Will branding be more important in the AI future?

We are at the dawn of a new AI world - and nothing will ever be the same again.

Despite the limp platitudes from the US tech Bros (and others) suggesting that people will upskill and/or simply relax in a new world of abundance, the road to this hypothetical Nirvana runs directly through a war zone.  The next 3-10 years will be the most disruptive humanity has ever seen.  Depending on which the forecast you study, unemployment is forecast to peak at anything from 25-50% (World Economic Forum, IMF, PWC, McKinsey).  It’s going to be brutal.

But where will this leave brands?  Specifically will it be harder to build, sustain or grow brand equity in the new AI world? 

We can take it as read that there will an explosion of AI ideated, created and targeted advertising, AI powered hyper personalised messaging, a different AI commercial for every micro segment, and instantaneous AI focus groups.  But a rising tide raises all ships, and every brand will be using AI in the same way.  The size of the attention pie available from consumers will not dramatically increase and, while so marketing effectiveness may notch up a gear, so will competition.  All brands will need to run to stand still.

Synthetic authenticity

Simply put, the basics of branding are consistency and authenticity and this leads to brand trust, brand saliency and a growth in brand equity. 

Consistency in brand personality and communication is (in theory) simple to execute on but authenticity is harder won.  Authenticity should be genuine, believable and human – which explains the sensational growth of the influencer market over the past few years.

Brands have realised that AI influencers are less expensive, more controllable and more scalable than real people.  AI already enables synthetic ‘authenticity’ in spades,  the global AI influencer market is projected to be $8.3 billion in 2025 (Statista), representing around 25% of the overall influencer market.  Current projections suggest that this will grow to over 50% within 5 years (and I think that is likely to be conservative).  Brands love influencers for the humanity and authenticity they add to their brand – but when consumers wake up to the fact that fake AI influencers are dominating their feed and brands are shamelessly hacking the influencer system, the spell may be broken and advertising disguised as content may be regarded as just ‘advertising’.  As Abraham Lincoln pointed out:  

“You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

What happens when the recently unemployed realised that the AI who took their job is now posing as an authentic brand voice?  Could we reach a point where brands can no longer fool any of the people any of the time?  

The need to foster relationships

As AI ‘optimizes’ every corner of our lives, brands need to figure out how to stand out in a world dominated by AI automation.  Branding is not simply a marketing tool to increase impact; it will be critical to building and maintaining connection and community.

People don’t connect with brands because of flawless personalised content or data-driven insights - they want to connect with it and the humans behind it.  They want a relationship. And the more AI takes over, the greater the importance of strong emotional ties to your customers will become to drive loyalty.  People embrace authenticity.  This is as true in branding as it is in music – Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, Adele, Bruce Springsteen write great songs but their longevity is down to consistent authenticity.

What brands should do right now to prepare for the AI wave

Many brands talk the branding talk but do not strut the branding walk.  All too many brands are lazy about branding (consistency, authenticity).  Short termism is rife, chasing the next effectiveness metric, scoring a viral meme, hitting the quarterly target.  However we are about to enter a world where AI replaces humans at scale and humanity risks falling out of the branding loop.  

By all means embrace AI to cut costs, improve creativity, accelerate content creation and target delivery, but if you value your brand as more than a 2 dimensional logo don’t ever outsource authenticity and humanity.

Now is the time to reaffirm and tighten up your brand, stamp out lazy practices and ensure that going into the AI wave your brand is in the best possible shape.  Forcefully reassert brand guardrails on your agencies, don’t let creative freedom compromise brand centric communication, evaluate all consumer facing content against brand guidelines and ensure you are leveraging all multi-sensory brand reinforcement.  But above all, don’t outsource humanity to an LLM.   Every business needs to get brand fit before AI risks sucking the humanity out of the world.

Don’t ignore the power of music

One area where brands are emotionally unsophisticated is music – music shouts humanity and is a silver bullet when it comes to subconsciously shifting consumer emotions and perceptions.  But all too often music choices are made by creatives who often have a only a tenuous grasp of your brand positioning and reach for music exclusively to support the campaign narrative with scant alignment to the brand.  In a world of AI, brand appropriate music can shoulder a hefty emotional load, breath humanity into a campaign and ensure brand alignment at every step.  Ignore it at your peril.

David Courtier-Dutton

26 March 2025