AI Is Here to Mess With Branding, and That’s Not a Bad Thing

After 20 years building brands, leading campaigns, launching products, and occasionally talking clients off the ledge during rebrands gone sideways, I’ve seen a lot of "industry revolutions." Some were more like mild disruptions with good PR.

AI? This one's different. This isn’t just the next tool in the shed. It’s a jackhammer. And yes, it’s going to shake up the foundations of how we build, grow, and protect brands. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, for those of us who know our voice, understand our audience, and remember that branding is as much emotional as it is strategic, AI might just become our smartest intern yet. Albeit one that never sleeps, doesn’t take lunch breaks, and occasionally generates six logo options that all look like SpaceX designed them for a yogurt brand.

Branding’s New Sidekick: The Algorithm

Let’s get this out of the way. AI is not going to replace brand strategists. It’s going to expose the lazy ones. If your idea of branding is filling out a tone-of-voice template and emailing it to a junior designer, yes, you’re in trouble. But if you see branding for what it really is — a long game of earned trust, relevance, and emotional resonance — AI becomes a force multiplier, not a threat.

Need hundreds of on-brand, on-message variations of a product description for A/B testing? AI can do it in seconds. Want moodboards, concepts, or competitive positioning drafts at 2am? AI’s your sleepless creative director. But crucially, it still can’t tell a good story from a generic one. That’s your job. That’s my job. That’s where the human edge remains sharpest.

Personalization at Scale (or: “Creepy, But Effective”)

One of AI’s biggest gifts to marketers is hyper-personalization. Not the “insert first name here” kind of personalization — the kind that uses data patterns to deliver wildly specific experiences that somehow make consumers feel like your brand gets them. Like, really gets them. Sometimes too much.

It’s powerful, no question. But here’s where we need to tread carefully. Just because we can serve a shoe ad to a guy five seconds after his laces break doesn’t mean we should. AI can read behavior, but it can’t read the room. Context still matters. So does subtlety. As marketers, we have to keep the emotional intelligence part of the equation, because nobody wants a brand that feels like it’s reading their mind and judging their browser history.

Efficiency Is Great. Empathy Is Better.

According to a Harvard DCE article, 61% of marketers believe AI will be essential to their marketing strategy in the next five years. Not “useful.” Not “trendy.” Essential. And I get it. AI can optimize ad spend, track sentiment in real time, personalize messaging across channels, and generate reports faster than you can say “open rate.” But here’s the rub: efficiency doesn’t build affinity. Empathy does.

We’re not just here to sell things. We’re here to make people feel something. That’s the invisible glue that builds brand loyalty, advocacy, and yes, margins. AI can tell us when a message resonates, but it can’t feel the resonance itself. That’s where our intuition — our very human, often imperfect, gut-level instincts — still matter.

Let’s Talk Ethics (Before It’s Too Late)

AI’s power to replicate, predict, and even manipulate behavior means we’re entering murky territory fast. Bias baked into algorithms. Deepfakes that can erode trust. Messaging that crosses the line from persuasive to predatory.

We’ve got to get ahead of this. Not just for the sake of our reputations, but because the brands we build now are going to define the guardrails for the next generation. That’s not melodrama. That’s reality. As brand leaders, we have to hold the line. Be transparent about how we use AI. Audit for fairness. And never outsource conscience to code.

So, Where Does This Leave Us?

AI is the biggest disruption to branding since... probably branding itself. It’s going to rewrite job descriptions, rewire workflows, and in some cases, rethink what we even mean by “brand.” But it’s not here to destroy us. It’s here to challenge us to be sharper, faster, and more human in our storytelling. And while it may be able to write a clever product description, it still can’t sit in a room with a skeptical CEO, a data-wielding CMO, and a designer in existential crisis and forge alignment around a big, hairy brand idea. For that, they still need you. And me. And maybe a decent bottle of wine.

So yes, AI is here. It’s changing everything. But so did the printing press. So did the internet. And we’re still here, still building, still branding, still making meaning out of the mess. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to teach ChatGPT the difference between brand archetypes and astrology signs. Wish me luck.

Harvard Business Review has much more here, including how AI designed three limited edition Air Max sneakers that sold out in 10 days.