Let's Talk About the AI Elephant in the Room
AI is no longer a “future trend” that we marketers can casually observe from the sidelines. It’s embedded in the platforms we use and the workflows we rely on every day. Whether we’re talking about content brainstorms or full campaign drafts, AI is already shaping how marketing gets made.
And it’s not just the tools we use. Platforms themselves are powered by machine learning. Over 80% of social media content recommendations are powered by AI, significantly influencing what users engage with and how long they stay on platforms.
For example, Instagram uses signals like post popularity, user interaction history, and time spent on content to determine what shows up in feeds. Facebook (Meta) uses AI systems like DeepText to interpret context, analyze massive volumes of posts, and understand language patterns across users.
AI is already shaping what our audiences see long before we can even think to open a prompt window.
So it’s no longer a question of whether marketers should use AI. The real question is: How can we use it without losing the very thing that makes marketing effective in the first place —connection?
AI as a collaborator, not a replacement
The healthiest way to think about AI is as a collaborator. It’s a powerful assistant, but it shouldn’t be the author of your brand voice.
Strong marketing teams are using AI to:
Generate starting points, not final drafts
Speed up research and summarize information
Test variations of ideas while keeping final decisions human
Free up time for strategy, storytelling, and audience engagement
We’ve seen this in action when using AI for strategic tasks like year-end goal reviews, organizing data, spotting trends, and synthesizing insights. And, to be clear, AI does drive results. Businesses using AI for social media content generation report a 15-25% increase in engagement rates. That kind of lift is hard to ignore!
However, when considering how and when to use AI (and to employ it ethically), the role of human-centric judgment becomes even more important. Editing, injecting personality, and aligning content with your brand values are jobs AI can’t fully replicate.
When AI starts sounding less human
We’ve talked about the ways AI can be helpful: It speeds up brainstorming, reduces repetitive work, and gives teams more room to focus on strategy.
But we’ve been hearing a familiar question from clients and marketing teams lately:
“Can’t AI just do that?”
In some cases, that question is coming from leadership. If AI can generate posts, write drafts, and analyze data in seconds, why not let it handle most of the marketing function?
Because while AI can support marketers, it can’t replace them.
AI can produce content, but it can’t fully understand your audience’s context, emotions, or lived experiences. It can recognize patterns. It can’t make values-based judgment calls in sensitive moments. It can draft messaging. It can’t build trust over time through consistent, intentional brand decisions.
There’s a tipping point.
When AI begins carrying more of the creative and emotional weight than the humans behind the brand, audiences can feel it. If your tone suddenly shifts or starts sounding flatter and more generic, your audience may not be able to explain why something feels off, but they’ll sense it. And when that happens, trust can quietly erode.
In a social landscape where trust is already fragile, erosion matters. It can show up as lower engagement, slower growth, and weaker relationships with the people you’re trying to reach.
Guardrails that protect audience trust
If AI is going to be part of your workflow, which, for most teams, it already is in some capacity, it helps to set clear guardrails to ensure everyone is aligned on how it should be used and for which purposes. When discussing AI use with our clients, we recommend focusing on these guidelines:
Protect your voice: Treat your brand voice as non-negotiable. AI outputs should be shaped to match it, not redefine it.
Stay empathetic: Every AI-assisted piece of content should go through a human edit focused on tone and empathy.
Stay transparent internally: Make sure your team agrees on when and how AI is being used so your output stays consistent.
Prioritize audience impact: If a piece of content feels efficient but emotionally empty, it’s worth slowing down to fix it.
The bottom line
AI isn’t the enemy of good marketing. Used thoughtfully, it can make teams faster, sharper, and more creative.
The marketers who will stand out aren’t the ones who use the most AI tools; They’re the ones who know how to blend AI efficiency with an unmistakably human perspective. That balance is what keeps trust intact, and trust is still the currency of social media.
At the end of the day, the connection we need to strengthen is the one with our audiences, not a chatbot.