AI has its limits
As brand professionals (and humans), it’s hard to make sense of AI right now. Will it come for our jobs or make them easier? Will it kill our industry or transform it into something new? Rather than succumbing to existential crisis, we’re channeling our inner Martha Stewart and learning something new every day. We’re testing what’s out there–and learning its limits.
Here’s how we use AI today:
As a research assistant. With tools like ChatGPT and Claude, it’s never been easier to get up to speed on a complex marketplace or technology. Products like Miro and Fathom help us summarize interviews and transcriptions, freeing up time to focus on deeper analysis. For a recent naming project, ChatGPT helped us quickly find the names of obscure native plants, something that might have once taken hours of searching.
As a brainstorming partner. GenAI tools are tireless creative companions. They can spit out lists of synonyms that lean into a particular sentiment or help with tricky rephrasing. With the right prompting, they can even push our strategic thinking in new directions, often by showing us what we don’t want or what’s already commonplace.
To amplify brand voice at scale., we train systems like Custom GPTs, Writer, and Jasper to embody our clients' messaging and voice across communications. (Fun fact: We built a custom GPT for In Other Words and ran this post through it!)
AI doesn’t help us (yet):
Get to consensus. AI can’t align our client’s team around what’s truly authentic, differentiated, and ownable about their brand.
Deliver nuanced insights. AI doesn’t have the full human context. It doesn’t know which stakeholder’s opinion carries the most weight or the emotional baggage of a particular word or phrase.
Create something fresh. AI tools are great at repackaging existing ideas, but brand positioning is all about identifying new opportunities and forging a singular niche. Relying on AI for that is risky. When we aim to infuse a brand with real emotion, AI often veers into cringe territory.
The AI landscape is changing almost daily, so part of our job is to keep experimenting and staying open to what’s next.
