The cliché version of “AI marketing stack” is a Notion list of 47 logos. We don’t do that here.
A real stack covers 11 jobs to be done. Pick one tool per job. Resist the urge to layer five overlapping products — that’s how teams end up paying $4,000/month for capabilities they could have for $400.
The 11 categories
1. Foundation chatbot
ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Pick one as your primary. Use it 80% of the time. Don’t fork your prompt history across three tools — your context compounds in one place.
2. Long-form writing assistant
The chatbot is great for first drafts. A purpose-built tool (Claude Projects, Lex, Notion AI) becomes the home of your long-form work. Where you draft, revise, and store. Critical: pick one that lets you load brand voice + past content as context.
3. Short-form generator
Tweets, LinkedIn posts, ad copy. This is where models like GPT-5 mini and Claude Haiku shine — fast, cheap, optimized for snappy output.
4. Image generation
Midjourney for premium aesthetic. Ideogram for text-in-image. Flux for photorealism. You don’t need all three. Pick the one closest to your brand voice and learn it deeply.
5. Video generation
Sora, Veo, Runway, Pika. Still in fast flux. Use them for B-roll, social shorts, and concept tests — not yet for hero content. Re-evaluate quarterly.
6. Voice / audio
ElevenLabs for narration. Suno for jingles and brand music. Whisper for transcription. The audio category went from gimmick to production-ready in 18 months.
7. Research synthesis
Perplexity (the company that runs this AI) for live web research with citations. NotebookLM for synthesizing a corpus of documents you upload. Used together they replace a junior research analyst.
8. Automation glue
Zapier, Make, n8n. Pick one. Use it to connect the rest. This is the operating system of your stack — without it, you have a pile of tools, not a system.
9. SEO + content ops
SurferSEO or Frase for content briefs. Clearscope for optimization. AlsoAsked or Lowfruits for keyword discovery. Pair with your foundation chatbot for drafting.
10. Social distribution
Buffer, Hypefury, Typefully. The tools matter less than the workflow. Pre-schedule three weeks at a time. Stop touching the dashboards daily.
11. Analytics + attribution
GA4 is table stakes. Add a marketing-mix model (HockeyStack, Northbeam, or a homegrown Sheet) for multi-touch attribution. AI summarizers (most analytics tools now offer them) for weekly digests.
What to actually buy
If you’re a solo founder or one-person marketing team: 6 tools, $300/month total.
- Claude or ChatGPT (foundation): $20
- Midjourney (images): $30
- Perplexity Pro (research): $20
- Zapier (automation): $30
- SurferSEO or Frase (SEO): $90
- ElevenLabs Starter (audio): $22
That stack will handle 90% of marketing work for a sub-$5M company. The other tools you only need at scale.
What NOT to buy
- “AI-powered” tools that are just wrappers on GPT-4o with a $99/month markup
- Stand-alone “AI writers” that don’t let you load brand voice or context
- Multi-tool bundles that lock you in but only the chatbot piece is actually good
- Anything that requires you to write a fresh prompt for every output (no template system)
How the pieces fit
The shape of every modern marketing workflow:
- Research (Perplexity / NotebookLM) →
- Brief (chatbot with brand voice loaded) →
- Draft (long-form assistant or chatbot) →
- Assets (image / video / audio tools) →
- Distribute (scheduler) →
- Measure (analytics + AI summarizer) →
- Iterate (back to research, with new data)
The system above runs continuously. Each loop teaches the next.
What this stack frees you to do
When the stack works, your marketing team’s time goes to the things AI cannot do: customer interviews, brand strategy, creative concept, partnership development, distribution hustle. That’s where the actual leverage is. The drafting and production layer becomes plumbing.
That’s the goal: not “AI does marketing.” It’s “AI does the marketing busywork so I can do the marketing strategy.”