From Tool-Using to Sensemaking: The Next Step for Marketers Ready for AI
Artificial intelligence has transformed the face of marketing — yet, as contemporary organizational research shows, mere familiarity with tools is no longer enough.
Brill, Schnugg, & Stary (2024) define sensemaking as the process through which people give meaning and order to reality under conditions of uncertainty and data overload — not only by interpreting signals, but by creating understanding through dialogue and reflection.
In the context of marketing, sensemaking is becoming a strategic competence because it:
- Connects human creativity with AI-generated data,
- guides data interpretation, ethical evaluation, and brand narrative design,
- enables organizations to adapt within an uncertain, algorithmic environment.
Sagodi, Dremel, & van Giffen (2023) describe sensemaking in AI-driven projects as a cycle of cognition, interaction, regulation, and concretization—a process in which human interpretation intertwines with machine learning.
Within the project People and Algorithms in Organisations (DIGIT_People and algorithms), we observe that marketers who develop these interpretative competencies make more conscious, ethical, and creative decisions.
👉 Download the report “Opportunities and Threats of AI for Marketing”:
https://ue.poznan.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/NAWA-report-1-1.pdf https://osf.io/qtwub
This post is part of the “People and Algorithms in Organisations: Competences to Work in the Digital Environment” (DIGIT_People and algorithms), funded by the NAWA – Narodowa Agencja Wymiany Akademickiej (Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange).
References:
- Brill, D., Schnugg, C., & Stary, C. (2024). Collaborative construction of meaning: facilitating sensemaking moments through aesthetic knowledge generation. Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 23(4), 382–396.
- Sagodi, A., Dremel, C., & van Giffen, B. (2023). Sensemaking in AI-Based Digital Innovations: Insights from a Manufacturing Case Study. ECIS 2023 Research Papers, 390.