Can AI Build Your Brand…Or Destroy Its Soul?

How effective is AI in content creation and online brand building?

Introduction

In this post, we’ll explore –?

1. Whether you should be using AI for content creation. And if yes, how? ?
2. Is it effective? Will it get you results? At what cost??
3. Can AI create emotional connection??

For this Part 1 of the series, I’ve particularly spent quite some time exploring the use of AI on YouTube and its implications for viewers, brands, and creators.?

I’ve been in the content game for quite some time helping brands such as Tata 1mg grow on YouTube from 2K to 1M+ subscribers. So I was naturally curious to understand the implications of using AI in content creation.?

Brand

Let’s explore both, a personal brand, and a business brand.?

What is the root of a business brand??

Businesses exist to solve problems for people while making a profit.?

A business brand is nothing but a representation of that business – whatever the business stands for.?

The root is the reason for the business to exist.?

Everything else is centered around that reason.?

Put simply, if I walk up to a business leader and ask ‘Why does your business exist?’, and if they don’t have a clear answer, it means they have not done a good job at differentiating themselves, or communicating that differentiation.?

And so, they will very likely get lost and be forgotten in the sea of other competitors and companies.

The AI Era

Now, why is this even more important in the AI era? Because it is becoming increasingly easier to create content and harder to stand out.?

But standing out is just one part of the equation. Businesses also need to build trust and be able to generate positive emotional connection with their audience.?

The tricky part is knowing what builds trust and emotional connection (you can’t outsource it to AI).?

Let’s take this post by Zomato for example —?

AI generated the above image, but a human wrote the copy.

For those unfamiliar, sev puri is a popular Indian snack.?

But why did this post achieve one of the highest engagements on their page despite being AI generated?

Because of the reasons mentioned above —

1. They centered their post around food (what Zomato stands for) ?
2. They disclosed that the images are fake (builds trust) ?
3. They created a funny meme that food lovers can relate to (positive emotional connection)?

A personal brand is also very similar — it also needs to stand out, build trust, and develop a positive emotional connection.?

The real question is, how do you do all that? And does AI have a role to play here?

AI Video Content

Examples:

There are a lot of ways to incorporate AI in your content creation workflow. We’ll discuss some of them below with some examples and their implications –?

1. AI voice cloning (not disclosed)??

Károly Zsolnai-Fehér, an independent researcher and scientist based in Hungary, runs the popular YouTube channel 'Two Minute Papers'.

His older videos were able to build trust and develop a positive emotional connection with the audience, despite having a unique and distinctive voice quality. This is evident from his 1.5M+ subscriber base.?

In his latest videos though, he seems to have cloned his original voice — which doesn’t sound too great, if you ask me. (It is borderline unbearable!)??

And the audience agrees. See below –?

2. AI voice cloning (disclosed)?

in a nutshell – kurzgesagt is a very popular YouTube channel with over 22 million subscribers.?

Someone cloned their voice and uploaded a similar Kurzgesagt-style video on the topic of AI.?

Here, they have disclosed that they are 'Not Kurzgesagt' in the channel name itself.?

They’ve also disclosed (in the comments) that they cloned the original Kurzgesagt voice using ElevenLabs.

AI may have made the entire video using data from the Kurzgesagt channel (though I cannot say for sure).

The thing to note here is that it did not resonate with the audience, as we can see from the comments —

This is why I said (earlier in this post) that you cannot outsource emotional connection to AI.

3. AI voiceover (not disclosed)??

On the other hand, channels like ‘Story Recapped’ with 1M+ subscribers, operate solely using AI voiceovers (different ones).?

Many of their videos have gained millions of views and thousands of comments.?

But it has got little to do with their AI voiceovers and more to do with the popularity of the movies and their engaging storylines, scenes.

4. AI deepfake (disclosed)

YouTube has primarily been an entertainment-first platform.?

If you can entertain people using AI, people will watch.?

YouTube now requires you to disclose whether the content is altered using AI or other tools.

See below —

How it would look like to the viewer —

Those failing to do so (disclosing AI content) repeatedly may find their channels banned or suspended.?

5. AI ad script (disclosed)?

First of all, the disclaimer at the very beginning of the video is really well done!?

This is how trust is built.

There’s another disclaimer when the sponsored advertising starts —

Not only does Tom disclose that the ad script is 100% AI-generated, he also mentions the part that is actually ‘true’.?

Brilliant example of a sponsored ad done well using AI!

6. AI screenwriting (disclosed)

While it may not be possible (yet) to create an entire Rick & Morty episode using AI, Code Bullet did a pretty good job using AI to generate -

• Automated dialogues/conversation between two different characters (AI agents)?
• Scripts for the episodes?
• Visual directions for the scenes?
• Voiceovers for the characters

A viewer even commented:

“Honestly if this was slightly better animated and slightly better voice acted, I couldn't tell the difference from the real thing. An absolute masterpiece!”

7. AI personal avatar (disclosed)

Ok at this point, I’m convinced that we’re going to see more of these AI generated videos and people are going to watch them as long as it is entertaining and adding value.?

Xander Keller (yikes on YouTube) created a diss track between two AI characters (yowza and Isabella)

If you're curious, here's the diss track by Isabella —

... and guess what??

People actually liked it!

He shared his experience in the detailed YouTube video below -

8. AI news anchor (disclosed)

OTV | Odisha Television Ltd. launched their AI news anchor, Lisa, around a year ago.?

Lisa got a lot of PR and quickly gained 10,000+ followers on Instagram.

As of now, Lisa is more active on Instagram than on YouTube. (perhaps because of the cost of production?)?

Her videos on Instagram are in the regional language of Odisha (Odia).?

The recent ones have crossed 100,000 in views, with high engagement, proving that people do watch AI-generated videos as long as it’s adding value.?

Oh wait, she's active on YouTube as well —

Looks like Odisha TV has created a new AI channel called OTV AI.

It has already crossed 15,000 subscribers!

Notice the disclaimer at the start of the video: "Hi, I'm OTV's AI news anchor, Lisa."

9. AI commentary (disclosed)?

There seems to be a lag between the real-time gameplay and the actual commentary. There’s also some filler content towards the end, to my distaste.?

Not quite there yet, in my opinion.

However, Wimbledon has partnered with IBM for AI generated match summaries, tournament highlights, player statistics, and much more!

10. AI music video (disclosed)?

I don’t know what to say…I mean, this video is sooo good! People are already requesting for a ‘full version’ on spotify!?

AI will enable us to become whatever we want — music producer, rapper, film director, whatever you can imagine!?

With the commoditisation of these tools, imagination and creativity will become even more important.

11. AI drake song (disclosed)?

Within just a few days, this song had 15M+ views on TikTok and 600,000+ streams on Spotify before it was taken down by the Universal Music Group for using Drake’s voice.?

The lyrics were written by an anonymous user called ghostwriter777. He’s a professional songwriter — after writing and singing the song himself, he used AI to make his own voice sound like that of Drake.?

If you're curious, here's a tutorial on how this was done —

Please keep in mind that even though this song became a viral sensation and got covered by all the major news outlets, it is still illegal and can get you in trouble.?

In the future though, it is very likely that Drake and the Universal Music Group , instead of taking down such songs, will be making money off it.?

YouTube has already partnered with the Universal Music Group, launching a ‘Music AI Incubator’ to conduct early AI experiments in the music industry.?

12. AI gameplay (not disclosed)

This ENTIRE gameplay video is AI generated.?

1. Person in the top left is AI avatar of youtuber Kwebbelkop
2. Voice clone is AI?
3. Commentary script is written by AI?
4. The gameplay is an AI agent playing GTA 5?

Kwebbelkop is a popular YouTuber with over 15M subscribers ( Jordi van den Bussche on Linkedin).

Prior to using AI, almost all his videos used to get 5M+ views with very high positive engagement and emotional connection.?

After replacing himself with AI for video content creation, he now hardly crosses 100k views and almost all his latest videos have hate comments.?

So why the backlash for using AI? Why do you think this is happening with him??

Well, because for 10 years he was “himself” on YouTube – the audience has developed an emotional connection with him.?

Now, suddenly, he announces his plan to replace himself with AI – how can AI, ever, bring his “human-ness”??

No matter how much he tries, it will never happen. AI will never be able to embody the human nuances — at least not as closely as he, himself. And even if it learns to get better, he has already lost the trust with his audience.

To understand this, imagine you loved someone. You became attached to them…their presence….their voice…their…everything! Suddenly they come and tell you that they can’t be with you anymore, but they’ll give you a replica doll of themselves — how would you react?

Chances are, you’ll move on :)

13. AI manipulated voice (not disclosed)

There are some channels that neither use their own voice clone, nor any AI voice.

They apply AI filters on top of their own voice to re-create an engaging, unique / distinctive voice.?

This YouTube channel (FarFromWeak) is an example of the above.

14. AI ad (disclosed)?

An anonymous username called ‘demonflyingfox’ made a 3 part youtube video series of a fictitious Balenciaga Harry Potter concept, accumulating over 20M views!?

It took him only about 2 days to make the first part which garnered over 12M views!

All the clips are made using AI tools such as Midjourney, ElevenLabs, and D-ID.?

The person now makes a full-time income from YouTube!?

While using these tools is fairly simple, what’s more difficult is developing taste and judgment – What images to use? What music to use? What should the dialogues be? Etc.?

It’s interesting to note that the person who made this is a professional photographer and runs a photography business. No wonder his photoshoot concept worked so well!?

Remember Drake's ‘heart on my sleeve’ song that went viral? That guy (ghostwriter777) is a professional songwriter.?

Remember Kendrick’s AI rap song that went viral? That guy (Sy The Rapper) is a professional rapper!

Conclusion?

Think of AI as a form of leverage that can help you multiply your taste and judgment in a short amount of time. You can potentially save costs and a lot of time using AI for content creation — but you need a human copilot.

Humans brings their own taste and judgment which cannot be outsourced to AI – at least not as of now, in its current state.?

This also means that those early in their careers (not having developed judgment in a particular field) are the most likely to be replaced by AI.?

...

This post was first published on The Marketing Futurist

If you liked this post, you may also like our free bi-weekly newsletter

Researched and written by Rajat Chakraborty