How AI Can Deepen Brand Humanity and Trust (Rather Than Undermine It)
We don’t need to fear AI — we need to use it better
There’s a lot of noise about AI taking over marketing. It’s everywhere: copywriting, chatbots, image generation, and entire brand strategies built on predictive data. And sure, it’s efficient — but efficiency doesn’t equal connection.
As marketers, we know brand trust and authenticity aren’t optional extras. They’re what keep people coming back. The trick is learning to use AI in ways that enhance those human qualities rather than flatten them.
AI should never be the voice of your brand. It should be the assistant — the quiet one behind the scenes doing the heavy lifting while you, the human, tell the story.
The heart of the matter: people don’t trust what they don’t understand
Most consumers like the idea of smarter tech, but they don’t necessarily trust it. Research shows around 80% of people say brand trust influences what they buy — yet less than half actually trust brands when they know AI is involved.
And that’s fair. When brands lean too hard on AI without showing the humans behind it, the experience starts to feel sterile. Think about the last time you read something online that sounded too perfect — you probably scrolled straight past.
The best brands use AI to add empathy, not efficiency alone.
Best practices for keeping your marketing human
1. Be transparent
If you’re using AI, don’t hide it. Whether it’s personalisation, recommendations or customer support, make it clear how it works and why it benefits the customer. Transparency builds trust; mystery breeds scepticism.
2. Let AI do the grunt work, not the heart work
Use AI to help brainstorm, analyse, and structure content — but keep the final voice, emotion and judgment human. It’s there to support your creativity, not replace it. I often use AI to generate first drafts or research angles, but the warmth, humour and brand tone always come from a person.
3. Personalise — but don’t be creepy
There’s a fine line between “This is relevant” and “How did they know that?” Keep your personalisation focused on needs and context, not private details. AI can be brilliant at spotting patterns; just make sure those patterns lead to useful experiences, not awkward oversharing.
4. Keep your brand’s voice consistent
AI outputs tend to sound… well, like AI. Create a tone-of-voice guide (I do this for most clients) and train your AI tools with that language. Review everything before it goes live. Consistency is what builds familiarity — and familiarity builds trust.
5. Always have human oversight
AI isn’t magic. It makes mistakes, pulls weird facts, and can unintentionally miss the nuance of culture, emotion or timing. Have a person review every piece of AI content. If you wouldn’t say it face-to-face to a customer, it shouldn’t go out.
Who’s getting it right
Aerie (the fashion brand) recently went viral for pledging not to use AI-generated bodies or imagery. In a world full of deepfakes and synthetic beauty, they leaned into real humans — and it became their most liked post of the year. That’s the kind of brand courage customers remember.
HubSpot and Adobe are also worth noting. Both use AI tools to improve creativity but actively encourage human editing and brand-voice refinement. Their stance is simple: AI enhances creativity; it doesn’t define it.
Then there’s Coca-Cola’s misstep — an AI-generated Christmas campaign that was criticised for feeling cold and lifeless. It’s a timely reminder: you can’t fake warmth.
How small businesses can build trust with AI
For small brands, AI is a leveller — it can help you punch above your weight. But it’s also easy to lose your brand’s personality if you rely on automation alone.
Here’s a simple framework I use with clients:
AI drafts the work. Let it do the initial research, segmenting or copy outline.
You edit for emotion. Add your brand voice, real stories, customer quotes, or humour.
Be transparent. Tell customers when AI helps you deliver better service or faster responses.
Measure trust, not just clicks. Ask how people feel about your content, not just how many opened it.
The result? Content that feels modern and efficient, but still unmistakably human.
The real opportunity
AI isn’t the threat. It’s the mirror. It reflects what we feed it — tone, ethics, empathy, or lack thereof. When we treat AI as an ally in understanding our audience and scaling our storytelling, we can actually deepen the trust between brand and customer.
The brands that will win in the next decade are those that blend intelligence with humanity — using data to listen, not dictate.
Want to learn how to humanise your AI marketing?
Join me at Small Biz Prompt Shop — I’ll show you how to prompt, edit, and build AI workflows that sound like you, not a machine. Because the future of marketing isn’t artificial — it’s amplified humanity.
