Everyone’s a brand builder now

AI tools offer impressive speed and convenience. They can conduct research, draft creative briefs, generate brand strategy and even create video.

This gives the impression that traditional agency services – positioning, naming, copywriting and identity design – can now be done in-house.

But brand building isn’t just a bundle of deliverables. Decision-making is an empathetic process guided by experience, dialogue and process.

It couples relationship-building and trust with judgement and taste. The dynamics aren’t easily captured in prompts.

Choice overload

Another downside is that the sheer volume of AI-generated options can trigger the paradox of choice. Psychology research reveals that too much choice can overwhelm a decision-maker.

Choice overload often reduces the probability of making a good decision and leads to lingering doubt and regret about the final direction chosen.

LLMs are powerful, but not magic

To understand how AI can deliver value for our clients, we are applying various LLM tools to support our Wholehearted methodology in real-world branding projects. As of August 2025, the results are mixed:

Brand names

Dozens of suggestions, mostly cliche. None chosen as the final name. Some did guide us toward a helpful direction.

Brand DNA and positioning phrases

No output became the approved solution. Again, some contributed to creative divergence, and occasional breakthrough thinking. LLMs are great for identifying existing usage.

Brand stories

Rewrites are always required. AI drafts tend to weigh all input points evenly. They fail to prioritise what’s strategically important and often introduce widespread but irrelevant sector themes.

Brand identity and logo design

AI can generate thousands of logo-like images. Few are usable. They typically lack distinctiveness, relevance or trademarkability. And AI doesn’t understand that brand identity must perform across time, formats and culture.

Images

AI can generate strong conceptual imagery that’s useful for inspiration and reference. But control is limited. Faces fall into the uncanny valley. Details fail close inspection. Style, composition and tone vary unpredictably.

Brand guidelines

LLMs can draft superficial aspects of brand guidelines, but they consistently fail to capture critical nuance and strategic priorities.

They also have a hard time understanding the appropriate application of the unique brand DNA required for effective brand implementation across diverse applications.

There’s also the issue of trust. LLMs hallucinate. Confidently and repeatedly, even when reproached. So every idea, every claim, every phrasing must eventually be checked by humans. 

AI creative pros and cons

AI excels at:

• Desktop research and cross-checking
• Supporting strategic articulation
• Generating variations
• Testing extremes in ideation
• Revealing clichés (output often regurgitates widespread tropes)
• Speeding up social content creation

But it struggles with:

• Originality
• Nuance
• Prioritisation and relevance
• Cultural sensitivity
• Tone matching
• Effective decision-making
• Empathy
• Accountability

There’s also the issue of trust. LLMs hallucinate. Confidently and repeatedly, even when reproached. So every idea, every claim, every phrasing must eventually be checked by humans. 

Great assistants, poor advisors

AI tools don’t replace consultants who bring a proven track record. They won’t challenge your thinking or prompt hard conversations. LLMs won’t push back and defend proposals that you are initially hesitant about, but are in your best interests.

An effective branding agency doesn’t just produce creative work, it builds relationships. 

Experienced agency teams develop trusted relationships that engage your leadership, align your team and support effective decisions. In turn, an effective agency-partner collaboration helps your team build trust with your key stakeholders. 

We tried the off-the-shelf tools

Many of the purpose-built platforms, off-the-shelf agents and AI-powered assistants were impressive. But none matched the specificity and strategic relevance of applying AI within a proven methodology guided by experienced, talented teams.

That’s why we’re developing our own AI tools that will complement our team’s knowledge and better serve our clients. When combined with our process, AI is a multiplier.

Augment, don’t replace

LLMs will continue to disrupt and accelerate parts of the branding process. For smaller teams and startups, they can provide useful capability at minimal cost.

For bigger organisations, an experienced brand and design agency continues to add value. Not by producing more stuff, faster – but by guiding you towards effective directions aligned to your unique organisational challenges and objectives.

Who’s the best human-in-the-loop?

AI makes many branding and marketing tasks cheap and fast. Don’t expect originality though. And its unreliability means everything needs checking. You need a human-in-the-loop – or even better, an expert at the helm.

The more experienced and skilled your human-in-the-loop is, the better the results you will get. The final moat is judgement.

Ultimately, AI is a tool. Like any tool, its value depends on the skill of whoever wields it. For business leaders, it means partnering with people who can leverage AI to achieve more effective outcomes.