The invisible skill reshaping advertising & marketing

The job title makes headlines. The skill changes everything.

While ‘Chief Prompt Officer’ gets attention, what matters isn’t the title but the transformation happening across every desk in advertising and marketing.

The ability to speak to machines is becoming as fundamental as the ability to speak to humans.

And most of us aren’t ready.

Beyond the specialist

The mistake is thinking prompt engineering belongs to specialists.

It doesn’t.

When copywriters needed to understand printing constraints, we didn’t create ‘Chief Printing Officers.’ The skill became part of the job.

The same is happening with AI direction. A creative team recently cut a campaign development timeline from six weeks to four days, not because they hired prompt engineers, but because everyone became one.

This isn’t optional anymore.

According to a recent global study, 78% of agencies now report using generative AI tools daily. But only 23% have dedicated AI specialists.

The gap isn’t in hiring. It’s in training.

The new creative process

Creativity has been flipped on its head.

We used to move from concept to execution in a straight line.

Now we travel in loops, from prompt to result, from judgment to refinement, from analysis to redirection.

The brief isn’t the starting point for creation. It’s the foundation for conversation with something that doesn’t think like we do.

This requires a different mindset.

What used to be a waterfall workflow (strategy → concept → production) has become circular. Teams that embrace this change report 47% faster concept-to-execution timelines.

The ones that don’t are getting left behind.

The new palette

Creativity now spans dimensions we used to consider separate worlds:

Text AI – copywriting and strategy at scale

Lazy marketers ask AI to “write a product description.”

Smart ones ask it to “Write a luxury brand tagline for an eco-friendly perfume, using the voice of an exclusive Parisian fashion house.”

See the difference?

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, they all have one thing in common. Garbage prompts in? Garbage results out.

A strategist I know doesn’t write briefs anymore. She engineers them through conversations with Claude, extracting insights that would have taken weeks of research.

Image AI: Transforming visual branding and advertising

“Make a soda ad.”

Or—

“A bottle of soda, neon-lit, 1980s retro poster style, liquid splashing in high-speed motion.”

That second one? It’s an ad waiting to happen.

The value isn’t in pixel manipulation but in vision translation – turning concept into instruction. 

Take Heinz. They asked AI to visualize “ketchup.”

Every image looked unmistakably like Heinz. The campaign went viral. 1.15 billion impressions. 38% higher engagement than usual. 25x media investment return.

Image AI (Midjourney, DALL·E, Stable Diffusion) isn’t magic. It’s a camera without a photographer. A paintbrush without a painter. The art director is still you.

Video AI: A new frontier in campaign storytelling 

The difference between amateur and professional isn’t the technology.

It’s the prompting.

Consider these two approaches for generating an ad concept:

Amateur: “Create a car advertisement.”

Professional: “Create a concept for a luxury EV sedan targeting professionals aged 35-50 who value sustainability but won’t compromise on performance. The brand voice is confident but not arrogant. Focus on the silent power of electric acceleration. Include a memorable tagline.”

VOLTRIQ – The AI-powered commercial

I created a concept video using AI tools like SORA, DALL·E and AI-generated music, demonstrating the potential of strategic prompt engineering.

Everything in this concept ad,
The brand.
The lyrics.
The car.
The city.
The music.

All AI-generated.

ChatGPT for lyrics. Claude for brand name. SORA for motion. DALL·E for visuals. Suno AI for the soundtrack. Canva for video assembling. 

No expensive production crews. No months of planning. Just an idea, turned into reality through prompt engineering.

The result? A stunning, cinematic commercial, crafted entirely by AI.

Watch VOLTRIQ: The AI-Powered Ad

Sound – Sonic Branding at Scale

Need a voiceover? You could hire 12 voice actors.

Or, like KLM Airlines, you could generate them instantly, each one tailored to a specific market, in minutes instead of weeks.

ElevenLabs, Murf AI, Meta’s MusicGen, audio AI isn’t just replacing voices. It’s creating new ones.

Jingles. Background scores. Entire brand soundscapes.

The secret? Descriptive prompts.

“15-second upbeat jingle, whistles and piano, similar to Coca-Cola’s happy vibe.”

That’s not a request. It’s a command.

The VOLTRIQ example is a concept video created using AI tools, demonstrating the potential of strategic prompt engineering.

The new creative organisation

The entire structure is being rewritten.

At the centre: prompt-fluent creative directors who communicate vision with precision.

Teams aren’t building prompt libraries. They’re building prompt systems.

The difference? A library preserves successful prompts. A system codifies the patterns that make prompts successful.

This is becoming the new intellectual property in advertising.

In this ecosystem, silos collapse.

Copy, design, strategy, and production no longer work in handoffs. They collaborate around shared prompts.

The most valuable talent? Those who articulate vision most clearly, to both humans and machines.

The unexpected truth

The machines aren’t replacing the humans.

They’re revealing what humans do best.

The prompt revolution isn’t about better tools.

It’s about better questions.

Not “How do we make this?” But “What should we make?”

Not “Can we create more?” But “Are we creating what matters?”

The future doesn’t belong to those who speak the language of machines.

It belongs to those who know what needs to be said.

And that’s a skill no machine can master.

This article is penned by Ram Jalan, Digital Transformation, AI and innovation expert

Disclaimer: The article features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the stance of the publication.

Originally Appeared Here