If 2024 was the year of AI hype, 2025 is shaping up to be the year of AI over-optimization.
Just ask Klarna and Duolingo. Both companies went all-in on AI, and well, the internet noticed.
Klarna boasted that its AI agent handled the workload of 700 real human agents. They’ve since said they took AI too far, and they’ve begun hiring people again. Duolingo doubled down on automation, boldly stating that they’re now AI-first and offering language courses built by generative AI. Unlike Klarna, Duolingo hasn’t backed down on their AI-first positioning, despite significant consumer pushback.
While both companies are taking different approaches to over-optimization, their pushback has been swift, sharp, and pretty consistent. Their customers are raising eyebrows over irreverent responses and a creeping sense that brands are replacing real human experience with robotic shortcuts.
And it’s not just big businesses and corporations who are experiencing the pushback.
On TikTok, jobseekers are flooding timelines with videos exposing AI interviewer tools, where emotionless, glitchy agents trip up when asking basic questions like, “Tell me about a time you solved a problem.”
So what does all of this mean?
Human-AI collaboration is a fine line to walk. Yes, you must walk it, as 80% of retail executives are prioritizing its implementation. Be forewarned that then your automation removes all empathy and all humanity, you’re not optimizing . . . you’re alienating.
Welcome to the era of over-optimization.
The only way to survive is by balancing AI optimization and genuine human creativity, effectively.
When Does AI Optimization Become a Liability?
There’s a difference between agentive AI—tools that act on behalf of humans—and generative AI, which creates content or answers based on prompts. For example, Backstroke’s AI email generator is, as the name suggests, generative AI that creates content based on human needs and prompts.
See that email AI generator in action, right here.
Tension surrounding AI optimization can emerge where companies confuse the two or go too far in letting AI take the wheel across the fuller customer journey. Brands are learning that just because AI can do something doesn’t mean it always should.
This concept is similar to something a wise man once said.
In direct to consumer marketing, especially in retention marketing, tone, timing, and trust matter more than ever. Customers who trust brands, feeling heard and valued by them are much more likely to remain loyal and make repeat purchases.
Sure, AI can write great email subject lines. It can pin-point an optimized send time. But it can’t truly sense customer frustration, spot cultural nuance, or deliver delight in the way a skilled human can. That’s why we’re seeing the smartest marketing teams vet AI solutions so thoroughly. They’re not ditching AI altogether, but blending it better into their workforce and tech stacks.
Where AI Shines in Direct to Consumer Marketing & Retention Marketing
Let the bots handle the boring stuff.
When adding AI to your DTC and retention marketing programs, use it for the most tedious or time-consuming tasks. Lean on its abilities to deeply analyze data and pin-point critical findings within it that’ll truly connect with what subscribers want to see in their inboxes.
In DTC and retention marketing AI-powered optimization is excellent for:
- Dynamic subject line testing
- Determining cart & browse abandonment triggers
- Predicting timing for replenishment or re-engagement
- Suggesting loyalty logic, based on purchase data
These areas are where AI optimization shines! They're scalable, logic-driven, and performance-based, executing complex and repeatable actions on the behalf of a human strategist.
Where Humans Still Reign in Retail (& Beyond!)
You still need to keep people in the loop!
The automation of routine tasks allows creative professionals to focus on higher-level strategy and ideation. It’s expected that over the next 5 years, 97 million new roles will be created which blend AI and human skill sets. Future-ready teams aren't just using AI to bang out content. They're getting inspired by it, thinking with it, and leveraging it for ideation, testing and iteration.
For the foreseeable future, creative people reign supreme at establishing:
- Brand voice and its consistency
- Emotional, vibey winback flows
- “Surprise and delight” campaigns
- Crisis comms and high-sensitivity messaging
- Anything that touches values, identity, or high-end creative direction
Your customer doesn’t want a machine deciding how to apologize after a bad experience. Nor do they want one creative directing an editorial shoot of your latest collection. Those things are left to the pros, who will always be people.
The Future of DTC & Retention Marketing Is Hybrid
The best brands aren’t replacing marketers. They’re upgrading them with the right tools.
- They’re hiring copywriters who can prompt like machines and think like poets.
- They’re building retention teams that pair lifecycle strategy with agentive AI tools.
- They’re creating systems where generative AI supports ideation, and humans bring the heart.
The AI backlash we’re seeing now? It’s not a rejection of AI, flat-out. It’s a rejection of bad AI strategy. People are rejecting brands that over-automate, under-think, then call it innovation.
The future of direct to consumer marketing isn’t about doing more with less. It’s about doing it all smarter and with balance.
Let AI scale the system. Let humans shape the story. And stop trying to optimize away what makes your brand unforgettable.
