When people talk about artificial intelligence, the conversation often swings between two extremes. On one side, blind optimism: machines will soon outshine us, creativity will be automated, and the future is purely algorithmic. On the other, radical scepticism: AI is just hype, a gimmick dressed up as intelligence.
I stand elsewhere. I believe in AI. I use it daily, I value its power, and I see the opportunities it brings. But I also see its dangers when it is used without discernment. AI is already reshaping digital marketing — not always for the better.
AI was supposed to liberate creativity. It promised to free us from repetitive tasks, accelerate production, and open new imaginative frontiers. Instead, much of what we see today feels strangely flat. The promise of colour has dissolved into shades of grey.
Scroll through professional networks and you’ll notice the uniformity. Posts follow the same pattern: a pseudo-personal anecdote, a dramatic line break, a polished success story, and a predictable call-to-action. Newsletters blur together. Blogs echo the same hollow voice. Everything is neat, formatted, technically “good” — and instantly forgettable. The good becomes ordinary, the ordinary mediocre, and the mediocre indistinguishable from noise.
This is not because communicators have lost their skill. The problem lies in surrendering too much to generative models. These systems are trained to produce what looks like “good content”: balanced sentences, neutral tone, formatted storytelling. But what reassures does not surprise. What fills a space does not make a mark.
We expected a creative revolution. Instead, we industrialised language. Where AI should have been a springboard to new voices, it too often became an autopilot.
AI as a sparring partner, not a copywriter
The issue is not AI itself, but the way we use it. The mistake is in asking it to become our ghostwriter. A machine has no memories, no contradictions, no scars. It cannot invent a style, much less a voice. A text written solely by AI is like a show home: spotless, functional, but soulless.
AI should be treated as a sparring partner. It throws out ideas, suggests angles, pushes you off balance. It helps defeat the blank page, provides raw material to reshape, accelerates iteration. But it does not create for you, and it does not own your voice.
True creativity remains human. It emerges from tension: between conviction and doubt, between experience and imagination, between a personal story and a market trend. AI can simulate that friction, but it can never embody it. It can describe an emotion, but it cannot feel it.
The mirage of productivity
In the rush to publish more, many confused productivity with creativity. AI makes it possible to fill calendars and push content at speed. But abundance comes at a cost: voices are smoothed out, identities blurred, everything reduced to sameness.
Publishing more has never meant saying more. Impact is not about volume, but about resonance. And most AI-generated texts evaporate as soon as they are read. They slide past like lukewarm water.
In chasing efficiency, digital marketing lost its singularity.
Bringing back the human voice
I believe AI belongs in creation. But it must stay in its place: in the shadows, as support, never as substitute.
The brands and communicators who will stand out are not those boasting about their AI use, but those who re-inject the real into their work: a sincere emotion, a flaw, a personal vision, an imperfection that reveals humanity. They will dare to surprise, to unsettle, to move.
AI is a commodity. No one distinguishes themselves by declaring they use electricity; what matters is what they build with it. The same is true here.
Conclusion: out of the noise
We are at a crossroads. On one side, a tide of polished but interchangeable texts, produced in series and quickly forgotten. On the other, the chance to recover a singular voice — using AI as a partner, but keeping the human at the centre.
I choose the second path. I believe in AI. I find it indispensable. But I refuse to turn it into a religion or a crutch. It should remain an ally that sharpens thinking, not a machine that speaks in our place.
The future of digital marketing will not be decided by speed of production, but by the ability to restore emotion, originality, and truth. Those who keep this clarity will rise above the noise. The others will fade to grey.
