TL;DR
Copy-paste AI is creating negative brand equity. Generic, templated content is eroding trust and burning opportunity. The path I find most sustainable today is human + AI: humans for voice, proof, judgment, empathy, creativity, etc., and automation for scale.
We're starting to see more and more of this...
A flood of templated AI copy sneaking into inboxes, feeds, and decks - and quietly draining brand equity.
It shows up in little ways:
- The launch email that could have come from any company
- The LinkedIn post that promises thought leadership but reads like cardboard
- The pitch deck stuffed with buzzwords and em dashes
At first, it looks harmless.
"At least we're publishing," right?
But customers aren't shrugging. They're catching on. And their subtracting.
Each generic touchpoint chips away at trust.
I've watched small businesses spend years to earn credibility, only to dilute it overnight with copy-paste AI.
The market feels it.
POV: Human-in-the-loop is non-negotiable.
AI can draft, organize, and scale.
But judgment, specificity, proof, story, real-world experiences, empathy, POV - that's human.
And when you remove the human, you don't just lose "polish."
You lose equity you spent years compounding.
Negative brand equity is real.
It's when showing up actually hurts you. And I've seen more today than ever before.
The Shift
The brands pulling ahead aren't rejecting AI - they're incorporating it into their processes and systems.
They protect their voice.
They anchor in real data.
They add stories no competitor could copy.
Because speed matters. But trust compounds.
And trust is never automated.
AI Use Cases that Don't Burn Trust for Speed
If you've been subscribed here awhile, you know I'm not anti-AI.
Far from it - I use it daily.
But I'm pro-AI in the right way: as a tool to scale human creativity, not replace it.
Here are a few use cases:
→ Mine customer language - Let AI comb through your reviews or support tickets to identify patterns. Then you decide which words actually fit your brand voice.
→ Draft the skeleton, not the story - Use AI to outline blogs or email sequences - but layer in your stories, POV, and proof.
→ Repurpose content - Feed transcripts from any of your long-form content into AI and pull out highlights to repurpose across different channels
→ Test ideas faster - Generate quick mockups or campaign variations, then let your team refine the winner into final creative
Curious... have you spotted any AI-generated content this week that made you lose trust in a brand?
In the news:
📰 Small Business, Big Impact - A tiny LA tamale shop used AI to help script a hilarious social video in just 10min. The result? Over 22M views and a ton of new customers - proof that human + AI can be marketing gold.
📰 When AI Overruns Authenticity - A surge of low-effort, AI-generated videos - dubbed "AI slop" - is flooding social platforms. While they rake in clicks & cash, these shock-value pieces raise alarms about the erosion of originality and authenticity.