Why Most Marketers Hate Prompting. (And what we did about it.)

There’s a growing frustration with AI among strategic marketers. The truth is: most generative AI tools weren’t built for marketers. They expect nearly perfect prompts, speak in tech terms and leave you doing extra work to get halfway-decent answers. You think you're saving time, but you’re really just automating mediocrity. Imagine the absurdity of having to learn Python just to run PowerPoint.

As marketers, we’ve been trained to write briefs, build decks, and debate positioning. Not write prompts. Prompting comes with a steep learning curve. You have to understand what the AI already knows (and what it doesn’t), know how to frame your strategy goals as clear, structured inputs and be able to guide the tool back on track when it veers astray. If your inputs are inconsistent, your AI won’t just be unhelpful—it’ll be confidently wrong.

We simply want the promise of AI to be our reality. Tools that understand us — not tools we have to re-train or tiptoe around with perfectly optimized inputs. Being a Prompt Engineer was never part of the equation.

Strategy without engineering?

Yes, YCANARY thinks in strategy and was trained to understand the language of marketing: customer journeys, performance metrics, media channels, campaign frameworks. You don’t need perfect inputs. Just a clear goal — and your marketing instincts. Think of Ycanary as a co-strategist. Your planning starts sharper, gets smarter faster, and ends up more effective.

Skip the engineering and let strategy lead. ycanary.com