Culture & Alignment · 4 min read
AI cannot be your differentiator
A tool everyone can buy for the same monthly fee cannot set anyone apart.
AI is not a double-edged sword. It gives us efficiency. It does not give us creativity, unless we accept mediocrity.
That is why agencies offering AI as their differentiator are shooting themselves in the foot. A tool everyone can buy for the same monthly fee cannot set anyone apart, and it is being commoditised faster than most pitch decks can be updated. Using AI is not the issue. Use it for efficiency, research and analysis. Renting it in place of human intelligence is a disaster.
Creativity is the first casualty. A model is built from what already exists, so what it returns is the average of it: competent, fluent and familiar. That is useful for a first draft, a summary or a variation. It is not where an idea comes from. Story, idea, insight and tension are human traits, not AI traits. They come from books, characters, films, streets, folklore and history, and from a person deciding what is worth saying. AI can help with the work around that. It cannot stand in for it.
Design shows the same pattern. A layout, a logo, a mood board or a campaign visual now takes seconds, and much of it looks alike. Polish has become cheap, so polish no longer tells a client anything. Design is a series of decisions: what to leave out, what to exaggerate, what this brand should never look like. Those decisions need taste and a point of view, and the person making them has to answer for them. A tool will produce ten options. It will not tell you which one is right for this client, this market and this moment.
Command the tool instead of following it. Let it speed up the research, the production and the analysis, and keep the thinking with the people who have to stand behind the work.
Clients are calling too: do it with AI, do it faster, do it cheaper. The mediocrity is in front of us and the slop is in abundance. All of a sudden, everyone is strategic, analytical and creative. Then you speak to them once, and they are the same as when you last met, or worse.
AI this and AI that is making people predictable, boring and lazy. They write emails with it, read client briefs that were also written with it, and respond with another AI vomit. No input, no perspective, no thinking.
Culture is where the limit shows. AI does not drive culture. People do, and leaders do. AI cannot save a toxic culture or restore trust. It can make your text and visuals look polished and poetic, but it cannot change what people believe about the organisation. Leaders who are AI-centric and not people-obsessed will continue to struggle.
Related: In the age of AI, HI matters more, not less.
Topics: AI, Creativity, Design, Culture, Leadership