Chapter Two — With AI Today
The marketing playbook is broken.
AI, privacy shifts, and the death of SEO have changed the rules. Winning isn't just spending — it's a different playbook entirely.
Privacy killed the old playbook
Third-party cookies are gone. Email open rates are noise. Postmaster rules tightened. The channels that drove leads for twenty years are degraded, blocked, or fundamentally broken.
AI disrupted search — and content
SEO is being replaced by AEO — Answer Engine Optimization. Buyers aren't clicking ten blue links. They're getting answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. If you're not in the answer, you don't exist.
The 95/5 rule is the whole game
Only 5% of your market is actively buying right now. 95% doesn't know they have a problem yet. Most teams chase the 5%. The companies that win build an engine for both.
The 95/5 reality
In market now. Actively evaluating.
So what does winning look like? Meet tomorrow's marketing team.