple effects (aka 2nd order effects) create new pressures that the old specialist model isn’t built to handle:

Differentiation is harder than ever. With channels flooded by derivative content, producing more won’t cut it. To stand out, marketers must orchestrate high-impact campaigns tailored to their audience. More creativity and smarter distribution are required!
Work is done by humans + AI. Marketing doesn’t happen in neat sub-function boxes. Instead, a hybrid of full-time employees, contractors, and AI agents work together. The real skill is knowing how to direct and integrate all these moving pieces.
Channels are volatile. Inbound and outbound are losing effectiveness, and new channels (like the relationship-driven ecosystem marketing) need to be added to the mix. Marketers need to diversify, adapt quickly, and place bets across a shifting landscape.

These second-order effects are why the next era of marketing depends less on armies of narrow specialists and more on generalists who can connect the dots, set direction, and drive impact: the Gen Marketers.

What now?

How to become a Gen Marketer

Any marketer, no matter your starting point, can flex into becoming a Gen Marketer. As I mentioned, the role is closest to today’s generalist-leaning functions (product marketers, campaign managers, and producers), but with a broader scope and deeper fluency in AI. You may already have people operating this way, even if they don’t carry the title.

And you don’t need a new title to start working like one either. Instead, broaden beyond your core: Run a campaign end-to-end, partner across sub-functions, and use AI to extend your capabilities.

If you’re currently a specialist marketer in one of the 3 major marketing sub-functions, here’s how to evolve your skillset to become a Gen Marketer:

Note: Some “Growth-focused Gen Marketers” may choose the path of a “GTM Engineer” role (coined by Clay), which is a hybrid of sales, rev ops, and growth marketing roles. Gen Marketers should collaborate closely with GTM Engineers.

And remember, here are the skillsets every Gen Marketer needs that you should focus on developing:

Master fuel + engine orchestration: Learn how to run campaigns that actually cut through by building the right creative and content for the right channels.
Gain deep audience understanding: Use those insights to guide campaigns and figure out how to differentiate.
Balance AI with human creativity: Choose when to automate, when to lean on humans, and when to combine the two.

How these shifts impact the marketing org chart

Instead of siloed teams organized strictly around the three sub-functions, we’ll see orgs designed for velocity, running high-impact campaigns, and utilizing AI, built around Gen Marketers. I don’t expect the sub-functions to disappear overnight, but I do anticipate companies starting to hire Gen Marketers (even if under a different title) into both junior and management roles.

This doesn’t mean specialists vanish. You’ll still need deep expertise in areas like performance marketing, design, or ops. But the center of gravity shifts: A smaller number of specialists will work with a larger group of Gen Marketers who connect the dots, orchestrate campaigns, and ensure audience insights and AI are applied across every initiative.

The result? Flatter, more flexible orgs. Fewer handoffs. Less time lost to misalignment between fuel (content, creative), engine (channels, growth), and audience (product marketing). And marketing leaders who can scale impact without scaling headcount. Because AI + Gen Marketers make that possible.

💡 Note for frequent MKT1 readers:
In my org chart newsletter last year, I wrote about the ”Marketing Producer” role, Producers are the glue between fuel and engine: they orchestrate and run campaigns end-to-end—making sure content, product marketing, and growth marketing work all tied together.
When you have a team of Gen Marketers, you’re less likely to need a Producer.
Producers are needed in traditional team structures, with siloed marketing sub-functions. But Gen Marketers fill that gap by reducing handoffs, leaning on AI, and operating high-impact campaign-by-campaign.

Want me to write more about the marketing org chart of the future? Let me know in the comments. For all of my org chart diagrams, check out our templates for paid subscribers.

Go to Org Chart Templates

Why I’m excited about Gen Marketers

Gen Marketer is my term for the future marketer, who orchestrates it all with the help of AI and keeps pace with a rapidly evolving function.

While this does mean you might need to change and evolve your skillset (and quickly), the rise of the Gen Marketer isn’t just about survival in an AI-driven world. It’s an opportunity. Marketers have the chance to break free from narrow, overly specialized roles because AI can help you upskill and work faster.

Becoming a Gen Marketer means:

More creative scope. You’re not confined to a single channel or task—you get to imagine and execute campaigns end-to-end.
Closer to strategy. With AI handling executional work, you can spend more time applying audience insights, orchestrating campaigns, and taking high-impact bets.
Faster cycles. Instead of waiting on handoffs, you can move from idea to execution in days, not weeks.
More ownership. You’ll directly see how your decisions shape growth, brand, and customer experience.

The AI shift isn’t the end of marketing. It’s pushing marketing to evolve into a craft that blends creativity, strategy, and technology. Gen Marketers aren’t just the future superstars of marketing teams; the role is a chance to do more meaningful, high-impact work.

Let’s make the Gen Marketer happen!

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