📝 TL;DR A new piece argues that the future of educational marketing belongs to those who use AI to listen better, not shout louder. The big idea, smarter tech and data are powerful, but trust, timing and human judgement still decide who actually wins attention in education. 🧠 Overview Educational organisations are waking up to a problem, marketing has become noisy, transactional and volume driven, while education itself is meant to be human, purposeful and long term. This article argues that AI, data and automation can absolutely help, but only if they reduce noise, respect people’s attention and support human decision making. The future is not “AI instead of humans” in marketing, it is “AI plus humans” used intelligently. 📜 The Announcement The article, published in December 2025, looks at how colleges, universities and training providers can rethink marketing in an AI powered world. It highlights the shift from mass email blasts and generic campaigns toward relevant, well timed conversations based on real intent signals. The author’s core message, technology should reflect the human purpose of education, not pull it toward spammy, pressure driven tactics. ⚙️ How It Works • From volume to relevance - Instead of asking “How many people can we contact?”, the focus shifts to “Who should we speak to, and when?” so outreach is based on timing, context and intent. • Respecting diverse audiences - A principal, careers lead, training provider and prospective learner all have different pressures and timelines, AI can help spot those differences so you do not treat everyone as one big list. • AI as a judgement support tool - Predictive analytics and behavioural data highlight who is researching courses, funding or partnerships, while humans still decide what is appropriate to send and how to respond. • Reducing digital noise - Used well, technology helps teams send fewer but smarter messages, cutting generic blasts and focusing on moments when someone actually wants to hear from you.

As a business owner and agency owner who educates people in my local community about AI (through the library and small businesses), I wanted to share a few ways that I have discovered that people can implement AI without feeling overwhelmed. The suggestions that I am giving below aren't to say you have to incorporate them all, but just pick one or two and as you get comfortable, incorporate a few more that make sense for your business... - You can use ChatGPT as your partner to run ideas by- analyze your strategy, challenge your approach, assist you in identifying your target audience if you are just getting started. Use the "voice" mode and ask it to ask you challenging questions to get to the core issue you are having based on the topic and it will transcribe the conversation on the back end so you will always have it. - You could create an app through vibe coding that holds your SOPs or Training information (nothing confidential or proprietary) so new people joining your team can learn from that tool vs. you or a team member having to take the time to train them (instead, you can question what they learned afterwards or have AI create a flash-card or memory based quiz, crossword, etc. to test their knowledge in fun/creative ways) - You can include a web chatbot on the home page of your website to answer questions about your business and even schedule appointments - You can reinvigorate your email list by having ChatGPT come up with creative email campaigns per quarter that are 75% educational (about your industry or business) and 25% Calls to Action for Sales so they don't feel like you are consistently selling. Ask AI what perks you can offer your customers (like birthday discounts for their birthday month or referral rewards). If you use a platform like GHL, you can set everything up with automations on a quarterly basis as well. - You could get a voice concierge agent that works 24/7 and never misses a call if you are a business that could benefit from that. They sound human, and their knowledge-base knows everything about your company and website and it can answer most questions and book appointments if connected correctly to your calendar. - You could use AI to create presentations for you. I am speaking at an AI Summit next year, and I put the information I wanted to talk about in Claude, then asked it to fill in any gaps about AI I might have overlooked or missed that would be important to cover for that audience and asked it to put it into more of a "TedTalk" type format...then once I liked the result, I took it to the presentation creation app (Gamma) and in about 50 seconds, I had the full presentation with images and graphs completed. Game Changer!

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What are the best AI tools right now? I’m looking for both the well‑known ones and some lesser known tools that only a few people are using