Authenticity and originality in an AI world

Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of AI.

It can be brilliant for research, testing ideas, automation and helping us work more quickly and efficiently. It can analyse reams of data faster than any human ever could. Used well, it is a powerful tool.

But have you ever been down the AI rabbit hole?

You start with a clear question. It offers suggestions, then more suggestions, then alternatives, then a slightly different angle. Before you know it, the output looks nothing like what you needed in the first place, and sometimes it no longer sounds like you either.

That is where I think things get interesting, especially in marketing.

In the public sector and regulated markets, our goal is to build trust, credibility, and relationships so people believe we understand their world. But if we all rely too much on similar tools and language, do we risk sounding the same?

How do we make our organisations sound different?

Company messaging and propositions can blur together. With more AI-generated content, the risk is that everything looks polished but less distinctive.

If we rely too much on technology, how do we keep training our minds to think originally and avoid sounding like everyone else?

Spend enough time on LinkedIn these days, and it can be difficult to find truly original thinking. There is a lot of mirroring, agreement and repeating of similar ideas. Some of that is probably very human. We all want validation and acceptance. We all understand the small dopamine hit that comes from likes, comments and reshares.

But is that getting in the way of creating something new?

The challenge for marketing is not just content speed, but making brands and ideas stand out.

Will the organisations that win trust be the ones that use AI most efficiently? Or will they be the ones who know when not to use it?

There are lots of behaviour-led awareness days already: International Day of Happiness, Digital Detox Day, Time to Talk Day and hundreds more. But perhaps what we need now is an AI-Free Thinking Day.

Not a day to reject AI. A day to think before the tool.

A chance to form our own view before asking AI to frame it. To write the rough version ourselves. To protect our own voice, judgement and originality before we ask technology to help us refine it.

The future of marketing will not belong only to those who can create more content faster. The future of marketing belongs to those with original ideas.

This article was created without AI assistance. (With the exception of the image!)