April 15th might be Tax Day in the U.S., but every day can feel like an audit for marketers trying to embrace AI and real-time marketing. The promise of AI is clear—faster campaigns, deeper personalization, and fewer bottlenecks. But the path there is filled with obstacles that slow teams down and keep them tied to siloed structures.
Key takeaways:
To thrive in 2025 and beyond, marketers must break free from legacy mindsets and org charts. It’s time to go Positionless because the most prominent taxes marketers pay in the era of real-time marketing are wasted time, creativity, and agility.
Stay in touch
Be the first to know all about the latest Marketing tips & tricks, Industry special insights and more
The 5 Most Taxing AI Challenges Marketers Face Today
Below are the five issues to watch in 2025:
#1. The Data Gatekeeper
AI needs data like a car needs fuel. But too many marketers are stuck waiting for access to customer insights—blocked by technical silos, IT gatekeeping, or engineering backlogs. This dependency taxes campaign speed and room for creative experimentation.
Positionless Fix: Give marketers direct, self-serve access to customer segments and insights, eliminating delays and dependency on data teams. This enables marketers to create relevant, real-time, data-driven campaigns that are quick to launch.
#2. Creative Asset Chaos
Creating visuals and copy for every channel takes weeks to execute. Now, with generative AI, it can take minutes. Most marketers still deal with version issues, slow approvals, and endless last-minute edits.
Positionless Fix: Integrating AI tools lets any marketer instantly generate on-brand assets. This isn’t about replacing creatives—it’s about freeing them from grunt work and making everyone a creator.
#3. Journey Orchestration Gridlock
Marketing journeys today are complex—web, email, app, SMS, ads, etc. Managing them in real-time is like directing air traffic. AI can help automate decisioning, but too often, the team is split between strategy, ops, and analytics—slowing everything down.
Positionless Fix: Equip marketing teams with optimization powered by AI to automate testing, sequencing, and journey logic. This makes each marketer a strategist and operator—no more waiting on ops or analysts to tweak a flow.
#4. AI Anxiety and Skill Gaps
Everyone’s talking about AI, but not all marketers feel fully confident using it. The tech can be intimidating, and teams revert to familiar (but inefficient) methods without the proper training or support.
Positionless Fix: Build a culture of continuous learning and cross-skill empowerment. Positionless marketers aren’t specialists—they’re adaptable problem-solvers. They don’t wait for permission or handoffs; they test, iterate, and launch.
#5. Org Chart Overload
Traditional marketing organizations are siloed by function: cross-strategy, design, content, analysis, ops, email, creative, data, etc. This structure made sense pre-AI. Today, it creates unnecessary friction, delays, and confusion over who owns what.
Positionless Fix: Break down rigid roles. Build teams around customer outcomes, not job titles. In a Positionless world, everyone is empowered to act, test, create, and optimize. Think of it as faster, leaner, and radically more effective marketing without borders.
Learn more about Positionless Marketing in this recent LinkedIn post by Pini, Optimove’s CEO.
The CRM Marketer Evolution’s Curve Guide
Download this guide to learn about the 5 stages of a marketer’s evolution. Discover which level you are on and how you can move up.
AI and real-time marketing aren’t the problem. Outdated structures, rigid roles, and tech silos are the true culprits draining time and energy. In 2025, the best marketing orgs won’t be the biggest, they’ll be the most agile.
Positionless Marketing is the blueprint for this transformation. It’s about giving teams the power to do anything and be everything—to eliminate the daily tax of waiting, depending, and working in silos.
This Tax Day, don’t just file returns; file away old ways of working. The Positionless era is here, and it’s the most liberating thing to happen to marketing in decades.
Rob Wyse is Senior Director of Communications at Optimove.
As a communications consultant, he has been influential in changing public opinion and policy to drive market opportunity. Example issues he has worked on include climate change, healthcare reform, homeland security, cloud transformation, AI, and other timely issues.
