Ask Not What AI Can Do for You

As much as I appreciate how AI tools save me eternities of time each week, there are things that AI seems to do well, but that can destroy your brand before you realize what went wrong.

First, let’s establish the point of branding. A brand is about two things: credibility and identity. Credibility in a brand enables you to trust the brand rather than evaluating every single purchase every time. The brand carries identity so that what you buy tells the world (and yourself) something about who you are.

No matter what you say, credibility and identity ultimately come down to you having a quality product or service. You may be able to fool me once with beautiful packaging, but I will never buy it again. What’s worse, I don’t want to be seen as a gullible idiot who bought your crap at all, so now I don’t want your brand as part of my identity anymore. So much for spending all that money on the floor logo in the UFC Octagon (yeah, some of you know what I mean, but none of us will admit it).

A quality product or service, on the other hand, can become legendary when it is combined with a compelling story, delicious design, and impossible-to-ignore communication.

And this is where AI comes in. Before the Photoshop era, a photograph could prove that something happened. Before AI, well-crafted copy, design, and communication could prove that you were not just some random dude buying white-label stuff and slapping a brand on it. At the very least, you had to have some budget to hire a good agency. In the case of Klarna, for example, the quality and finish of their production were proof of dedication and lent them bank-worthy credibility.

With AI now being able to create “real-looking” brands instantly, this is no longer the case, and this is why your Instagram feed is suddenly overrun by dozens of beautiful brands selling expensive mushroom chocolate powder and other generic products from the same white-label manufacturers. The low barrier to entry will flood us with quality-looking, yet crappy stuff until we start looking for signs of authenticity— aka proof of actual effort and dedication – aka things that AI can’t do.

This is why you should ask not what AI can do for you but what AI can’t do for anyone. And once you’ve figured that out, go figure out how AI can save you time in creating this, because this is where AI really shines.