This year, I predict you’ll be forced to participate in many pointless meetings because some company will use voice recognition to make some money. The campaign will be breathlessly promoted as the next big thing in marketing. As a result, and because of Amazon’s ground-breaking Alexa, we’ll hear the incessant refrain that _______ (insert some channel, probably TV) “is dead.”

“We must do likewise!” will be the command from the corner offices.

The resulting Powerpoint decks will be an unholy mashup of the ice bucket challenge and Pokemon Go, with some social media marketing sprinkled on top, served with a steaming side order of growth hackerdom.

If things go really badly, machine learning will be a part of the campaign. Then you are truly screwed. You’ll have to go to an offsite meeting and/or a conference to “learn” from the inevitable machine learning/AI charlatans so you can build the right buzzwords (and the budget for machine learning B.S.) into your deck.

I hope I’m wrong. I think we’re turning the corner and that 2017 will be the year when marketers see the light of strategic thinking as espoused by Mark Ritson.

Ah, who am I kidding. Fire up Powerpoint again. We’re screwed.

“Alexa: Find me some clip art.”