AI Changed How We Work, Not What We Do
There’s a lot of noise around AI in marketing at the moment.
Most of it focuses on speed, automation, and the idea that tools will take over large parts of the job. In practice, the impact is a bit different.
What we’ve seen is a shift in how time is spent.
Not less work. Better allocation of it.
The Reality of PPC Work
Managing PPC accounts has always involved a level of routine checking.
Budgets, disapprovals, conversion tracking, delivery, spend anomalies. The kind of things that need to be monitored daily to make sure everything is working as it should.
For many teams, this creates a reactive start to the day because you’re not thinking about strategy first. You’re checking what’s changed, what’s broken, and what needs fixing. Even though it’s necessary work, it comes with a cost. Time and attention are spent maintaining performance rather than improving it.
A good example of this is the standard Monday check. Across ten accounts, working through budgets, disapprovals, tracking, delivery, and spend anomalies could easily take around 60 minutes.
That same process now looks very different. By introducing a daily checks dashboard using Claude, those same checks can be reviewed in closer to 10 minutes.
Where the Value Actually Sits
What matters is what happens next.
Instead of spending the first part of the day working through checks, there’s space to step back and look at the accounts more critically.
Which accounts need a structural change?
Where is performance plateauing?
What needs to be addressed before it becomes an issue?
That shift from reacting to thinking is where the difference starts to show.
Rather than responding to issues as they come up, there’s more opportunity to get ahead of them.
What AI Doesn’t Do
AI can organise information and surface patterns, but:
It doesn’t decide what matters most.
It doesn’t understand the commercial context behind an account.
It doesn’t make the final call on what should change, that still comes down to judgement.
What This Means for Teams
This shift isn’t limited to PPC.
Across ecommerce and digital teams, there are similar patterns. Time is often spent on repeatable tasks that are necessary but don’t require deep thinking.
When those tasks are handled more efficiently, the opportunity is to refocus on higher-value work.
Strategy.
Prioritisation.
Communication.
Over time, better use of time leads to better decisions.
A Practical Starting Point
For teams looking at where AI fits into their workflow, the starting point is usually simple.
Identify the tasks that are repeated regularly.
Look at what requires judgement and what doesn’t.
Consider how the process could be streamlined without removing visibility.
Bringing It Back to the Role
The role itself hasn’t changed. PPC still requires oversight, decision-making, and a clear understanding of performance.
What has changed is how much time is available to focus on those areas. When less time is spent checking, more time can be spent improving.
That’s where the real impact shows up.