Nina Christian, marketing futurist and award-winning strategist
A senior FinTech technologist put it bluntly to me last week.
His team is leading a major automation program in a part of the finance industry that has historically been almost entirely human-led. The efficiency gains are staggering. The uncomfortable truth is just as clear: the systems they are building will directly replace human roles.
“Someone will do this work, whether it’s us or someone else,” he said. “So it may as well be us.”
Then he asked the question more leaders should be asking:
“What can I offer to support people who will inevitably be affected by this next wave, and minimise the collateral damage, which is coming soon?”
Not in three years.
Not when restructures hit.
Now – while there’s still time to prepare.
Whether you sit in media, marketing, client service, commercial or product, the dynamic is the same: the automation train is already moving. Trying to stop AI now is like trying to stop an avalanche halfway down the mountain.
The question for professionals is no longer if disruption comes to your role, but how visible your value will be when it does.
The Automation Avalanche Meets a Crowded Talent Market
In a previous piece on personal positioning, I argued that you have to be deliberate about how you present your expertise to the market if you want to shape your opportunities.
Twelve months on, that point has only sharpened.
We’re heading into a squeeze created by three overlapping trends:
◆ People are working longer. Better health, rising life expectancy and financial pressure mean more people are staying in the workforce later in life.
◆ Graduates keep coming. Each year, a large, fresh wave of young talent enters the market, adding to the pool rather than replacing it.
◆ AI is moving up the value chain. Tasks once considered safely “human only” – research, reporting, optimisation, even creative draft work – are being automated or heavily augmented. Many public forecasts around the impact of AI on jobs and businesses talk about possibilities.
However quietly, those running these projects are talking about realities they’re seeing in real time – and they describe a transformation far larger than the broader industry commentary suggests.
For the media and marketing ecosystem, this means a growing supply of talent competing for roles in agencies, platforms, publishers and client-side teams – just as AI takes a larger share of the functional workload.
The result is simple: competition is intensifying at exactly the same time as the definition of “value” is changing.
The Six-Month Rule: Brand Yourself Before the Restructure
A strong personal brand used to be a nice-to-have. In an AI-accelerated market, it is an insurance policy.
If you wait until the restructure announcement, the merger, or the pitch loss, you’re already behind. This is a conversation you want to have at least six months before you think you’ll need it.
As AI automates more of the “doing” – reporting, drafting, optimising, summarising — the differentiators that remain are unmistakably human:
◆ How you think and decide.
◆ How you handle complexity, bias, conflict and ambiguity.
◆ The particular perspective your experience gives you.
But those qualities only matter if people actually see them.
If your colleagues, leaders, clients and the wider market can’t easily answer, “What is this person brilliant at?” then you are relying on goodwill and memory in a market that will be under pressure.
Organisations that support their people to articulate and amplify their individual value – not just the logo on their email signature – will be the ones with stronger loyalty, better retention and a clearer edge when things tighten.
From “Good to Work With” to “Known for Something”
The foundations of personal brand haven’t disappeared. Being decent, reliable and likeable still counts.
The problem is that it’s no longer a differentiator.
In a market where many people are competent and pleasant, the shift is from “good to work with” to “known for something specific”.
That means:
◆ You can clearly explain the value you create, in language a non-specialist understands.
◆ Others can repeat that explanation without you in the room.
◆ Your digital footprint supports that story rather than muddying it.
Clarity, confidence and the ability to articulate your impact are now baseline skills — especially in media and marketing, where everyone is selling the value of attention, brand and reputation, but often neglecting their own.
Professionals who thrive in the next five years will be the ones who move beyond generic strengths like “relationship builder” and “good communicator” and make their unique edge unmistakable.
Visibility, Clarity and Reputation Capital
In this environment, the equation has shifted:
It’s not just what you know.
It’s not just who you know.
It’s how effectively you show the difference you make.
People with strong, coherent personal brands:
◆ Attract new business more easily.
◆ Retain and deepen existing relationships.
◆ Draw better collaborators and talent into their orbit, regardless of job title.
And this extends far beyond LinkedIn posts.
Building a consistent public profile – across meetings, industry events, panels, internal forums, trade press and social channels – is a slow burn. You can’t manufacture reputation in three weeks when the redundancy rumours start.
A realistic time frame?
Think six months of consistent, focused effort – as little as an hour a week, aimed at the most leveraged activities.
That’s why the key questions to be asking yourself now are:
◆ Do I know my value in clear, commercial terms?
◆ Do my leaders, peers, clients and the market know it too?
◆ If my name came up in a room I’m not in, what would people say I’m great at?
Two Paths from Here: Proactive or Reactive
From a professional strategy point of view, there are really only two options.
1. Proactive: Use the Current Window
You use this window – before disruption peaks – to:
Clarify your “X-factor”: the mix of skills, experiences and perspectives that make your contribution distinct.
Tighten your positioning: how you talk about what you do and who you do it for.
Build a brand with substance and connection: visible in meetings, in your work, and in the market-facing channels that matter for your role.
When the next wave of change hits, you’re on the front foot and you’ve built reputation capital. People already know why your voice should be in the room.
2. Reactive: Wait and See
You wait.
Then, when restructures, budget cuts or automation programs land, you try to build visibility in a compressed time frame.
You’re not out of options – but the hill is steeper. The timing is worse. And you’re competing with others who started earlier.
The Long Game: Consistency Beats the One-Off Campaign
The media & marketing industry knows better than most that one burst campaign doesn’t build a brand.
The same applies to your career, business or team visibility in a global enterprise.
Get honest about your strengths and drivers now. Build simple systems that make it easy to show up consistently – without burning yourself out trying to be “on” everywhere.
Anyone can run a visibility sprint once.
Very few professionals maintain a steady, authentic presence over years.
That’s where trust accumulates. That’s where reputation capital is built.
Show up well in the moments that matter – pitches, reviews, key meetings, public forums – and do it consistently. Over time, that’s what separates “good operator” from “go-to person”.
Will You Be Known for Your Value Before It’s Tested?
In an AI-accelerated market, the professionals who move early will have more options — and more say in how their careers evolve.
Your value deserves to be recognised. But recognition isn’t automatic. It’s designed, communicated and reinforced over time.
The critical question, especially in a sector facing ongoing disruption, is this:
Will people know the difference you make before they have to decide who stays in the room?
Right now, there is a genuine opportunity for those willing to make their value visible before restructuring, automation or market shifts force the conversation.
This isn’t about becoming a different person. It’s about ensuring that people beyond your immediate circle can see the depth, judgment and capability that are already there.
And to borrow the FinTech leader’s logic:
Someone in your space will strengthen their personal brand, whether it’s you or someone else.
It may as well be you.