AI conversations in associations tend to focus inward: productivity, workflows, capacity. Jen O’Brien flips that.
As Director of Research and Innovation at the American Marketing Association, Jen leads original research on the future of marketing, with a focus on how AI is reshaping roles, skills, and the people associations serve. AMA’s own research shows that individual contributors are significantly underrating the importance of AI, even as job postings mentioning it doubled in 2025.
In this episode, Jen and Marcus dig into the data behind the disconnect—why marketers are deprioritizing the skills AI can’t replace, what the adoption gap actually looks like on the ground, and what associations are uniquely positioned to do about it: building foresight practices, monitoring real labor market shifts, and writing the playbook on AI for their industries before someone else does.
If your association is still treating AI as an internal efficiency question, this one’s worth your time.
