The camera
The printing press
Scribes and the whole Priest class
No it's not
What about the Macintosh presentation in 1984 with Steve Jobs where the computer talked in front of everyone?
What about 3D?
I think a more accurate statement would be, "AI has created more of it's own marketing hype than any other tech."
I feel like the marketing content generative AI can produce requires much less preparation than what’s needed with some of the other technologies mentioned in the comments.
One example is the camera. The marketing photos and videos created with them are usually of a set or scene that's carefully planned in advance. The camera itself doesn’t play much of a role in that planning, pretty sure it's generally used for making slight changes or tweaks. I think a similar point can be made about the printing press—it's just a medium that transforms an idea into something tangible. On the other hand, generative AI only needs a user to input the right prompt to create marketing content.
As for the "hype" aspect that was pointed out by OP, I think generative AI brings a lot more to the table in other areas of marketing campaigns. Something like a camera or a printer just can't really offer much help with tasks like marketing research.
I'm pretty sure my thoughts on this topic entered the territory of semantics (not sure if semantics is the best word to use here) once I started factoring in how generative models are created. If we dive into that, I think a really solid case can be made for the opposite of what I said at the top.
