AI Ads Could be Killing Your Brand Authenticity

AI Can Fake a Look, But Not a Soul

There’s no shortage of AI design tools promising to “build your brand in 60 seconds.” Plug in a few keywords and boom, instant logos, colour palettes, slogans, even entire websites.

But the problem is, AI doesn’t understand you. Not your values. Not your story. Not your messy, beautiful, uniquely human vision.

So, while an AI-generated design and ad might look slick on the surface, it often lacks soul. It’s polished but soulless. Generic. Predictable. Almost the design equivalent of a stock photo handshake.

And your audience can tell. Even when they can’t tell, when the output looks convincingly real, they’re left with a feeling they can’t explain. Something’s missing. Something’s off. Something looks fake or distorted. And in branding, perception is everything.

Branding and Design is a Conversation

Authentic brands are human-centred.
They’re built on real conversations, real experiences, and emotional understanding. When you hire an agency or graphic designer in Melbourne (like, yours truly), you’re working with someone who:

• Listens to your goals and story
• Understands your local audience and industry
• Translates your values into visuals that connect with real people

AI doesn’t do that. It doesn’t sit down with you. It doesn’t ask “why?” It doesn’t push back, challenge your assumptions, or craft a brand around lived values. What you get instead is templated output with no context, no conversation. Just a flashy answer to a question you didn’t fully ask.

The Illusion of Realness

It goes deeper though. Even when AI creates something visually convincing, the minute we realise we’re being “sold to” by a machine, something breaks. Trust. Connection. Authenticity.

It’s the difference between a real, heartfelt conversation and a pre-recorded voice message pretending to be personal. We all know that feeling when we call a company on the phone and are greeted by a recorded message. I mean, even if a real person answered the phone and said nothing but what was on their script, we’d lose interest.

And in an age where consumer trust is everything, pretending to be human when you’re not is a dangerous game.

Brands who rely too heavily on AI risk becoming, emotionally disconnected, performative rather than authentic and blandly “perfect” instead of imperfectly real.

When that happens, who are we even talking to?

Humans Trust Humans, Not Bots

If your brand claims to care, support, connect, empower… then it can’t just be algorithmically efficient, it needs to be emotionally intelligent.People want to buy from brands that see them, understand them, share their values, speak like a real person.

When everything from your visuals to your voice is crafted by automation, your brand becomes robotic. You may still get clicks. You might even get conversions. But you lose trust — the kind that builds long-term loyalty. And once trust is lost, no amount of smart design can bring it back.

The Answer is Balance.

I’m not here to launch an anti-AI protest because I still us it myself. AI isn’t going anywhere and used wisely, it can be a powerful support tool in the creative process. But branding and design still needs the human element.

You need a person behind the pixels. A designer or team who gets what makes your business unique, can read between the lines and inject empathy into every touchpoint. That’s the difference between design that connects and design that just exists. In a world of auto-generated everything, realness is rare. And rare things stand out.

If you want your brand to feel genuine, earn trust, and build meaningful relationships — don’t outsource it to an algorithm. Work with humans. Speak like a human. Design like a human.

Because at the end of the day, branding is human-to-human, not bot-to-human.