To discover prime candidates for automation, record a screen video of yourself performing a repetitive, manual task. You can upload this video (up to an hour long) to Google Gemini, which will analyze the workflow, break it down into steps, and provide a concrete plan for how to automate it.
An AI workflow can scrape trending TikToks using a tool like Appify, analyze video content and comments with Gemini, and generate tailored creative briefs based on a brand's style guide. This workflow transforms days of manual research into a minutes-long, data-driven process.
While autonomous AI agents generate significant hype, their real-world business value is currently limited and unreliable. Marketers should instead focus on building deterministic AI automations—workflows with a clear, predefined sequence of steps—which deliver consistent and valuable results for specific marketing tasks today.
The optimal human-AI workflow involves feeding AI both unstructured data (TikTok videos, comments) and structured data (brand bibles, target audiences). AI excels at synthesizing these disparate sources into a near-complete output, like a creative brief, leaving the final 20% of strategic refinement to human experts.
Effective AI tools are not just about task automation; they encode an expert's strategic perspective. By building a point-of-view-driven research process into an app—prioritizing specific metrics and analyses—you can scale specialized expertise across an entire marketing team, ensuring consistent, high-quality insights.
AI is exceptionally effective for automating text-based work like deep research, data synthesis, and writing first drafts. However, fully automating creative asset generation, especially AI video, is currently ill-advised. The output quality is often poor and can negatively reflect on a brand, making human oversight essential.
The learning curve for traditional workflow automation tools like N8N is steep for non-coders. A more accessible starting point is "vibe coding"—using natural language prompts to build applications in environments like Anthropic's Claude. This lowers the barrier for marketers to create valuable, custom tools without deep technical expertise.