AI Is Making Attention Cheap… So What Becomes Valuable?

Marketing has an attention problem (again).

Not because attention is disappearing. Because we built an entire industry around the belief that attention is the most valuable thing we can capture. From impressions and reach to clicks and content that never gives pause. Generative AI arrived and handed every organization the ability to create even more… faster… cheaper… text… images… audio… video… and across every channel imaginable. How is that working out for us? The volume? That is rising rapidly. The value? I’m not seeing AI making content marketing better or more effective… yet. We have no scarcity when it comes to ideas, messages or campaigns. It’s fair to say that almost anyone can now generate almost anything… almost instantly.

When production and supply goes infinite, the value of the material thing being created does not increase… it collapses.

This is the problem marketing leaders need to confront. AI is not simply making marketing materials easier to produce. It is making attention easier to pursue… and much harder to earn. If every brand can publish more, personalize more, test more and optimize more, what happens? The result is not a better Attention Economy… it’s just a louder one.

Marketing has moved somewhere else…

I believe we are no longer in The Attention Economy (reach, noise and distribution). We are in The Intimacy Economy. An economy shaped by individual relevance, connection and personal meaning. This is not intimacy where brands pretend to be our friends. It is (also) not inserting someone’s first name into an email, retargeting them across the internet or generating fifty versions of an advertisement as a form of “personalization.” That is automation not personalization. Real intimacy is that feeling a consumer gets when they feel like a brand “gets” them. Can a brand anticipate what I’m into (or find useful)? Does the interaction feel like it was created just for me? Forget AI for productivity, reports, emails and the office (we get that part)… but AI used as an engine of The Intimacy Economy? That’s where the marketing opportunity exists. If done well (and we’ve seen some incredible examples) brands can communicate (at scale) while adapting to the context, needs and intentions of each person.

The opportunity is not infinite content… it is infinite context.

Marketers need to shift their current AI thinking from saving time to spending that time on something better. A more beautiful question might be: What can we now understand, create or deliver for the customer that was never previously possible? Let’s push beyond tools, prompts and agents. Marketing does not need another machine for producing more messages. It needs a new operating system for creating more meaning.

Marketing Forward

This is the ever-evolving thinking behind my newest keynote, Marketing Forward. I’ll be bringing it to MAICON 2026, which is taking place October 13–15 in Cleveland. My promise: this is not a presentation about the latest collection of AI tools. Those tools will change before I land in Cleveland… and again shortly after everyone leaves. The more important provocation is building a way to think and act in marketing when the technology refuses to stand still. I’ll explore how marketing is moving from attention toward intimacy… from social toward one-to-X (and what that means)… and from producing more content toward creating more contextual and human experiences. I’ll also introduce my P.A.C.E. framework for how we marketers must all show up. These ideas are designed to help marketers make better choices regardless of which model, platform or technology happens to dominate the conversation that week.

Why MAICON?

There are now endless AI events, newsletters, podcasts, courses and online communities. That abundance creates its own problem. Where do serious marketing and business leaders go to move beyond the spectacle of AI and into the difficult work of applying it? MAICON brings together people who are building, experimenting, implementing, questioning and leading through this shift. That is why I’m excited to participate.

If you are leading marketing through this moment… I hope you’ll join us in Cleveland.

The brands that win will not be the ones that use AI to say more… they will be the ones that finally understand what is worth saying… to whom… in which context… and why it matters. Attention can be captured… intimacy must be earned.

That is where marketing is going… let’s move it forward.

If you want to read more about my session, please check this out: Welcome to The Intimacy Economy Where Connection, Relevance and Meaning Matter Most.

I should also state my connection plainly: I’m an investor in SmarterX, the organization behind the Marketing AI Institute and MAICON. I chose to invest because I believe deeply in Paul, the work, the people and the need for a more intelligent conversation about how AI will reshape marketing and business.