Technology moves fast: personality lasts
If you're in marketing or communications for an AI company right now I'm guessing you're experiencing a mix of excitement, anxiety, and exhaustion. The AI ‘gold rush’ is wild.
Companies are hiring boldly, investing heavily, and catapulting products to market. The need for rapid-fire sales is obvious - debt will do that - and the marketing approach that supports that ambition is understandably tactical and product-led.
But... in the humble view of two career communication strategists, my Casey Wishart & Partners collaborator Andrew Nicolls and I, AI leaders need to make time to look further down the road too. (Andrew and I have been chatting about this a lot so we've put our thoughts down and would love to hear yours.)
Companies don’t want to find themselves in a sector where their brand language and that of their competitors feels interchangeable. Actually understanding, articulating and amplifying your company’s differentiation is hard - especially so when you’re also sprinting in an intelligence race. But it’s incredibly important. The companies that endure will be the ones customers trust to help them navigate what’s next: the first phone call before a big decision, the steady voice when market cycles shift. So you need to close quick deals to meet the financial obligations of today while also progressing with the harder, slower, less instantly-rewarding task of building a brand that stands for something.
Complement your product marketing with storytelling that inspires, that paints a picture of the future your customers want to step into and shows how your tools help get them there. (Of course, we would say this. It’s what we do. But it’s what we do because we believe very sincerely that it’s true.)
Examples:
- Communications with vision: Thought leadership and media relations that position you as a trusted guide.
- Content with character: Stories that make your brand recognisably human, memorable, and worth engaging with.
- Reaching the right decision-makers: CEOs, CROs, and growth leaders thinking three years ahead, not only those focused on responding to cost pressures.
And here’s a related thought: in a rush to present as “AI companies,” brands shouldn’t step away from the equity that made them distinctive in the first place.
When e-commerce boomed, retailers jostled to be seen as technology companies, but very quickly realised technology was a prerequisite enabler, not a differentiator. How soon before we say the same of AI, we wonder.
AI is changing the game. It’s exciting. Your brand still needs a personality.
