I’ve previously written about a concerning trend I’m seeing in branding, marketing and communications, fueled by AI: We’re drowning in a sea of sameness.
I want to be clear. I’m not a Luddite. I use AI, and I think it can be rocket fuel for productivity, particularly, those that are task-based. It can help us synthesize information, explore possibilities, accelerate processes and get from nowhere to somewhere, faster.
But when AI starts to replace strategic insight, creative thinking and professional judgment, I worry.
That hasn’t stopped clients, colleagues and board members from kindly offering up messaging, names and taglines generated in real time through their AI platform of choice. Sometimes, they even come armed with a logo sketch or two.
And I understand why.
AI has democratized access to activities that once felt like the exclusive domain of branding, marketing and communications professionals. With AI, anyone can generate a positioning statement, ask for 20 names, or create a logo in seconds.
The question is, does that makes everyone a strategist, writer or designer? And, more importantly, what do we as professionals trained in these disciplines do when the people we serve feel increasingly equipped to do our jobs themselves?
All of this got me thinking about the advent of WebMD, and its impact on the doctor-patient relationship.
For those of us old enough to remember, think back to the late ’90s and early 2000s, when health information suddenly became available at our fingertips. Armed with a few search results from WebMD, patients began walking into doctors’ offices convinced they knew their diagnoses — and sometimes the treatment plans, too.
Doctors could have dismissed that access to information as dangerous or rejected increasingly informed patients as an affront to their expertise. And some did.
But medicine didn’t disappear, and the rigor of medical training didn’t become less important because patients had access to more information. If anything, expertise became important in a different way.
That’s because having information isn’t the same as knowing how to interpret it; recognizing symptoms isn’t the same as making a diagnosis; and identifying a possible treatment plan isn’t the same as understanding whether it is right for this patient at this moment.
The same is increasingly true of our profession. AI can generate an answer, but our value lies in knowing whether it’s the right one for this client, audience, moment or channel.
So what can branding, marketing and communications professionals learn from medicine as we navigate our own era of democratized knowledge?
1. Start with the right diagnosis
A good doctor doesn’t begin with treatment, but with understanding the patient.
What’s their family history? What are their symptoms? What might have changed in their environment, relationships, work or lives? What are they hoping to understand, address or achieve?
The same should be true in our work.
A client may ask for a new name or tagline when the underlying issue is an unclear strategy. They may come to us asking for a new logo when the real problem is a fragmented brand architecture. They may want a campaign when they haven’t yet defined what they need audiences to think, feel or do.
AI is very good at responding to the question it is asked — professional experience and judgment are needed to know whether we’re asking the right question in the first place.
That is why discovery, research and strategic framing matter. Before we race toward answers, we need to understand the problem we are actually trying to solve.
2. Use data to challenge, not justify
Medical training teaches doctors that instinct alone isn’t a comprehensive diagnostic tool. They combine expertise with evidence — tests, data, research and observation — to validate or challenge an initial hypothesis.
In branding, we should work the same way. Research should sharpen our understanding and challenge our assumptions, not prove the answer we already like is true.
AI makes it extraordinarily easy to generate hypotheses. But speed of generation means that rigor in evaluation is more important than ever.
The question shouldn’t simply be: Does this sound good?
We should ask: Does it solve the challenge? Does it reflect what audiences need or want? Does it position the organization clearly and competitively? Can the organization credibly deliver on its promise? Will it move people to action?
Better questions lead to smarter, more actionable answers.
3. Apply human ingenuity, then amplify with technology
Medicine is already using AI to help analyze scans, identify patterns, document visits and more. But technology works within a broader system of human expertise, accountability and judgment.
That distinction matters in our field, too. AI can accelerate exploration, help us organize research, pressure-test language, generate variations and execute repetitive tasks at lightning speed.
We should use it, but never confuse efficiency with originality. Because AI is fundamentally built on existing knowledge.
Brands, by contrast, create value by finding what is distinctive, meaningful and ownable — and expressing it in new and unexpected ways.
Doing this requires a deep understanding of context, audiences and the organization. It requires experience, expertise and ability to make unexpected connections and meaningful choices.
The real value for us, as professionals, is knowing where human ingenuity and technology each make the most sense.
4. Listen first, then guide with expertise
The biggest lesson from medicine may be that greater access to information changed the relationship between doctor and patient.
Patients expect to participate in the decision-making process, rather simply being told what to do. They arrive with information, questions and hypotheses of their own. Good doctors don’t dismiss that participation; instead, they listen, learn and apply their expertise.
But they also don’t abdicate their responsibility to provide expert counsel.
So, what is the lesson for us?
When a board member brings an AI-generated tagline to the meeting, our response shouldn’t be defensiveness or automatic acceptance — it should be curiosity.
We should ask: What do you like about it? What are you responding to? What aspiration does it capture? What might it tell us about what you believe the organization needs to communicate?
The artifact itself may or may not be the answer, but its response may offer an illuminating insight. Our role should always be to listen first, interpret through the lens of our expertise, and then apply that insight to achieve the best outcome.
Key takeaway: Expertise isn’t disappearing — it’s just shifting
AI is going to keep getting better, as will the names, messages and logos it generates. And the barrier to creating something that looks and sounds professional will continue to fall.
That means “creating the thing” will no longer be the primary source of our value.
Our value has to be in knowing what thing needs to be created, why it matters, what makes it distinctive, and whether it will actually work.
WebMD and all its subsequent competitors did not eliminate our need for doctors, but it changed the questions patients brought into the room or onto Zoom.
AI will do the same for branding, marketing and communications.
We can’t stop it, and we shouldn’t try to compete with it. We should bring what it can’t.
Now, every one of us can generate an answer. The real value is — and always will be — knowing which questions to ask, and which answers are worth advocating.
Sources:
Rajendran, Pam R. “The Internet: Ushering in a New Era of Medicine.” JAMA, Feb. 14, 2001.
Pasquini, Giancarlo, Galen Stocking, Emma Kikuchi, Isabelle Pula and Eileen Yam. “Where Do Americans Get Health Information, and What Do They Trust?” Pew Research Center, April 7, 2026.
Duncan, David S. “How Do Workers Develop Good Judgment in the AI Era?” Harvard Business Review, Feb. 3, 2026
