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‘Tasteology’ Could Be the Key to Better Marketing in the Age of AI. Here’s How It Works.

2026-09-09 | original
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Why This Matters

An Entrepreneur op-ed argues that as generative AI commoditizes execution speed and expertise, marketing's competitive edge shifts to human judgment, cultural intelligence and critical thinking — what the author calls 'tasteology.' It matters because AI-driven content abundance is producing homogenized brand output that consumers are actively tuning out.

Key Takeaways
Worth a Look

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See Byron Sharp "How Brands Grow" book on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

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Key Takeaways Now that everyone has access to AI, our ability to compete is shifting toward critical thinking, judgment and taste.

Tasteology is the discipline of making better marketing decisions through critical thinking, accumulated human experience, cultural intelligence, multidisciplinary knowledge and evidence.

Taste is accumulated experience turned into judgment. But in the age of AI, judgment doesn’t operate alone. I think of it through a framework I call HEJA: Human, Emotional Intelligence, Judgment and AI.

Before putting anything into the world, ask yourself: Would I invest $10,000 of my own money to make sure more people see this? If not, don’t publish it yet.

When AI became widely available and gave us access to almost all the answers, I started to rethink what it actually means to be a marketer in 2026. Previously, expertise, execution and speed were a competitive edge. Now that everyone has access to them, our ability to compete is shifting toward critical thinking, judgment and taste.

The result is that companies can now create more, faster and at a fraction of the cost. And when everyone uses the same technology to research, optimize and create, sometimes I feel that if we simply switched the logos, we wouldn’t even know which company created the narrative, visual or campaign.

Consumers already feel the consequences. Seventy percent say they tune brands out because of the volume of messages they receive, while 49% of Americans believe generative AI has made the quality of available content worse. When creating more becomes this easy, our responsibility shifts from adding to the volume to making sure what we put into the world is actually worth people’s attention.

By taste, I don’t mean aesthetics or personal preference. I mean judgment: the ability to connect the dots, recognize what is right for a specific brand, what will resonate and be remembered — and what should never make it into the market.

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Explore topics: ai marketing tasteology heja framework critical thinking brand narrative
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