There was a time when, if you wanted an audience, you had to pay for the space. That’s still true—unless you manage to capture something that “sticks” with people and spreads like wildfire. But let’s be honest—that window is closing fast.
Last week I spoke with the sales director of a thriving Slovenian company. They’d poured thousands of euros into a glossy promo video. Perfect framing, perfect lighting, perfect… everything. The result? Barely any reach, with most viewers bailing after eight seconds. Two days later, their outside consultant posted a short, “off-the-cuff” clip of the product in action on Instagram—no crew, no budget—and racked up ten times the views and engagement. Not a penny spent on ads.
TikTok trained people to follow content based on what they care about, not who made it. That flipped the whole game. For now, creativity can still buy you reach—but AI will level that field fast. Content quality is about to become a commodity. What will set you apart is context—hitting the right person, at the right moment, in the right tone, through the right channel.
A few years from now, no one will care whether a human or AI created a video. People will watch what:
And yes—“AI influencers” will crank out hyper-personalized content based on your interaction history, your mood, and even your choice of words. That’s the heart of AI personalization.
The real challenge? Data chaos. Customer signals are scattered across CRMs, support tools, e-commerce platforms, POS systems, social media… and none of them talk to each other. Without order, personalization is just guesswork, and true individualization is still science fiction.
“Context ops” is pretty straightforward: spot a signal, connect it with other data, and trigger the right content at exactly the right time. That means:
One of our retail clients linked up data from their online store, POS, support, and campaigns. A customer asked about a replacement filter via live chat. Seconds later, the system sent a personalized email with a special offer for an upgrade kit. On their next visit, the same offer was waiting at the top of the site—plus targeted ads on Meta and TikTok. The payoff? A 24% higher upsell rate compared to other customers.
Bottom line:
Too many companies are polishing prompts, and too few are fixing their data infrastructure and nailing context marketing. In two or three years, 1:1 communication will be the baseline. If you can’t do it, your competitors will grow by taking your customers—and you’ll be left relying on word-of-mouth.
Want to know what you can do today to make sure you’re still in the game three years from now?