Is AI enhancing or destroying your brand?
It may sound a tad dramatic, but if your business is relying on AI-generated content to drive awareness and cut through the noise – you may be doing your brand a lot more harm than good.
I spend more time on LinkedIn than perhaps I should. This is partly because that is where most of our target audience ‘hangs out’ – marketing professionals, senior executives, business leaders, and entrepreneurs – and partly because I am becoming (perhaps unhealthily!) fixated on some of the content that I am seeing more and more of every week. And it worries me.
LinkedIn should be the place where professionals build credibility, demonstrate expertise, and communicate with purpose. Yet our feeds are increasingly cluttered with posts that are unmistakably generated by AI.
The tell‑tale signs are glaring. More important is the potential reputational damage this can cause both the distributor of such content and the organisations they represent.
So, if LinkedIn is supposedly a platform for professionals to craft and shape their personal and organisational brands, why are so many people undermining theirs with content that clearly didn’t come from them?
What’s the problem?
The problem is… the problem (can you sense the rage?!) is that AI generated content is made up of information primarily scraped from media websites and company blogs.
In fact, research shows that three-fifths of the results you see on the likes of ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot originate from media websites i.e. PR coverage secured by other businesses. That means the output is never your opinion – it’s a synthetic remix of everyone else’s.
Sharing such content verbatim suggests a lack of authentic original thought that cannot possibly be considered ‘your’ ideas, insights, or opinions. Moreover, it significantly undermines credibility.
This is an important point to make. Earned media (i.e. generating media coverage for your organisation in the form of interviews, quotes, opinion pieces, podcasts) is a lot harder than it was before the 2020 pandemic. Businesses and brands can see this.
61%
61% of results generated by LLMs that are sourced from editorial content featured in the media – 44% come from ‘owned media’
Indeed, add reported disappointing advertising ROI to the mix and we start to see a greater focus on establishing credibility and customer trust through the production of thought leadership content – some attributed to the organisation’s brand and the other half to that of its key people.
Indeed, I frequently quote a Harvard Business Review finding that states 50% of the perceptions that audiences/customers have of a business and brand is shaped by the personal profile of its key people. This is where promotional budgets are now being allocated.
Spotting content created using AI
AI‑generated content doesn’t read like human communication. It reads like… well, like AI. Want to know the give-aways that a post has been created by AI?
1. Over-capitalised headlines: “The Press Release That Will Kill Your Reputation Stone Dead.”
2. Awkward punctuation and elongated hyphens: “The Marketing Department’s Dilemma — How to Win Media Coverage.”
3. Hyperbolic language and bolded phrases: “We’re Super Delighted to Announce the Launch of the Revolutionary Game-changing Kiwi Peeler That Will Blow Your Mind.”
4. Short, staccato sentences: “Journalists Dislike AI. With a Passion. They Ignore Press Releases. They ONLY Trust PR Agencies.”
5. Clickbait headlines: “The Morning Routine Mistake That Could Cost You Your LIFE!”
I am not against the use of AI among marketing and leadership teams. AI is a great starting point for idea generation, structuring content, and tone refinement. But never allow AI to write your story.
Your insights, expertise, and human voice are what make your press release and content compelling. Over-reliance on AI risks burning bridges with the very people you need on your side.
AI should support your PR efforts- not replace them. Your reputation depends on it.
We’ve been advising and supporting clients with their press and thought leadership content since 2014 – let us help get your business in front of the right people and get them seeing you in the right way. Email me at paul@clearlypr.co.uk to get started.
