As a brand + website designer (and creative person in general), you might assume I’d be at least a liiiittle nervous about the AI takeover. After all, AI can write your website copy, generate a subpar logo, give you a color palette, write a month’s worth of Instagram captions, and draft your next newsletter in about the amount of time it takes me to make my breakfast.

Sure, I can’t deny that it can be incredibly helpful. I’ve used it to create meal plans, teach me how to cook the perfect steak for my boys, and maybe diagnose whether or not I need to take my dog to the vet (but don’t tell anyone).

But here’s the thing: I’m not trying to compete with it in my business. If anything, the more AI-generated content I see, the more convinced I am that thoughtful, human creative work is more important now than ever. Here’s why…

We’re all starting to recognize the sameness

You know the language by now. “Quietly something and deeply something” and “unmistakably yours” blah blah blah. We can all spot the perfect IG caption that somehow doesn’t sound like the person who posted it. The generic website copy filled with fluffy words that could belong to any business in the industry. And don’t even get me started on the social graphics and flyers…

This isn’t just a hunch I have because I’m a brand and website designer. Earlier this year, Gartner surveyed more than 1,500 U.S. consumers and found that half (!!) would rather give their business to brands that don’t use GenAI in the content they see. I knew it would happen… people are becoming jaded by the messaging, the ads, and all of the boring sameness.

Not only that, but this is happening alongside a much bigger shift: most consumers now say they’re actively questioning whether the information in front of them is even real rather than simply trusting their gut. Yikes.

People are starting to look for signs that there’s a real person behind the business

As more businesses gain access to the exact same tools, the things that can’t be easily replicated become more valuable. Your perspective. Your experience. Your taste. The stories you’ve collected over years of doing your work. The way you communicate with clients. Those fine details you care about that someone else in your industry might overlook completely. That’s what makes you you!

Those things have always mattered in branding, and I am so glad they’re about to matter even more. Because when your potential client has already looked at 6 websites and 5 of them are saying essentially the same thing, the business that actually sounds like a person has a very real advantage.

AI can be a great tool, but it shouldn’t be your creative director.

I’m not suggesting we all bury our heads in the sand and pretend technology isn’t changing how we work. AI has a time and place (did I mention meal planning?!) and most business owners I know use it in some capacity. There are plenty of ways it can make running a business easier! But it’s clear we’re going to have to become more thoughtful about how we use it.

If you ask AI to write your entire website without first figuring out what you believe, who you’re talking to, what makes your approach different, and what you actually want people to understand about your business, it has very little to work with beyond what already exists on the internet. That’s where the sameness creeps in. Did you know it pulls from other people’s websites to generate things?! Mind boggling. Back in high school we used to get failing grades for that. It’s called “plagiarism”. Tisk, tisk.

This is also why, despite spending approximately 97% of my working life in front of a screen, I still take pen to paper when I’m starting something important. There is just something that happens in your brain when you actually write. You slow down, make connections, cross things out, write or draw something slightly better above it, circle a thought you want to come back to, and sometimes end up somewhere completely different than where you started.

That’s a big part of creativity for me. I don’t always want the fastest answer. Most times I want to sit with an idea long enough to find the interesting one… the best one. I do the same thing when I’m working on a brand. I want to hear your stories and ask the follow-up question. I will notice the tiny thing you mentioned in passing that actually says more about your business than the original answer you prepared for me. Those are usually the threads worth pulling.

Having access to a tool that can make something quickly (ahem, Chatty or Claude) doesn’t automatically give a business a visual identity people will recognize 6 months from now. There has to be a reason and meaning behind the design choices. I can write a whole blog post on that. Maybe one day.

Intentional branding matters more than ever

I’ve always believed a good brand should feel like the business behind it. From the words you use to the visuals that represent your reputation. All of these things should work together to help people understand who you are, what you do, and why they should work with you. Ideally, someone should look at your brand & website and come away feeling like they know something about you.

That’s difficult to achieve when we’re all pulling from the same well of generated ideas. It’s my passion to support small businesses in figuring out what is worth saying in the first place, then give those ideas the words and visuals they deserve.

A few things worth holding onto

As AI becomes part of everyday business, I think these things will matter more:

• Your point of view: What do you believe about the work you do?
• Specificity: The small details are often what make someone remember you.
• Your actual voice: Your website doesn’t need to sound impressive. It needs to sound like you.
• Real stories: This is high on the list! Your experiences will always be more interesting than something generated to sound like an experience. Mic drop.
• Thoughtful editing: More content isn’t necessarily going to help your business.
• Consistency: A recognizable brand becomes increasingly valuable in a sea of things that look and sound alike.

I’m much more interested in the parts of business AI can’t manufacture for you: understanding what makes you worth paying attention to.

For me, these things come in the form of thoughtful brands, amazingly pretty websites, words that sound like actual people wrote them, and creative work with enough personality that nobody has to wonder whether there’s a human being behind it.

If your business has grown into something you’re proud of, but your brand or website doesn’t quite reflect it yet, I’d love to help you bring the two back together.

Thanks for being here,

Kait