Should Businesses Use AI to Build Their Brand?

This article reflects the professional insights of Vasundhra Khatter, a leader in B2B branding and marketing.

Why does a company need a good-looking website? It doesn't.

I have seen businesses doing hundreds of crores in revenue with websites that look like they were built in 1994. They still sell. Their customers still buy. The business still works. So why do companies spend so much time, money and energy on branding?

Because the website is not just a website. It is a signal. Before a customer has spoken to your salesperson, used your product or dealt with your service team, they have already formed an impression of you. The care you put into the website suggests something about the care you might put into the product. The quality of the writing suggests something about how well you understand your customer. The details in the design suggest something about how seriously you take your work.

None of these things are proof. But branding is rarely about proof. It’s rather, about perception. And perception is built from signals. Craft is one of them. Effort is one of them. Attention to detail is one of them. Sometimes, even the decision not to take the easy route is a signal.

Which brings me to AI. I hear a lot of chatter on whether we should use AI-generated imagery, AI-written copy or AI-generated films. I don't think that is the right question. The better question is: What does using AI make people believe about your brand?

That answer will be different for every company.

For an AI-first company, using AI in its branding can be entirely consistent with the proposition. If the company is telling customers that AI allows it to work faster, operate more efficiently or produce better work with fewer resources, demonstrating that through its own marketing can actually strengthen the story.

The technology becomes part of the proof.

The same can be true creatively. When one of our cool quick commerce companies uses an AI-generated film or image, there is an understanding between the brand and the audience that this isn't real. That is part of the joke. There is a certain cultural fluency in knowing that everyone knows it is AI.

The artificiality is the creative idea.

That is very different from using AI because you couldn't think of an idea. And I think this is where the current conversation about "AI slop" gets the heat. People don't necessarily object to AI because they can tell it is AI. They object when they can feel that nobody had much to say or rather, put in the work.

Today what we can achieve with AI can sometimes be actually impressive. But what does it tell me about the company? Perhaps that it wanted to make something impressive. Perhaps that it wanted to do it quickly. Perhaps, fairly or unfairly, that it didn't think the idea was worth investing much more in. 

That last inference is where I like to draw the line.

That doesn't mean we should deliberately make things difficult or expensive just to demonstrate effort. It means we need to understand what effort is doing for the brand.

For example, I head marketing at a business that sits somewhere between technology and services. There are days when using AI-generated creative is completely appropriate. And then there are days when I deliberately don't use AI because we want the customer to feel that there are people behind the product. That somebody thought about the problem. That somebody made decisions about the details. That there is care, judgement and human effort behind what they are buying.

I strongly believe "Never use AI" is as lazy as "use AI everywhere."

The right question is far more nuanced: What are you trying to make people believe about you, and does the way you made the work support that belief?

If your brand stands for speed, AI might demonstrate speed. If your brand stands for technological sophistication, AI might demonstrate technological sophistication. But if your brand is asking customers to believe that you are meticulous, thoughtful, human and deeply invested in their problems, then producing everything through the fastest available machine may send a very different signal. 

Even if the final output looks beautiful.