Marketing is entering a sharp AI-driven divide.
Job postings requiring AI literacy have more than doubled year-over-year, up 113% on LinkedIn, while just 4% of marketing professionals globally have added AI skills to their profiles—an imbalance that is quickly becoming one of the industry’s defining tensions.
That disconnect is sending alarm bells ringing for Rachel Thornton, chief marketing officer for enterprise at Adobe. With nearly three decades in the industry, including leadership roles at Amazon, Salesforce, Cisco, and Microsoft, she says this moment with AI feels fundamentally different. Many marketers are aware their profession is at a major inflection point, but they’re still searching for how to translate that awareness into day-to-day execution.
“The challenge is that AI is everywhere, but knowing how to learn it in meaningful ways is still difficult,” she told Fortune.
Now, Adobe and LinkedIn are moving to close that gap. In a Fortune exclusive, the companies are announcing a new “AI Essentials for Marketers” program, a set of free courses designed for marketing professionals. Four learning paths, based on specific roles, will be available at launch on LinkedIn Learning: digital marketing, content and creative, social and communications, and data and analytics. Each path is designed to be complete in two to three hours.
