Why brands are stepping back from AI and betting on human content
Generative AI is a commodity tool now, and audiences are pushing back: 52% of consumers lose interest the moment they suspect a machine wrote it. ITCOMMS communications expert Anastasia Kokhanyuk on why human involvement has become the premium signal, and which skills will hold their value.
AI is now an everyday content tool that anyone can pick up, and using it no longer proves a brand is technologically ahead. What is growing instead is demand for writing, images and video that people actually made: 52% of consumers lose interest the moment they suspect content was generated by AI. Anastasia Kokhanyuk, communications expert at PR agency ITCOMMS, explains why human involvement is becoming a value in its own right, and which skills will still be worth having in the age of AI.
When AI-generated campaigns backfire
Brands keep running into backlash over the use of AI in their communications. A recent Gartner survey found that 50% of US consumers prefer brands that keep GenAI out of their content.
When Coca-Cola released a Christmas spot made with generative AI, the company set out to reimagine one of its most recognisable pieces of advertising. The ad drew a wave of criticism instead.
Coca-Cola's classic Christmas campaign has a magic and an emotional resonance that the AI-generated version did not reproduce. Viewers called it soulless and bland, stripped of the warmth that made the original holiday advertising iconic. The brand has always been built around human emotion, holidays and family tradition, so a visibly generated video puts it at odds with itself.
Content made by people is usually full of micro-signals: cultural references, emotional nuance, incidental detail. It is how a brand shows that it understands people and can speak their language.
A similar debate flared up around Gucci after it ran a campaign generated entirely by AI in place of a traditional photoshoot. Users started asking whether AI content is compatible with the idea of luxury at all. Critics said the visuals looked artificial and clashed with the heritage of a house associated with craft, handwork and mastery. Some read it as the brand cutting production costs, which fuelled speculation about its finances.
Cases like these show that for many audiences the value sits not only in the product, but in how the brand chooses to deliver its ideas.
Human involvement as part of the message
Communications are shifting. According to The New York Times, one of the defining trends of 2026 is fatigue with flawlessly polished AI content and a growing appetite for the raw and the imperfect. Consumers want an emotional connection and will pay for story and meaning, especially in categories where the functional gap between products is closing. So brands are increasingly showing not just the result, but the process behind it.
Apple, for one, released a warm Christmas short film starring handmade puppets of woodland animals. The company hired a full team of puppet animation specialists. After the premiere, Apple published a separate behind-the-scenes film walking viewers through the making of the characters, the sets and the shoot. That put creativity and handwork front and centre, turning the production process into a core part of the message.
More global brands are betting on the aesthetics of handmade work. Fashion house Hermès handed the design of its website to a French artist, who drew a series of illustrations by hand, complete with visible paper texture, live linework and imperfections. Loewe is making moving anime-style videos with contemporary animators. Porsche released a spot combining hand-drawn illustration with 3D animation and invited viewers to hunt for hidden references.
The approach brings warmth and a recognisable authorial style to a brand's communications, which is what sets it apart from the run of interchangeable campaigns.
The skills worth having in the age of AI
Whenever technology makes something cheap and ubiquitous, the market starts paying more for whatever resists automation. Streaming made music all but free, and interest in analogue formats and live concerts rose at the same time, because those give people an experience and an emotion. The same logic applies here: the more AI does for us, the more valuable the things it cannot generate become.
That is why taste may prove one of the strongest competitive advantages of the AI era, argues AI researcher Ethan Mollick. For people working in communications, marketing and design, it will matter more and more to develop a trained eye, a style of their own and the confidence to make creative judgement calls, rather than simply knowing how to operate the tools.
None of this is a contest between people and technology. Generative AI is becoming as unremarkable as the internet, and the mere fact of using it impresses no one. Consumers will expect brands to use AI to speed up service, streamline processes and analyse data. But human involvement is what will signal cultural relevance, trust and emotional connection, above all in fields where a brand's identity and its story are what count.
Translated with an AI translator
