Marketing inertia is killing your AI budget. David Rabin from Lenovo dropped a truth bomb that made me pause. We're all scrambling to fund AI initiatives, but nobody wants to talk about where that money comes from. "Marketing budgets aren't rapidly increasing," he said. "Go find the stuff that you're wasting money on and stop doing it." Here's what hit me hardest. **The Inertia Trap:** We keep funding the same programs year after year. Not because they work. Because they exist. **The People Problem:** "I don't want to give up a third of my team." Leaders protect headcount even when the work isn't delivering ROI. **The Zero-Based Budget Lie:** Companies talk about starting fresh each year. Look closer - it's the same allocations with minor tweaks. David's point was simple. Every dollar spent on underperforming programs is a dollar not invested in AI tools that could transform your marketing. I pushed back, suggesting maybe SEO and PPC were the obvious cuts given AI's impact on search behavior. His response? "That may be true for some companies. It may not be true for others." Fair point. The real budget burner isn't any specific cha el. It's our unwillingness to kill what's not working. We'd rather tweak a failing program than admit it needs to die. Meanwhile, AI is making targeting so precise "we know what they ate for breakfast." But only if we can afford the tools. Inertia is comfortable. Change is expensive. But staying still? That's the most expensive choice of all. What sacred cow in your marketing budget needs to become hamburger? If you'd like to hear my conversation with David Rabin on the MarTech Podcast, let me know in the comments and I'll share a link.