Julie: “…the whole purpose of branding is to get you to really strongly share who you are and your expertise. And if you can… If you can beam that out really strongly, then you end up attracting the right people to you and turning the wrong ones away.” Branding and AI can work together, or they can work against one another. In this episode, Julie shares her thoughts on how AI can impact your brand.
Watch this episode on: YouTube.
Listen on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts.
Julie Gibbon’s website: https://brandiwork.com
Summary
AI’s Role in Creativity:
- AI can combine ideas but lacks the human ability to experience or interpret them.
- Example: AI can generate recipes with broccoli and carrots but doesn’t know what they taste like.
Trustworthiness of AI:
- AI tends to make up information rather than admit it doesn’t know something.
- Example: Someone asked AI about a fictional character from Invincible, and it generated a full backstory instead of saying the character didn’t exist.
Using AI as a Creative Tool:
- AI is useful for brainstorming and saving time on idea generation.
- Example: Julie used ChatGPT to outline a webinar, saving time on structuring content.
- However, human judgment is needed to refine and verify AI-generated information.
AI in Branding & Design:
- AI-generated graphics, logos, and instructions are often messy and unpolished.
- AI struggles with typography, spacing, and balance, which designers handle intuitively.
- While AI can assist, it cannot replace human expertise in branding and creativity.
The Future of AI in Marketing & Design:
- AI should remain a servant—a tool that assists rather than replaces human creativity.
- It’s helpful for repetitive tasks but lacks deep thinking and originality.
Julie’s Contact Info & Course:
- Julie runs Brandiwork by Julie on Facebook and brandiwork.com.
- She’s launching a new course soon and invites people to check it out.
Transcript
Hey everyone, it’s Lou here, and in this episode, I have a repeat guest—Julie.
Julie’s been on the show before to talk about target audience and choosing the right message to suit them. But I’ve decided to invite Julie back again because I put a call out for guests, and Julie put up her hand and said, “I want to talk about branding and AI.” That hooked me—it was such an intriguing topic.
Yes! All right, so there’s lots to say.
If people don’t know who I am, I help women in business with their branding, websites, and overall presentation so they attract the right people. It’s principally the visuals, but also all of the behind-the-scenes and structural aspects. We get the brand strategy in place so there’s a very consistent way of presenting yourself. That’s what I do.
All right, so I’ve got a few things to say about AI. First of all, it has definitely got a place, and it’s not going away anytime soon. It’s here to stay.
If people don’t know my background, I have a strong background in art history and design. One thing that always comes to mind with the argument about AI taking over the world is the argument back in the mid-19th century when photography became a thing. There was a big to-do about it, and people kept saying, “Photography is going to be the death of painting.”
Well, it wasn’t. What it did instead was push each medium into its own genre and field of expertise. Photography isn’t going anywhere anytime soon either—it’s a real thing in itself. Meanwhile, painting was pushed in new directions as well.
I see that’s what AI is doing. I’ve seen some brilliant examples of what AI can achieve in the arts field. There’s an artist called David Zer, who has an amazing background in costume design, and it shows every time he puts out a new AI video. These incredible scenes of creatures and people in amazing costumes—it’s beautiful. It’s quite a thing to see, and I see that’s what AI can do.
The Grunt Work
The other thing that AI can do—so David is using it as a tool to push boundaries—but the other thing AI can do is a lot of the grunt work, which we don’t like doing anyway. It can be great for structuring a new blog post or something. You can say, “GPT, give me five points on blah blah blah,” and it will spit that out for you. It’s really great for getting a solid grounding of what you need to say.
Now, the best AI can do when it comes to your branding—it can sound really impersonal. I’ve seen this, and Google is starting to mark down things that sound really impersonal, generic, or robotic. That’s a really bad thing. When we read something, we can usually tell fairly easily if it’s been written by AI because it just sounds inhuman, robotic.
So in terms of branding, what’s that doing to your audience’s perception of you? Sure, it’s fast, but the whole point of branding is putting forward your particular personality, your view on things, and your expertise. If AI is sounding robotic and spitting out garbage, that’s not actually helping you in any way, shape, or form. In fact, it’s damaging you.
Standing Out When Branding and Using AI
Yeah, that’s right, and it’s not just that it’s not you, but when you look at the words AI generates, it’s an amalgamation of everything that’s out there. How are you supposed to know that’s… how are you meant to differentiate yourself?
That’s right, that’s exactly right. It becomes very generic. The thing with branding is making you stand out, and if AI is making you sound like everything else, that’s just fighting against the personality you’re putting into your brand in the first place. It’s running in the opposite direction. So yeah, it’s not helping in the slightest.
Fact Checking
All right, yeah. Another problem with it is that if people don’t do their due diligence and check the information it produces, AI can actually make errors. It’s trolling the internet for everything and will just spit out stuff. I’ve seen some really stupid things—like how to cook rocks or putting glue on your pizza to make things stick. It’s ridiculous.
Now, those are extreme examples, and anyone with a brain cell could identify them. But if you’re using AI to generate content in your particular field of expertise and you’re not verifying the information, misinformation can easily slip through. When people find out, it can completely discredit you. That’s really damaging to your brand’s credibility.
Biases
So, I’ve got a list of things to talk about.
There’s also bias. I have a very particular viewpoint on a number of things, and if I ask ChatGPT to create something, it might present a different point of view. That can be useful in some ways, but it also raises the question—do you want to dilute what you have to say? Some opinions are shaped by what you value. If my values inform my opinions, but ChatGPT generates something that contradicts that, it’s not helpful.
We see this on social media too. Our feeds tend to reinforce what we already think. People who support Donald Trump get fed content that reinforces the belief that he’s a good bloke. Meanwhile, there are plenty of people who don’t like him at all—including myself. I don’t see pro-Trump content in my social media feed. Instead, I see content reinforcing that he’s a bully and makes bad economic decisions.
I could go on, but I won’t, because we’re not here to talk about politics. The point is, AI is also trolling the internet and picking up biases. You have to be really on top of that so you don’t end up putting out content that misrepresents your views or, worse, is factually incorrect.
AI is Impersonal
Well, I guess the last thing—well, not the last thing, but another thing—with AI is all the bots we have. I’m just looking at Zoom right now, and there’s a little bot in the bottom right corner of my screen where I can get help or feedback. I know full well it’s a bot feeding me information it thinks is important to me.
But those automated responses—we’ve all experienced them. You get onto the bank’s chatbot, and it spits out something, then asks, “Was that helpful for you?” And you think, No, no, that was not helpful at all. It’s really frustrating.
That frustration is also damaging to a brand. If you’re a customer and a bot feeds you rubbish without giving you the answers you need, all it does is make you irritated. That means the brand is going down in your estimation because you’re not having a good experience.
Apparently, it does affect your perception of that company.
Yes, indeed. I’ve even seen it on social media—the automated responders in a brand’s messaging system spitting out impersonal, generic messages. If you’re speaking to customer service and you’re supposedly a valued customer, why are you being spoken to by a robot that obviously doesn’t care about you as a person?
No, they have zero feelings whatsoever. You don’t feel important to them at all. Instead, you feel like you don’t matter to them, and that is incredibly damaging to a brand’s reputation.
The Security Risk
Now, my last point is that AI is also a big security risk. AI trolls through so much information, and we already have an issue with how much of our personal data is out there. Even though I’m fairly tech-aware—and so are you, I’m sure—we both do a lot to keep our information safe. But still, I know my supermarket has tons of data on me just from my rewards card.
They know I have kids and dogs. They know I cook. They know I don’t like takeaway. They even know I’m not a big fan of frozen pizza. They have so much information on my shopping habits. Every rewards card you use does the same thing.
And it’s the same with AI. It’s trolling through everything, piecing together data. “Oh, this is Julie Gibbons. We know this much about her. And this. And this.” They compile all of that into big data profiles. And while some of that information—like where I live or how many kids I have—may not be completely private, it’s still unsettling. My birthdate is on so many things, it wouldn’t be hard to find. There’s just so much information out there, and it makes you wonder—how deep does it go?
ChatGPT Replacing Google Search
That’s an interesting point, and I want to dig into that a bit more because I’m sort of in two minds about it. People are now using ChatGPT as a replacement for Google search. So if that’s the way things are going, you owe it to yourself, your brand, and your business to ensure that truthful information about you is being returned—not just a mess of misinformation.
But on the other hand, you’re right. There are certain things you want to keep private.
I actually have a completely separate email address that nobody knows about. It’s only for communication with my medical center and doctors—that’s it. It’s not a Google address, so even Google can’t see it. It’s a secure, private address, just between me and my doctor.
Wow.
Yeah.
That’s really interesting because it’s so easy for that kind of data to end up in the wrong hands.
Yes, exactly. And about Google—yes, I was going to talk about that. The AI-generated answers—again, this comes down to us being educated enough to take that information for what it is and not rely on it as absolute truth.
If I need a quick fact—like the ingredients for spaghetti Bolognese—AI will probably give me the right answer. But if I’m researching something more complex or looking for specific information on how to do something, AI can easily give me the wrong information. It treats everything with equal importance, pulling from the most popular sources rather than the most accurate ones. So it can be biased, and it can spread misinformation.
That’s why I prefer to take an AI-generated overview with a grain of salt, then cross-check it with other websites to balance out my perspective.
AI Tends to Make Up Answers Instead of Saying “I don’t know” or “This Doesn’t Exist”
That reminds me of something I saw on LinkedIn recently. Someone asked an AI to describe a character from a TV show. The show was Invincible, which is real, but the character they asked about—Elliot—doesn’t actually exist. Instead of saying, “That character doesn’t exist,” the AI just made up Elliot, complete with a backstory and profile.
That’s wild.
Right? It just invented something out of thin air instead of admitting, “I don’t know.”
Yeah, it really makes you question how trustworthy AI is.
Why is this Conversation about Branding and AI Important?
Absolutely. And that brings me to something I wanted to ask you—why is it important to have these conversations about branding and AI?
Because it’s about educating people. The whole purpose of branding is to clearly communicate who you are and what you stand for. If you can project that strongly, you’ll attract the right people and filter out the wrong ones. The more clearly you showcase your personality, expertise, and value, the better it is for your business.
But if you dilute your message with AI—or worse, let AI distort it—you’re not doing yourself any favors. AI is there to push boundaries, and that’s great. It’s making waves in art, music, and other creative fields. I was first drawn to it visually, but it’s expanding into so many areas.
That said, AI is best for grunt work. It’s great for generating ideas, providing basic direction, or handling repetitive tasks. But it’s not magic. It has no personality. It has no humanity. All it does is mash up existing information and spit out what it thinks you want to hear—whether it’s accurate, misleading, or outright false. AI doesn’t care about truth. It doesn’t care about meaning. It just delivers an answer.
That’s why AI should remain a tool—a servant to help with the tedious stuff.
AI Won’t Replace Us
Exactly. It should serve us in tasks that don’t require deep thinking or creativity. AI will never replace human creativity.
It simply can’t. As humans, we pull ideas from all kinds of unexpected places. I can take one idea from over here, another from over there, and another from somewhere completely different, then ask, What happens if I combine these? That process—the true spark of innovation—is something AI will never be able to do.
Sure, AI can analyse data, automate tasks, and generate content. But it can’t think. It can’t invent.
True. It’s impersonal. It’s robotic. That’s what it is. And we shouldn’t expect anything more from it.
Yeah, that’s so true. AI can definitely combine disparate ideas, but it does so based on estimations of what others have done before. For example, if you ask it, “What happens if I mix broccoli with a carrot?” it’ll likely generate a recipe. But that’s not the same as me tasting the carrot, tasting the broccoli, and thinking, If I do this, it’ll taste amazing. That’s the human creativity behind it.
AI, on the other hand, would just pull from existing recipes that feature both ingredients. It’s never going to know what it’s like to actually taste broccoli or feel sand under its feet.
Wrapping Up
Such an interesting conversation!
Yeah, absolutely. In a nutshell, it’s fine to use AI as part of the creative process—just make sure to vet the information, think critically, and double-check it before publishing.
Exactly! I use ChatGPT to help generate ideas. For example, I’m presenting a webinar in a couple of months with a friend. Instead of spending hours brainstorming, I can ask ChatGPT, Can you generate six key points I should cover? That’s incredibly useful. It saves me time, so I can focus on writing the actual content, creating the slides, and structuring the presentation.
But when it comes to AI-generated graphics, there’s still a long way to go. Have you seen those AI-generated step-by-step visual guides for things like origami or building a PC? They’re often completely off. AI doesn’t understand what happens in real life—it’s just spitting out patterns.
Yeah, and with graphic generation, I still haven’t seen AI consistently produce clean, professional-looking results—especially with text. It struggles to spell words correctly, and designs often look unbalanced or messy. I’ve experimented with AI-generated logos, and there’s always something off.
Right! In design, I instinctively know how to space elements properly. It’s not that I don’t refine things—I absolutely do—but I have a solid foundation to start from. AI doesn’t have that intuitive sense of balance. You can’t replace years of experience with an algorithm.
Exactly! That last 10%—the fine-tuning, the fiddling—that’s all human expertise. AI can’t replicate that.
This was such a great discussion! You had a lot to get off your chest.
I really did! AI is a tool—it’s useful, but it’s not going to take over the world, and it’s definitely not replacing humans anytime soon.
Alright, thanks so much, Julie! If anyone wants to continue the conversation, how can they reach you?
Oh, absolutely! You can find me on Facebook at BrandiworkByJulie (all one word). My website is brandiwork.com. Feel free to reach out—I’m always happy to chat and help people with their AI-generated logo disasters!
I’ve also got a brand-new course launching in the next couple of weeks, so if you’re interested, come check it out!
That’s fantastic! Great to have you on the show, Julie.
Thank you! It’s been a pleasure—so much fun!
Music Credits
“Leopard Print Elevator” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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