The Human Edge: What Wins When AI Is Everywhere?

That was the big question at The Human Edge: When AI is everywhere, what wins?, an event organised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) in collaboration with Henley Business School on 8 October 2026.

We headed to the event to hear from industry experts, share ideas with fellow marketers and explore what the growing influence of artificial intelligence means for businesses and the future of marketing.

Alongside some excellent speakers, useful conversations, great networking and a lovely lunch and location, we came away with plenty to think about.

Here are some of our key takeaways

1. AI might be everywhere, but don't lose the human touch

One of the strongest messages from the day was that, as AI becomes more accessible, the human side of marketing becomes even more important.

AI can help businesses create content, analyse information and work more efficiently. But when everyone has access to similar tools, simply using AI isn't going to give a business a competitive advantage.

What matters is how you use it.

Understanding your customers, recognising what they really need, building relationships and making sound marketing decisions all require human judgement. Trust is also a major differentiator. People want to know who they're dealing with, what a business stands for and whether it understands their challenges.

For us at ACES Marketing, this reinforces something we've always believed: effective marketing starts with understanding people. Technology can help us do that more efficiently, but it shouldn't replace the thinking, experience and creativity that make marketing work.

2. Will AI recommend your business?

A particularly interesting takeaway was the importance of thinking about how AI tools discover and recommend businesses.

Search behaviour is changing. Alongside traditional Google searches, people are increasingly turning to AI tools to ask questions, compare options and find recommendations.

That means businesses need to think beyond simply ranking in search results. They also need to consider whether their website and wider online presence give AI tools enough reliable information to understand what they do, who they help and why they are credible.

Some practical areas to focus on include:

• Reviews and testimonials: Genuine customer feedback helps demonstrate credibility and gives potential customers more confidence in your business.
• Directories and third-party mentions: Relevant business listings and references from reputable websites can help reinforce your online presence.
• Experience and expertise: Your website content should demonstrate that you understand your industry and the problems your customers face.
• LinkedIn and other professional content: Useful, well-written content can strengthen your professional profile and make your expertise easier to discover.
• Digital PR: Relevant coverage and mentions on other websites can help build brand awareness, authority and trust.

This is where SEO and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) increasingly overlap. GEO focuses on improving how your business and its content may be understood, surfaced and referenced by generative AI tools.

There are no guarantees that an AI tool will recommend your business. However, building a credible, consistent and helpful online presence gives search engines and AI systems more useful information to work with.

3. Be clear about what you want to be known for

Another useful reminder was the importance of personal branding and having a clear position in the market.

Before creating more content, ask yourself three questions:

• What do you want to be known for?
• Who are you trying to reach, and what questions are they asking?
• Where can people find clear evidence of your expertise?

These questions should shape your content strategy. Rather than publishing content simply to keep your website or social media channels active, focus on the subjects where you have genuine knowledge and can offer something valuable.

Your website's About page is a good place to start. It should clearly explain who you are, what you do, who you work with and what makes your approach different. The same clarity should run through your service pages, case studies, LinkedIn profile and other online content.

For businesses looking to improve their visibility in both traditional search and AI-generated answers, consistency matters. Make it easy for people and the technology helping them to find information, to understand what you do and why your experience is relevant.

4. Tell stories and demonstrate your expertise

There is a difference between saying you are an expert and showing people what you know.

One of our key takeaways was the value of sharing real experiences, lessons learned and practical insights. Stories make your content more engaging, but they also help demonstrate how you think, how you solve problems and what you've learnt along the way.

You don't need to publish a long article every week. A useful starting point could be to share one genuine insight each week: something you've learnt from a client project, a challenge you've overcome, an industry development you've been considering or a question a customer recently asked.

That insight could become a LinkedIn post, a website article or part of a wider content campaign.

The important thing is to bring your own perspective to it. AI can help you organise ideas, develop a first draft or explore different ways to communicate a message, but your experience is what makes the content yours.

For businesses and marketing teams, this is an opportunity to create more distinctive content without making content production unnecessarily complicated.

5. Use AI as a content partner, not a replacement for your thinking

AI tools can be incredibly useful for marketing, particularly when it comes to research, brainstorming, structuring content and speeding up repetitive tasks.

However, the quality of the output depends on the instructions you give and the judgement you apply afterwards. Clear instructions about your brand, audience, tone of voice and objectives can make a real difference. Equally important is reviewing the result rather than accepting the first draft.

Check the facts. Challenge generic statements. Remove anything that doesn't sound like your business. Add your own examples, experience and point of view.

The aim isn't to avoid AI. It's to use it in a way that improves the quality and efficiency of your marketing without losing what makes your business distinctive. And that applies to everything from website copy and blogs to social media posts and customer communications.

6. Make time for genuine engagement

Personal branding doesn't happen simply by publishing content and waiting for people to notice.

Another practical idea from the day was to spend around 10 minutes a day engaging meaningfully with other people online.

That might mean responding thoughtfully to a LinkedIn post, joining a relevant industry conversation or sharing a useful perspective on a subject you know well. The emphasis is on genuine interaction rather than generic comments or engagement for its own sake.

For small businesses, this is a manageable way to build relationships, increase visibility and demonstrate expertise without needing a large social media budget.

It also connects with the wider message of the event: people still want to engage with people. Technology can help us work more efficiently, but meaningful relationships remain important.

7. Digital PR is part of the bigger picture

Our final takeaway is that marketing activity needs to work together.

SEO, website content, personal branding, social media, customer reviews and digital PR shouldn't be treated as completely separate activities. Each can contribute to how people discover your business and assess whether they trust it.

For example, a useful article on your website can be shared on LinkedIn, developed into a series of social posts and supported by relevant PR activity. A client success story can demonstrate your experience while giving potential customers a clearer idea of what working with you looks like.

This joined-up approach helps you get more value from the content you create and builds a stronger, more consistent online presence.

It also reinforces the importance of having a clear marketing strategy. Producing more content isn't necessarily the answer; producing the right content, for the right audience, and making sure it reaches them is what counts.

What does this mean for businesses?

The message we took away from the CIM event was not that AI is something to fear, or that every business needs to adopt every new tool.

It's that marketing is evolving, and businesses need to think carefully about how they use technology while continuing to invest in the things that build trust and create genuine value.

Be clear about what makes your business different. Understand your customers. Share your expertise. Make your online presence useful and credible. Use AI where it helps, but don't let it strip away your personality.

And remember that effective marketing is about more than visibility. It's about giving the right people a reason to choose you.