Social signals now arrive across a fragmented mix of platforms, creator content, comments, reviews and support threads. At Brandweek 2026, Hootsuite CMO Christina O’Reilly and ADWEEK editor-in-chief Ryan Joe discussed how AI is changing the way marketing teams find those signals—and what still needs a human touch.
The social media role is shifting
Rather than writing, designing, publishing and testing every post, O’Reilly said social media managers are becoming “architects or directors of AI agents” that handle parts of the production workflow. In her view, that expands their strategic role: they are now responsible for funnelling important signals from the social ecosystem back into the organisation.
That shift is a double-edged sword. AI agents free up time for strategy, but they can also distance marketers from the intuition and human side of social conversations that is difficult to replace.
Why real-time grounding matters
O’Reilly shared an example from a beauty retailer that was handling a wave of customer complaints. A general-purpose AI tool surfaced years-old data that had nothing to do with the current issue. Hootsuite’s Model Context Protocol connectors, which pull real-time data, traced the complaints to a single source: a product that had gone out of stock.
“You really need to make sure that your AI tool is grounded in that real-time data,” she said. “Otherwise, you’re acting on old signals.”
For marketing teams, the takeaway is practical. Before letting AI shape a response, check:
- Is the model pulling from live commerce, support or social data rather than an outdated training set?
- Can the tool trace an insight back to a specific event, product or campaign?
- Is a human reviewer validating high-impact or sensitive responses before they go out?
- Are you tracking false positives and stale recommendations over time?
Authenticity adapts; judgment remains human
On platform strategy, O’Reilly recommended staying true to the brand while adapting the execution to where the audience is. On short-form video, she argued that substance beats length: a useful 60-second video can outperform 12 seconds of content that lacks value.
Being AI-savvy, she added, is less about technical skills and more about helping the organisation understand how to use workflows effectively—without giving up human judgment.
For brands, the lesson is clear: use AI to speed up signal detection and production, but build checks that keep decisions grounded in current reality and in the brand’s voice.
Source: Adweek
