A decade ago, marketing teams managed a website and a couple of social media accounts. The most advanced teams were dabbling in Google AdWords or boosted Facebook posts.
Since then, expectations have exploded. Platforms and strategies that did not exist 10 years ago have become standard practice. Marketers have gone from managing one or two social media platforms to nearly half a dozen or more. Google Ads expanded from search and display to video, direct placements, AI targeting and a slew of other possibilities.
This article is part of a monthly series provided by the National Council for Marketing & Public Relations, an affiliated council of the American Association of Community Colleges.
Plus, the cost of advertising keeps increasing year after year, while 60% of marketing leaders say their marketing budget remained flat or declined in the last year, according to an August 2026 survey from EAB, an education research and technology firm that helps schools support their students. About half said they do not have large enough teams to reach enrollment goals.
One way marketing teams have responded is by turning to AI to copywrite projects such as scripts or blog posts, design and maintain websites, analyze marketing data and more. Two years ago, marketing and communications leaders were asking what AI could do. Today, the question has become: How do you build a team that uses AI well?
Moving from novelty to workflow
The Pikes Peak State College (PPSC) marketing and communications team started experimenting with ChatGPT when the platform launched in late November 2022. Initially, the team had mixed feelings about whether the tool could be useful. Results that included hallucinations and ChatGPT’s inability to search the internet or remember anything between chats meant it was more of a novelty than a useful tool.
But as ChatGPT added plugins, file uploads, web browsing and data analytics, the PPSC team saw real value in the platform. When ChatGPT released model 4o, which included the ability to create custom GPTs from PPSC-specific knowledge, The Colorado college began to use the tool more. (A GPT, which stands for generative pre-trained transformer, is the custom-built mini chatbot inside ChatGPT.) PPSC’s then became one of the first community college marketing teams to sign up for a team plan in 2024.
Southeastern Community College (SCC) in Iowa followed a similar path.
“We got a free ChatGPT account and just kind of mumbled our way through it,” says Jeff Ebbing, SCC’s director of marketing and communications. “Then I started to see value in it and got a paid account, sat in on a couple different webinars, and I started making my own GPTs.”
Institutional infrastructure and leadership’s role
To best leverage AI, paid team plans make the most sense for institutions of higher education. Advantages of paid plans include:
- Sharing resources across teams.
- Data security, because paid plans typically keep uploaded documents private to the account.
- Quicker access to newer models and features.
One of the best features, Ebbing says, is that marketing teams can stress test ideas in a low-stakes environment.
“You’re able to go through these iterations of things and come out with so much more experience so much faster,” he says. “It’s no different than our students who do simulation in the nursing lab, practicing on a dummy. That’s what AI is for us.”
For college presidents, moving teams to a shared platform can reduce risk and provide opportunity for marketing teams to leverage modern technology.
“The president doesn’t need to know every technical detail,” Ebbing says, “but they need to know it is there. You’re leaving value on the table if you don’t use it. (AI is) such a multiplier that if we’re not using it, we’re really not doing our job.”
PPSC has adopted BoodleBox, an AI platform designed for higher education that provides secure, enterprise-level access to multiple AI models under a single institutional agreement. This extends the reach of AI usage across departments in the college.
“What PPSC is building is exemplary of what AI literacy looks like at the institutional level,” says Meredith Lancaster, director of customer experience at BoodleBox. “They’re creating a shared foundation where everyone at the college can access multiple AI models, collaborate within and across departments, and grow together.
“When leadership champions that kind of environment, their teams can protect their voice, sharpen their thinking and serve their students better.”
The authenticity barrier
While the use of AI can make life considerably easier for a marcom and PR professional, there are drawbacks.
“One of the biggest concerns I see is audience resistance,” says Sebastian Troitiño, digital marketing manager for Lee College in Texas. “When audiences encounter content that feels obviously AI-generated, whether it’s the copy or imagery, it can create an immediate disconnect with the brand. That’s why maintaining authenticity and keeping humans involved in the process is so important.”
Recent data from Rival Technologies, an AI-powered market research tool, bears out Troitiño’s observations: Rival reports that, after encountering AI-generated marketing, 72% of Gen Z consumers have taken direct action against a brand, such as unfollowing the brand or choosing not to purchase a product or service.
PPSC, SCC and Lee College take similar approaches to inoculate against that backlash. First, they train their AI on brand guidelines and brand voice. PPSC uploaded its writing style and brand guidelines into a bot named after their mascot, Arnie the Aardvark; the marketing team uses Arnie bot to create initial content drafts. SCC built a college voice tool it calls the Comms Helper-Outer.
Once initial content is made, marketers review and edit before anything goes live. The goal is to ensure AI does not define the college’s voice, Troitiño says.
“We are the frontline leaders protecting our brand, protecting the sound of our institution, making sure it aligns with our audiences, our geographic areas,” he says. “What that means is giving AI the context, telling AI who Lee College is, who we’re speaking to.”
It’s about working with the tool as thinking partners to develop the desired tone and terminology.
This process creates the standard for output that uplifts the college’s voice without alienating audiences. The only way AI is going to be effective is if marketing professionals know more about everything, from copywriting to the college’s voice, than the AI. Otherwise, the AI will provide slop, not useful material.
Three strategies to successfully incorporate AI
The trick isn’t about using AI to produce more content but the capacity to develop stronger digital marketing strategies.
“When we can reduce some of the repetitive or mechanical parts of the job, marketers have more time to analyze performance, understand audiences, optimize campaigns and make informed decisions,” Troitiño says.
Here are three strategic rules presidents and chief marketing officers can follow to ensure AI is incorporated successfully:
- Prioritize literacy over specific tools. Train staff on critical thinking, useful prompt structure and strategic use for AI rather than trying to find a perfect app.
- Use AI for efficiency, not substitution. Automate workflows, initial data exploration and first drafts. Reserve human talent and expertise for final storytelling, directing nuance and strategic deployment.
- Train models on institutional identity. Feed systems approved brand and writing style guides, audience profiles and other relevant information about the institution before using the model to generate output.
In short, Ebbing says, let AI do some of the basic work.
“It frees up mental bandwidth to focus on using individual expertise,” he adds. “We’re offloading the busywork so we can focus on the gold.”
