The AI Threat: When Everything Sounds Right, Nothing Feels Real
I don't know about you, but 2025 left me feeling sour and sickened by all of the stony AI flooding our feeds and over-saturating our lives.
I'm exhausted!
And frankly, I'd be lying if I said it doesn't worry me sometimes. People are making content and big life decisions using ChatGPT and other hollow AI platforms. Then I see the outcome and think, "Do people really fall for this AI fluff?”
Companies are missing the whole idea of marketing. Marketing, at its core, is about understanding human behavior, and AI distorts that signal by interfering with the data we learn from humans. What kind of signals? Direct human behavior, like someone saving a post but not liking it, leaving a comment, sending an email, or even staying silent. Now that we've inserted AI into that loop, we're no longer learning from people directly, but from machine-generated content, algorithms, and patterns.
Now the data changes, and here's how it plays out. Let's take social media content, for example. People scroll their feeds for different reasons. Some are bored, tired, procrastinating, or trying to numb their overstimulation. But if someone scrolls past a piece of content, is it because they hate it or is it because they've seen it a million times? AI doesn't give you the intention behind the behavior because it's blind to context. It will only look at data and patterns of content that's been done before and repeat it with the same hooks, phrases, structures, and motivational tone. Then we start seeing more AI-generated content flooding our feeds, and scroll past it from fatigue.
Marketers, though, only see 'low engagement' and then use more AI to chase what used to work, creating more of that same exhaustion. Is no one else tired of those generic "POV" reels or carousel "lesson" posts?
These posts aren't bad, they're just useless when they're multiplied endlessly and stripped of any human individuality. AI took these messages and structures and helped to increase their volume. That's where the interference lies when it comes to social media. And every great marketer knows that humans behave differently when something is repeated a million times.
In an attempt to be fair-minded so the AI junkies don't come after me, let's agree that AI has its place at the table. It's a phenomenal tool for researching, data analysis, and brainstorming angles. As a tool, it's cool.
Using it as a voice of judgment and for strategic decisions? Now you've changed who the tool is.
How about when it comes to branding?
It's true that when we, as copywriters, write, we care about how something sounds, but most importantly, we focus on how it feels. People are missing the point that authentic brands should have personality, and while AI can copy tone, it can't copy an actual point of view.
Will your customers take you seriously if you use AI to build your brand?
Most probably not, and definitely not for the long run. Content and design are meant to connect with users and customers so they feel comfortable enough to buy your product or service. It's supposed to help build a lasting brand, which, by the way, requires consistent and authentic language, and AI is incapable of that.
You might have seen this or something close to it:
"At [brand], we believe in empowering individuals to live their best lives through thoughtfully crafted solutions designed with care and intention."
Substitute "brand" with any company, and while it sounds nice, it means absolutely nothing. Brand voice collapses because AI is trained on endless examples of how people speak and write, but then it settles somewhere in the middle.
It picks the safest, most neutral language, not the boldest or truest. AI is trained to include everyone, but brand (and human) identity is not built by what most people agree on. They're built on what people reject, as well as what they like. For example, Apple rejected technical lingo. Emirates rejected the idea that flying is just transportation. Stc rejected being just a service provider. They reject being explained by their products and operate with a clear belief system and strong messaging, understanding it's humans that ultimately decide. Who better to speak to humans than other humans? Note that these brands were built without AI.
However, the last few years have left us distracted by the shiny new object syndrome of AI, and along the way, we've eroded authenticity and lost trust in companies. Is it AI? Is it real? How do we know? It's fooled so many people, and what's scarier is that it'll only improve.
It takes me a long time to trust anyone or any brand. I also relate more to the messy stories of imperfections and contradictions that authentic brands tell. But when people use AI to tell these stories, it avoids this mess and, in turn, avoids honesty and cultural nuance. That approach makes brands forgettable.
What we handed over to AI isn't creativity. What's supposed to support humans is turning into a replacement for judgment. Our human judgment is the only reliable source for deciding when something feels wrong or when a message feels forced. Our instincts can tell us when a message no longer sounds like us. The ability to recognize that shapes our identity and gives brands a point of view. So when we handed over our judgment, our language became polished but hollow, making things sound right but not feel real.
So the trust we have in brands was never about intelligence. It's about human judgment of knowing what to say and what not to say. So, how much judgment are you willing to give up along the way?
