Welcome back to Koozai Couch, our interview series where we speak to people from across digital marketing about the ideas, tools and changes shaping the industry.
This time, we spoke with Leonardo Chinchilla, Professor at the University of Costa Rica, and he shared about the risks of mass automation, why the human side of writing matters more in an AI-heavy market, and why digital marketing may need to take a few steps backwards to move forwards.
Leonardo is a writer, educator and digital marketing professional with experience in digital PR, persuasive communication and audience-focused writing. As a published fiction author and independent blogger, he combines creative storytelling with the strategic use of language to engage different audiences.
He currently teaches composition and rhetoric at the University of Costa Rica, with a particular focus on creating compelling, well-structured narratives. His work also connects academic thinking with the practical use of technologies such as AI in marketing.
The Interview
For each Koozai Couch, we ask the same five questions to get a quick but useful snapshot of what people across digital marketing are seeing, using and rethinking.
Here’s what Leonardo had to say.
1. What’s one thing the industry is getting completely wrong right now?
Mass automation.
It seems to me that, in the process of adapting to the market, we’ve automated so many things that we’re starting to lose our grip on what makes a business feel genuine: the human touch.
Automated systems can work brilliantly for digital natives, but they can also leave behind older generations and people with additional accessibility needs.
There’s still a real need for humanity in our processes, whether that’s customer service, placing an order or simply giving someone confidence that a brand is legitimate rather than a scam.
We need to make sure that efficiency doesn’t come at the expense of being inclusive, accessible and human.
2. What tool or resource has genuinely changed how you work lately?
Adobe Express.
I find it much more user-friendly than Canva, but the biggest game changer for me has been its scheduling and integration features.
I’ve linked my LinkedIn and Instagram accounts, so I can plan a whole content strategy from one application.
It also lets you customise the messaging for each platform, which means I can tweak content as needed rather than simply publishing exactly the same thing everywhere.
Having the planning, creation and scheduling parts of the process together has made managing content much easier.
3. What’s a take you’ve changed your mind on in the last 12 months?
The idea that AI will replace us and our creativity.
I deal with AI-generated writing every day and, when it comes to copy, I still find human writing far more compelling than anything produced by AI, regardless of how specific my instructions are to tools such as Claude or ChatGPT.
I think our increased exposure to AI-generated content has also made people less interested in writing that feels machine-produced and more interested in identifying the human behind the narrative.
For that reason, the copy that sells can be full of texture. Different rhythms and punctuation, flashes of personality and sparks of metaphorical or creative writing can all help the person behind the words come through.
AI won’t replace us as long as we keep nourishing our own writing rather than allowing it to be moulded by AI.
That also means continuing to read work written by people. If we want to produce distinctly human writing, we need to keep exposing ourselves to it.
4. What are you reading, watching or listening to that others in digital should know about?
I’m currently re-reading Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari.
It’s one of those books you can read more than once and still come away with a new understanding each time.
For me, it raises meaningful questions about the ethics of implementing AI in our lives and, consequently, in digital marketing.
The book looks far into the future, but some of the questions it raises now feel remarkably close to our present.
For anyone thinking about how technology could influence people, behaviour and society, it gives you plenty to consider.
5. Where do you think digital marketing is heading in the next 12 months?
Digital marketing is going forwards by taking a few steps backwards.
It’s time for us to adapt to smarter consumers.
If people lose interest in reading a description once they believe it was produced by AI, perhaps because of its sales-focused and overly optimistic tone, we’ll need to approach our writing with an increasingly sharp and educated human eye.
The same applies to images. If audiences are becoming tired of AI-generated imagery because there’s so much of it, we’ll need to find ways to bring human elements back in and give the message room to cut through the noise.
We used to fight the noise created by competitors with strong reputations. Now, we also have to fight some of the noise we’re creating ourselves through the speed and volume of AI-assisted content.
That means we need to write as sharply as ever.
That’s our next challenge.
Thank you, Leo!
A huge thank you to Leonardo for joining us on the Koozai Couch.
His answers highlight a challenge that marketers are likely to keep coming back to: technology can make our work faster and more efficient, but efficiency alone doesn’t make communication effective.
As AI makes it easier to produce more content, standing out could increasingly depend on the things that are harder to automate. Personality, judgement, creativity and genuine human understanding all have a part to play.
For marketers, the answer may not be to reject AI. It may simply be to make sure the technology supports the human behind the work rather than drowning them out.
Catch up on previous Koozai Couch interviews
Want to hear more perspectives from across digital marketing?
Catch up with Sean Barber, SEO Manager at Macmillan Cancer Support and host of Search with Sean, or read our interview with Erin Simmons, Managing Director at Women in Tech SEO.
Keep an eye on the Koozai blog for more Koozai Couch interviews, practical digital marketing insights and opinions from people working across the industry.
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