Rethinking the Marketing Degree for the AI-Driven Marketplace

Over the past year the marketing faculty at the University of Missouri–St. Louis have been working hard to redefine what a marketing degree should look like now and in the foreseeable future. Not an easy task to say the least. Especially given how quickly this field is being disrupted daily by technology.

Marketing is still a discipline rooted in understanding customers, creating value, building brands, and helping organizations communicate and compete. Those fundamentals have not changed. In fact, they matter more than ever. But the world around those fundamentals has changed dramatically.

Modern marketing degree stack showing UMSL’s curriculum layers: foundation, core marketing skills, applied tools and platforms, and future-ready AI, GEO, automation, and ethics.

How Do You Rethink a Marketing Degree for Today’s Marketplace?

Today’s marketing students are entering a profession shaped by artificial intelligence, digital strategy, social media, CRM, marketing automation, analytics, search, content, branding, customer experience, and rapidly changing expectations from employers. They are also entering a world where students and families are asking an important question: What is the return on the educational investment?

That question matters and it should.

For us, the goal was not simply to update a few course titles and descriptions or sprinkle in a few trendy topics. The goal was to step back and rethink the marketing degree around the skills, tools, technologies, and the strategic thinking students will need to create value in a rapidly changing marketplace. From the ground up.

This was not a quick tweak. It was a serious, yearlong faculty and advisory board effort.

The process began last summer with a close look at where the marketing discipline is heading, where employers are placing value, what our students need to be able to do, and how other universities are approaching marketing education. We held an offsite strategy meeting with key advisory board members and faculty to brainstorm the future of the curriculum, discuss the skills students need, and think through how we could make the degree more relevant and more focused.

From there, the work moved into curriculum mapping, which is an important part of making sure each course in the program is delivering meaningful outcomes for students. This was not just a conversation about adding topics. It was a deeper process of asking what students should know, what they should be able to do, where those outcomes are introduced, where they are reinforced, and how the degree fits together as a complete learning experience.

I am proud to say that faculty were highly engaged throughout the process. There were many conversations, revisions, action items, and follow-up discussions. Some were a bit heated. The work moved quickly, but it was not rushed. By December 2025, the major pieces had been finalized. From there, the proposal moved through the appropriate faculty review, college-level processes, faculty votes, and university governance. The revised marketing degree is now in place for Fall 2026. The university was in full support of our plan.

I am proud of that timeline. I am also proud of what it says about UMSL. We are a public university, rooted in St. Louis, serving students who want a strong, practical, high-value education. But we are also nimble enough to respond when the marketplace changes. In marketing, that ability to respond matters tremendously.

How Can a Marketing Degree Deliver a Stronger Return on Educational Value?

One of the biggest shifts in the revised program is that students now have more room to focus their educational dollars on marketing-specific coursework. This is not about saying that economics, calculus, finance, or accounting are not valuable. They are valuable disciplines, and they remain important in business education. But for students who are choosing marketing as their major, we believed there was an opportunity to create a stronger return on educational value by allowing them to spend more of their credit hours on courses directly connected to the profession they are preparing to enter.

That matters because marketing today is incredibly broad and increasingly technical. Students need more exposure to the areas where the field is growing. They need more applied knowledge. They need to understand both strategy and tools. They need to be able to walk into an interview and talk with confidence about branding, CRM, analytics, digital platforms, content strategy, search, AI, and customer relationships.

Why Is Digital Strategy No Longer Optional in a Marketing Degree Program?

One of the most important changes is that Digital Strategies (Marketing 3721) is now part of the required marketing curriculum. To me, this was essential. And our faculty agreed 100%. Digital is no longer a side topic in marketing. It is not something only a few students need if they happen to be interested in online advertising or social media. Digital strategy is now woven into almost every marketing role. In fact, it now represents approximately 70% of the marketing and advertising budget.

Students need to understand how brands are discovered, how customers move through digital journeys, how search is changing, how campaigns are measured, how content performs, and how data informs decisions. They need exposure to SEO, paid search, analytics, digital channels, attribution, content strategy, and now generative AI search and GEO. The way people find information is changing quickly, and marketers need to understand what that means for visibility, credibility, and customer decision-making.

We also strengthened the curriculum around branding, CRM, email, automation, analytics, and applied marketing tools. Branding remains one of the core pillars of marketing. In a noisy, AI-driven, content-saturated marketplace, the ability to create meaning, trust, distinction, and value through a brand is only becoming more important.

CRM and marketing automation are also critical. Students need to understand how organizations manage customer relationships, segment audiences, build campaigns, personalize communication, and use platforms that are common in the workplace. Through the revised curriculum, students will have exposure to tools and certifications connected to areas such as HubSpot, Salesforce, SEO, social media, and Google Analytics. This is important because students should leave the program with more than theoretical understanding. They should have language, tools, credentials, and applied experiences they can talk about in interviews and use in their early careers.

Should AI Be a Core Marketing Degree Competency?

Artificial intelligence is another major part of the redesign. AI is not being treated as a one-week topic or a special add-on. It is being embedded throughout the curriculum because it is becoming embedded throughout the marketing discipline. Our faculty are taking this very seriously.

Marketers are using AI to brainstorm, write, research, analyze, summarize, personalize, optimize, test, and make decisions. Consumers are using AI to search, compare, evaluate, and make choices. Platforms are using AI to determine what content gets seen. Search itself is changing as generative platforms become part of how people discover information. That means students need to understand AI not only as a tool, but as a force reshaping the marketplace.

How Should Students Learn to Use AI Responsibly in Marketing?

At the same time, we are not teaching students to use AI carelessly. We are teaching them to use it responsibly and professionally. In my own classes, I often tell students: You create. ChatGPT refines. You verify. That mindset is important. AI can support ideation, improve communication, help analyze information, and strengthen thinking. But students still need judgment. They need to verify. They need to understand bias, hallucinations, privacy, ethics, and the limits of automation.

I must admit, I also used AI throughout this curriculum process as a thought partner, not as a substitute for faculty judgment. It helped me brainstorm, compare how other universities were approaching marketing curriculum, pressure-test ideas, and think through how AI itself is reshaping the discipline. But the real work came from faculty discussion, advisory board input, curriculum mapping, shared governance, and a commitment to building something better for our students.

That distinction matters. AI can assist the process. It can help generate ideas, organize thinking, and expand the set of possibilities. But curriculum design still requires human judgment, faculty expertise, industry insight, and a deep understanding of the students we serve.

Why Should a Marketing Degree Be Rooted in the Discipline and Built for the Future?

One of the things I appreciate most about this new curriculum is that it is both current and rooted in the discipline. We did not replace marketing fundamentals with tools. We connected the fundamentals more directly to the tools, platforms, and decisions students will encounter in the workplace.

Students still need to understand consumer behavior, segmentation, targeting, positioning, branding, strategy, communication, value creation, and ethical decision-making. Those are the foundation. But they also need to understand how those ideas show up in CRM systems, dashboards, digital campaigns, search results, social media platforms, email automation, AI tools, and customer experiences.

That is where I believe the revised degree is especially strong. It does not chase technology for technology’s sake. It uses technology to strengthen marketing education.

What Does This Mean for Students, Families, and Employers?

For students, the result is a more focused, more relevant, and more applied degree. For families, it represents a stronger return on the investment they are making in higher education. For employers, it means graduates who are better prepared to contribute earlier because they understand both the strategy of marketing and the tools shaping the profession.

For UMSL, I believe it reflects who we are at our best: practical, student-centered, connected to the region, responsive to change, and committed to helping students build meaningful careers.

Why I Am Proud of This Work

This was a major lift, and I am incredibly proud of the faculty who helped make it happen. I am grateful for the board members who shared their insights, the colleagues who engaged in the hard work of curriculum mapping, and the university processes that allowed us to move this forward.

Most of all, I am excited for our students.

Beginning in Fall 2026, UMSL marketing students will be entering a program that better reflects the world they are preparing to join. It is more focused on marketing. It is more connected to the marketplace. It is more intentional about AI, digital strategy, CRM, branding, analytics, and applied tools. And it is built around a simple belief: students deserve a marketing degree that prepares them not just for the field as it once was, but for the field as it is becoming.

In short: UMSL redesigned its marketing degree to better prepare students for a marketplace shaped by AI, digital strategy, CRM, marketing automation, branding, analytics, SEO, GEO, and applied marketing tools. The goal is simple: give students a more focused, current, and career-relevant marketing education.

For related thoughts on how marketing education continues to change, see my earlier posts on digital marketing, social media strategy, and the evolving role of AI in marketing.

Dr. Perry D. Drake
Chair, Department of Marketing & Entrepreneurship
University of Missouri–St. Louis

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Writings from Dr. Perry D. Drake, Chair Marketing and Entrepreneurship

Wednesday, July 8, 2026

Rethinking the Marketing Degree for an AI-Driven Marketplace