AI isn’t the problem. Over-relying on AI is.
TL;DR : AI isn’t what’s hurting brands. People’s over-reliance on it is.
Last week, I went to the Creative Freedom Brunch hosted by RocketSpark, and one of the sessions focused on AI and how it's been impacting the design and creative industry, especially for freelancers. And it's a conversation that's been playing on repeat in my mind ever since.
There are plenty of opinions about AI and design, but for some reason, I don't see many conversations that explore the nuance—especially on social media (or maybe I just haven't looked hard enough).
And after some thinking, here’s my hot take:
AI isn’t the problem. People’s over-reliance on it is.
When AI came onto the scene, it promised us efficiency, and I, myself, use AI for this very thing.
It helps with “mundane” administrative and repetitive tasks. It can generate ideas and organise information. We can have content ideas for a whole month in one prompt. Instead of writing meeting minutes, you simply record your client meeting, upload it to your preferred AI tool, and boom—you've got meeting summaries complete with action points.
A task that can take 2 hours or so of your day can be done in less than 10 minutes. Talk about taking off some of the mental load!
When used well, AI actually creates more space for humans to think creatively. It frees up time to focus more on meaningful work, and for me, that’s design thinking.
But I think this is where we’ve blurred the lines.
The problem isn't AI itself. It's that we've started applying the value AI brings—efficiency—to places where a different value should lead.
We’ve become so used to valuing AI for its efficiency that we’ve actually started treating efficiency as the most important metric for every single part of business.
Somewhere along the way, the narrative shifted. If AI can do something faster, or if a task can be automated, we've started assuming that's automatically more valuable.
Without realising it, we've carried that same mindset into creative thinking.
The thing is creativity cannot be optimised the same way admin is.
We thought,“we’ve used AI for everything. Why not use it for branding as well?” It’ll be cheap and fast. Win-win…but is it really?
People assume the because AI can generate logos, colour palettes, websites, and copy, then AI can create their brand. But branding isn’t about just assembling visual elements.
Branding is about creating human connection, and design is the tool that helps translate that connection into something people can see and feel.
And that’s what AI can’t replicate: the human layer of branding.
It can’t translate empathy and lived human experience.
It doesn’t have intuition or vulnerability.
Forget about reading between the lines, or asking questions a founder didn’t know how to ask.
It lacks the understanding of emotion, culture, context, and the story behind a business in the way another human can.
But there's another side to this that I don't think we talk about enough.
When we rely too heavily on AI to think for us, we also risk skipping the very experiences that teach us the craft.
Every designer, writer, strategist, photographer, or founder develops through repetition—through trying, failing, questioning, refining, and doing it all over again.
That's where judgement is built.
That's where taste is developed.
That's where confidence comes from.
Those years of experience shape not only what we create, but how we think.
AI can certainly speed up the output. But it can't replace the experience it takes to know why one idea is stronger than another, why one direction feels more authentic, or why one decision will resonate more deeply with people.
And I think that's an important distinction.
Because you're not just investing in the final logo, website, or strategy. You're investing in the years of judgement, perspective, and lived experience behind every creative decision.
Those are the kinds of human insights that make brands memorable—and designers irreplaceable.
Here’s the irony though: if you ask every business owner, the reason they invest in branding is to stand out. To set themselves apart from the competition.
But if everyone is using the same prompts, the same AI-generated styles, the same formulas…
…well, we can’t really expect to have a different outcome, right?
Because the outputs become so similar that we end up moving closer together instead of further apart.
So if the goal is to stand apart, we can't rely solely on the same tool everyone else is using to get us there.
So, here’s where I stand: I’m not anti-AI.
I use AI almost every day.
I use it to organise my thoughts, generate content ideas, sometimes manage my schedule, and even create mock-ups from branding I've already designed—especially when I can't find imagery that captures the look and feel I'm after.
So yes, as a designer, I use AI. But what I don’t use it for is to replace design or creative thinking itself.
Because branding isn’t a task to complete as quickly as possible. Sure, some design ideas happen in an hour or so, but some also take a week.
It's the process of uncovering what makes a business uniquely human, relatable, and different.
That’s where I draw the line.
The value of AI offers speed and efficiency.
The value branding offers is meaning and differentiation.
And those are two completely different currencies.
One helps you work faster. The other gives people a reason to remember you.
Because the goal was never to build a brand faster.
It was to build one worth remembering.
If you're ready to create a brand with meaning, strategy, and a point of view that's uniquely yours, I'd love to help. Explore how we can work together or fill out the inquiry form.
