MOPs vs AI: Part 3

The Rise of the Prompt People: How the future of Marketing Ops belongs to those who ask better questions

The tools are getting smarter. The dashboards are prettier. The workflows practically run themselves. And yet, marketing is more confusing than ever.

Why?

Because we’ve hit a strange tipping point: The barrier to execution has collapsed.

Now, the only thing that really matters is what you ask the machine to do.

Welcome to the era of the Prompt People - a new breed of Marketing Ops professional who isn’t valued for what they build, but for how they think.

The fall of the button-clickers

Once upon a time, if you could navigate the quirks of a MAP or build a multi-step nurture in your sleep, you were golden. Your inbox was full of "quick questions," and you were quietly keeping the whole thing from falling apart.

But that’s no longer enough.

Because now, AI can:

• Build the nurture.

• Generate the email copy.

• Write the subject line variants.

• Select the audience.

• Set the send time.

• A/B test the results.

• Spin up a report and deliver it before you’ve finished your coffee.

Execution is no longer a bottleneck. It’s a commodity.

Which means the game has changed. And the winners are the ones who know what to say to the machine - and more importantly, why they’re saying it.

Prompting is the new programming

Here’s the secret: Prompting isn’t about syntax. It’s about thought clarity.

Anyone can type:

But it takes a Prompt Person to think:

See the difference?

Prompting isn’t just a new skill.

It’s a reflection of strategic depth - and it separates the operators from the orchestrators.

Why Prompt People are dangerous (in the best way)

Prompt People aren’t dangerous because they write better prompts. They’re dangerous because they:

• Question the brief.

• Understand the strategy behind the execution.

• Translate vague stakeholder nonsense into clear, actionable machine instructions.

• See five steps ahead - and bake that foresight into every input.

They’re not bound by tools. They float above the tech stack.

And that makes them indispensable - but also deeply threatening to old-school hierarchies built on “I know how to use Eloqua.”

Not everyone makes the leap

Let’s be honest. Some folks in MOPs aren’t going to make it.

They’ll cling to the old tools. They’ll complain that “AI isn’t ready yet.” They’ll run manual reports like it's 2018 and wonder why they’re not being invited to planning meetings.

The truth is: Prompt People are replacing Platform People.

Because it’s no longer about what you can do with your hands.

It’s about what you can direct with your mind.

This is the rise of the meta-marketer. The orchestrator. The systems thinker.

They’re not writing SQL queries. They’re writing instructions that direct an ecosystem of AI agents - each one doing work that used to take a team of specialists.

The new career currency

In this new world, the best Prompt People have:

• Customer empathy (they think in buyer journeys, not just campaign steps)

• Strategic precision (they know what the business actually cares about)

• Language mastery (they can translate big ideas into clear machine instructions)

• Operational fluency (they know what’s technically possible — and how far to push)

And crucially: They’re curious as hell.

Because prompting is a creative act. You can’t coast. You have to think.

And thinkers are about to get very, very valuable.

It’s not man vs. machine. It’s mind + machine.

Marketing Ops was never about the tools - it was about what we did with them.

Now the tools can do almost anything. The only limit is the quality of the prompt.

So here we are.

Execution is infinite.

Ideas are scarce.

Strategy is king.

And the people who can speak clearly to AI - with context, precision, and intent - they are going to take over.

This is the rise of the Prompt People.

And if you’re not one of them yet?

You’ve got about 90 days before your job description becomes… predictive.