66- Are we already sick of AI? 5 Takeaways from Social Media Marketing World 2026

I just got back from Social Media Marketing World 2026 in San Diego, where I spent the week volunteering behind the scenes -- running speakers to the stage, sitting in the speaker room, and watching how one of the biggest social media conferences in the world actually comes together. I only made it to a handful of sessions, but what I did catch was really good. And when I put it all together, five clear themes kept surfacing that I think every woman building an online business right now needs to hear.

The biggest one came from two different speakers -- Mari Smith and Shannon McKinstrie- who landed on the exact same word completely independently: connection. 

Mari shared that by 2027, an estimated 90% of content online will be AI-generated. Content is becoming a commodity. What AI cannot replicate is a real human relationship. I left that session more convinced than ever that building a community -- whether that's a Skool group, a podcast audience, or even just consistent DM conversations -- is no longer optional. It's the whole game.

I also have a humble brag. I went to the ads sessions -- including one from Tara Zirker and one from an agency owner who walked through his entire system -- and I didn't learn anything I didn't already know. 

And I want to tell you why that's actually really good news. The top people in the industry are  teaching the same as me: don't touch your ads during the learning phase, let engagement guide your cost decisions, test your creative, and stop changing things too fast or sitting on them too long. 

The basics work. They always have.

On the platform side -- if you've been wondering whether Meta is worth your time and money -- the numbers from the conference were pretty clear.

 In 2025 Meta reported over $196 billion in ad revenue, far exceeding projected linear TV ad spend. They also launched GEM, their new model for ads, which is already delivering measurable conversion increases. 

Meta is not going anywhere. The people who stay consistent and learn the system are going to be in a strong position.

And the last thing I took away -- which surprised me but shouldn't have -- is that the pendulum is swinging back to the real world. Analog. 

In-person. Human. When everything online becomes AI-generated and saturated, what becomes rare and valuable is genuine human connection. The most valuable moments from my entire week at SMMW weren't from sessions -- they were from conversations in the hallways and the speaker room. 

Show up in real life when you can. Be a human in an increasingly fake feed. That IS the competitive advantage right now.

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Transcript

Five Takeaways from SMMW 2026 Ads Talk

[00:00:00] Hello, friends. Welcome to Facebook Ads Quick Tips. I'm Stacy Covitz, your host, and today I'm gonna talk... I had, I had shared last week that I was going to give you my takeaways from Social Media Marketing World, , .. i went into this conference thinking, "Yes, I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait to learn more, learn more."

And if you're anything like me, and you love learning, and yet sometimes you question if you know enough, and there's just one more thing you need to learn, or, "Oh, this expert must know more than you," well, this is gonna maybe sound a little bit braggy, but I don't mean it to be.

After attending the paid Facebook and Instagram ads sessions, I felt pretty validated. I really didn't learn anything new,

and I wasn't [00:01:00] disappointed. Well, a little bit, because it's always so nice to, to feel like you know more. But I also felt really good that I've been staying up to date on what's going on in meta ads. And I think if you're a listener of the podcast, that's good news for you. And I thank you. So, this year I was a volunteer, and I was running behind the scenes with speakers to the stage and sitting in the speaker room and watching how an amazing event like this gets put together.

And I only made it to a handful of live sessions. The rest of them I've been catching on recording. But it was so good. This year it was two conferences in one. One was the social media marketing, and the other was AI marketing.

So here's the five... Here's my five takeaways. Same themes came up in almost every single [00:02:00] session. So let's get into it. Takeaway number one. This one's the biggest. This was the most common theme of every single session I have seen, which is the majority of them. Mari Smith, if you're familiar, she is l- called Facebook Queen.

She's been doing Facebook marketing since the beginning of time. and Shannon McKinstie, an Instagram marketer,

And their same theme was connection, connection, human connection. That is what everyone is wanting right now. So goodbye posting and ghosting, and hello to connecting with your audience. Mari

shared a quote from Tom Bilyeu. I could be completely slaughtering that name, but this, it blew me away. He says, "By [00:03:00] 2027, it's estimated that 90%, - of content online will be AI generated." That's just kind of gross, in my opinion. that means in a year, nine out of 10 things , that you scroll past are fake.

No human. Content has become a commodity. Anyone can make it, anyone can publish it, and most of it is starting to look and sound exactly the same. But here's the one thing that AI can't replicate, - a real human relationship. And the rest of Tom's message was, in two years, there will be two types of business owners.

Those who built communities that know, like, and trust them as actual humans and those wondering why their audience disappeared overnight. Yikes. So your school community, your [00:04:00] podcast, your on-camera talking to your audience, doing lives, your ads should have you or at least a person.

This is the new strategy. It's not new, but I think people are just really tired of seeing AI everywhere. Here's the second takeaway. Lo-fi. The majority of people are tired of polished content because the more polished and the same theme again, right, with this AI everywhere, the more polished your content is, the more people are going to think it's fake.

They're going to think it's AI. So your dog's barking, you fumbled over a word, you aren't having the best hair day, doesn't matter. Keep posting. , I've been saying this for years when it comes to ads, that the less produced your [00:05:00] content feels, the more trusted you become.

So if you're still waiting until everything is perfect to show up, this is your sign to stop. Your audience doesn't want perfect. They want you. Okay, takeaway three.

I went to the ad sessions. Tara Zirker, who's brilliant, she had a session and there was a guy who runs an agency ,. Nick, Theriot

He, - was on stage sharing his entire system for how his million-dollar agency goes from start to finish, their whole entire process of how they set up, research, create their ads, and do their metrics.

he shared all of that, and I did learn a couple things, but for the most part, it was pretty validating to think that, wow, these people are [00:06:00] the go-to ad people, and I know this stuff. It's like, yay.

. He did share a few things that I hadn't thought of. when he does his research, he likes going to Reddit and YouTube,

so for exa- the example he gave was, I can't even pronounce it. Ashwagandha. Is giving... On Reddit, this person said, "It's giving me anxiety." So his client, he said, "Okay, well, I'm going to lean into the fact that ours doesn't give anxiety." So that could be a great headline because now you know that that's a common problem, and you could say that yours doesn't.

I mean, obviously, if it's true.

He also doesn't touch his ad for seven days. Seven days. , I'm always saying three to five days, and that's mostly because I know that most of my listeners probably aren't [00:07:00] launching $100,000 ads, and so three to five days , when you're on a bit more of a tighter budget, , your 50 bucks a day, three to five days, that's probably enough anxiety for you to not wanna wait seven days, but he doesn't touch anything for seven days.

And I did learn this from Tara.

They are moving, and I don't know exactly when. I know some accounts have this already, which is from Andromeda to Gems, and Gems is delivering a 5% increase in ad conversions on Instagram and a 3% increase on Facebook.

This was in Q2.

 something that Tara said was one of the biggest mistakes that she sees is changing things too fast So again, hang on to that creative. Do not make any changes. And then it's either changing things too fast or [00:08:00] not changing anything at all. So they're-- the time of creating your campaigns and walking away and just letting them run without making any changes, those days are gone.

Takeaway number four, Meta's not going anywhere. I know there's still people, "Facebook's dead, Facebook's dead," but it's changed definitely, and they are rewarding people even more to keep people on the platform. So if you can get people to engage with your content, you will get more people seeing your content, but it's not going anywhere.

They reported in twenty twenty-five over one hundred and ninety-six billion, billion with a B, so almost two hundred billion in ad revenue, and that is far exceeding projected linear TV ad spending. So that's more than commercials on linear TV.

So [00:09:00] Meta's not dying. They're investing billions of dollars into making their ads work better. A lot of the stuff I talk about all the time ad nauseam I don't like. I don't like the automatically turning all of this AI stuff on, because I still think that you should know at least what is going into your ad.

One of the things that Nick, Nick the big ads guy, he told a story about one of his clients , he does in fact use a lot of this AI stuff.

He does give Meta permission to use the AI creative enhancements, which I always turn off. But he told a story about one of his clients who was in the financial industry, Meta had turned on the music addition, and I think the music that they turned on was something like Happy Birthday.

- This ad went out for this confidential, [00:10:00] highly regulated financial industry client of his with some silly rendition of Happy Birthday music, and it just didn't fit, and the client called him and was not happy. And so even he said,

even if you give Meta permission to enhance your creative, at the end of the day, it is on you. It is still on you. You're still responsible for what gets sent out there into the world."

And takeaway number five, and it's all kinda connected, right? Analog is back. People, and I think this started with Gen Z, they are going analog, meaning staying offline. They, they're tired. They're tired of being online. They're tired of not connecting with people in the real world, and that was as a theme also at this conference.

Gary Vee's [00:11:00] been saying it for a while. He's on the analog bandwagon right now, and we're all wanting human connection. , When everything i- online is AI generated and saturated, it's exhausting. Real experiences, real people, real connections, and I saw that. This year at the conference.

I think people were really engaged with each other. I saw so many conversations, you know, just on the elevator, people meeting each other, connecting at the table talks and the hotel bar. There were a lot of meetups, and people are really embracing getting to know people in, in real life again.

So my big takeaway, the fundamentals aren't changing. Community, authenticity, consistency, being a real human, none of this is new.

- And if you're doing [00:12:00] ads or thinking about doing ads, come, come to the school community, the Gen X Ads community, and connect with us.

The link is in the show notes, and I thank you so much for listening.