Less Reach, More Risk, Tougher Choices

The Gist

• Email remains the least dangerous channel. As platforms fracture and AI reshapes discovery, Chad S. White argues that owning direct customer relationships through email and CRM is still the most durable marketing strategy.
• AI is a double-edged sword for marketers. From inbox summaries to AI browsers, automation is helping and hurting brands at the same time — forcing tougher, longer-term decisions.
• Trust is becoming the real competitive advantage. Platform volatility, misinformation and AI shortcuts are eroding confidence, making credibility and transparency central to modern marketing.

Few digital marketers have spent as much time tracking the fault lines beneath modern marketing as Chad S. White. A longtime observer of email, platforms and customer relationships, White brings a journalist’s instinct for pattern recognition to an industry increasingly shaped by volatility, automation and trust erosion.

As group vice president of CRM strategy at Zeta Global and author of four editions of Email Marketing Rules, White has made email and owned channels his analytical anchor. In 2025, that perspective resonated strongly with CMSWire readers navigating AI disruption, platform instability and the growing realization that not all innovation moves marketers forward.

Editor’s note: Chad S. White is a multiple-time CMSWire Contributor of the Year. His work stands out for its clarity and restraint — helping marketers understand not just what is changing, but what those changes mean for long-term trust, ownership and resilience.

Table of Contents

Digital Marketing Success = Owning Customer Relationships

Across his CMSWire columns and conversations, White consistently returns to a core principle: marketing works best when brands own their customer relationships. In an era of collapsing organic reach and AI-driven intermediaries, that principle feels newly urgent.

White describes email as “the least dangerous thing you could do” as a marketer — not because it’s immune to disruption, but because it preserves a direct line between brand and customer. As search, social and discovery become increasingly mediated by AI, he sees owned channels like email and SMS as critical insulation against disintermediation.

This perspective is shaped by White’s background as a journalist and analyst. Rather than chasing novelty, he tracks how systems interact — how inbox providers, platforms, AI browsers and marketers respond to one another — and where those interactions create unintended consequences.

Where AI Helps Marketing — and Where It Hurts

White does not frame AI as an existential threat to marketers, but he is clear-eyed about its tradeoffs. “AI is becoming this sort of double-edged sword,” he says. While marketers are using AI to drive efficiency, personalization and segmentation, inbox providers and platforms are deploying AI just as aggressively — often in ways that complicate brand communication.

Inbox summaries, for example, introduce new uncertainty into email messaging. White argues that these tools attempt to solve a problem that no longer exists. Modern subject lines and preview text are already optimized, and AI summaries can misrepresent tone, humor or intent — undermining clarity rather than improving it.

The broader concern extends beyond email. AI browsers, White notes, threaten to turn brands into “pipes,” stripping away the relationship layer in favor of automated intermediaries. That dynamic, he argues, is already provoking legal challenges and will only intensify in the year ahead.

Related Article: Survive the AI Takeover of Search: 5 Moves Every Brand Must Make

Platform Risk and the Cost of Dependency

One of White’s most widely read 2025 articles examined the fallout from platform instability — particularly the paths taken by X and Meta. His concern is not ideological but structural: brands that invest heavily in third-party platforms risk losing both reach and credibility when those platforms shift direction.

White points to declining trust in social media influencers and brand recommendations, alongside rising skepticism toward platform content and advertising. As he explains, marketers are increasingly forced to ask whether their spend is building durable relationships or renting attention from systems they don’t control.

This platform risk, White argues, is driving a re-evaluation of budgets and priorities. While experimentation with AI optimization will continue, he believes more brands will double down on channels where identity, authentication and customer trust are clearer — particularly email.

Why Trust Is the Real Marketing Battleground

At the center of White’s analysis is trust — not as a soft metric, but as a strategic asset. AI-generated summaries, automated recommendations and loosely sourced content all raise the same question for consumers: who is really speaking?

White warns that marketers must be vigilant about whether their tactics build trust or erode it. When AI tools misrepresent messages or blur accountability, the brand pays the price. “Trust, trust, trust,” he says, framing it as the defining test for marketing decisions in the year ahead.

That emphasis explains why his work consistently resonates with CMSWire readers. White does not promise easy wins. Instead, he challenges marketers to make harder, more disciplined choices — prioritizing ownership, credibility and long-term value over short-term optimization.