6 min read
Like many, we use AI every day. It helps us brainstorm, analyse, summarise, iterate. We use it to jumpstart content ideas, tighten prose, structure reports, and explore customer journeys faster.
But while AI can generate content, only humans bring the context, judgement and intent that real strategy demands.
It doesn’t know what keeps your stakeholders awake at night. It doesn’t understand regulatory grey zones or geopolitical headwinds. It can’t detect tone shifts in a townhall or read the room in a crisis.
Most importantly, it doesn’t care. And your audience can feel that.
According to Forrester, 54% of B2B buyers say they are less likely to trust marketing content that feels “automated or impersonal.” Where credibility matters, that’s a red flag you can’t ignore.
When everyone else sounds the same, your distinctive story is your edge
Right now, tens of thousands of companies are producing AI-generated copy, content, decks, and posts. They’re all using the same tools with much the same prompts. It’s no surprise that they’re getting roughly the same output.
It’s efficient but it’s also starting to feel eerily familiar. The prose is polished but there’s something hollow about it.
This is where human storytelling becomes your last unfair advantage in the world of strategic marketing and comms.
When everyone else is defaulting to mass-produced and automated content, stories with a genuine human touch and understanding stand out. Brand narratives that display some real personality cut through. That makes all the difference when rivals are focusing on quantity of output rather than quality.
According to McKinsey, companies that prioritise emotional connection in their brand communications outperform their competitors by 85% in sales growth. That connection doesn't come from typing a prompt into ChatGPT. It comes from hard-earned clarity, real empathy, and a passion for storytelling.
The most powerful connections that you make with your audiences are not rationale, much as we may pretend that they are. Instead, they come from the emotional bonds that are created when they are moved, understood, reassured, inspired by what they read, watch and hear. That’s what people do best and what machines can’t hope to emulate.
The human advantage: What AI still can’t do
Nobody is disputing the transformative power of AI. In many areas it is genuinely game-changing:
- Speeding up content production
- Synthesising research
- Drafting first-pass copy
- Standardising tone or format
According to Gartner, 63% of marketers are already using generative AI for basic content creation, and 91% say it increases productivity. Clearly, it’s extremely efficient.
But before we go all-in on AI we should consider what it can’t do:
- Interpret nuance in a stakeholder’s concerns
- Predict how a message will land with real audiences
- Craft positioning that’s politically or culturally sensitive
- Spot contradictions between strategy and messaging
- Continually adjust comms based on live human feedback
- Build trust in a high-emotion, high-risk environment
These are things you cannot afford to get wrong. Especially when:
- You’re announcing a shift in energy strategy
- You’re responding to a major incident
- You’re launching an ESG commitment that will be scrutinised
- You’re addressing multiple stakeholders with competing interests
As Harvard Business Review recently put it:
“Generative AI is a tool for expression, not understanding. It lacks the context, empathy, and ethics required to lead.”
For all the benefits that AI brings, stories for humans are best created by other humans who have the skills and experience to bring those messages alive and make them resonate.
Best practice: Merging machine and message
Some companies already understand this balance of human and machine and are using it in their communications to powerful advantage:
Engie Energy Access is a good example. This subsidiary of the French electricity giant used AI machine-learning models to identify promising regions for off-grid solar energy deployment in Kenya. AI provided the insights into socioeconomic conditions, purchasing habits and market readiness which really sharpened the targeting of the marketing campaign.
As a result, sales in pilot areas surged by 48% month-on-month, greatly outperforming regions without AI-driven targeting.
But crucially, the narratives delivered to those audiences were written by humans who understood the local culture, the energy access debate, and the emotional drivers behind solar adoption.
Engie’s communications teams used AI to scale insights, not to replace judgement. They kept the customer relationship human, respectful, and emotionally grounded, using AI as a co-pilot and not a content factory.
What poor delivery looks like
On the other hand, some companies try to hand their content strategy entirely over to AI - especially when under pressure to reduce cost or accelerate output.
The results are largely disappointing and flat: generic, keyword-stuffed messaging with no clear point of view or emotional resonance.
In one case, an energy company’s AI-generated sustainability messaging had completely missed a major shift in stakeholder sentiment around carbon offsetting. The copy passed a readability test but failed the reality test. That’s because AI is not good at appreciating context.
This mirrors a Deloitte finding that “human-aligned, values-driven brand messaging” is three times more likely to build long-term trust with stakeholders compared to automated messaging.
Where does this leave you?
Some companies will go all-in on AI. They’ll crank out content that automates engagement and favours volume over value. Others will decide that it’s simply not worth it and back away from it entirely.
But the most effective companies are gravitating to a hybrid model that offers the best of both worlds:
- Using AI to unlock speed and scale
- Relying on human experience to unlock trust and differentiation
This is the way to ensure that stories are rooted in real stakeholder insight. The secret is to align the messaging with the mission but to do it at pace, supported by tools and guided by judgement.
AI is an incredible tool – but it’s not your communications strategist
It can help you write faster. But it can’t help you understand why you’re writing in the first place. It can’t give your brand a voice that people trust or one that inspires loyalty and emotional connection.
That’s still the job of the good old-fashioned human being. If you want your brand to stand out in the era of machine-made content, it’s a job that’s more important than ever.
