As AI reshapes how we create, communicate, and build businesses, the real question isn’t what AI can do – it’s what it can’t. This piece explores the subtle, human layers of branding that technology can assist with but never fully replace. If you’ve ever wondered whether AI can truly capture the soul of a brand, let me offer a tasty metaphor to explain why not.
AI is extraordinary – fast, efficient, and evolving by the second. I use it daily in my branding agency to map out strategies, generate visuals, suggest business names, test directions, and move faster. If you’re in the creative world, AI can be a game-changer. It can multiply your output, sharpen your thinking, and open doors you didn’t even know were there.
But… can it make the perfect bacon sandwich?
I’m not talking about following a recipe or slapping a few rashers between two slices of bread. I’m talking about making one with intention, presence, and soul.
Can it smell the bacon as it hits the pan—the rich, smoky aroma wrapping itself around your morning before your eyes have even opened? Can it hear that first sizzle, that soft crackle that reminds you of a lazy Sunday? Can it feel the butter melting into warm toast, turning everything golden and soft? Can it taste the difference between red and brown sauce—not just the flavour, but the curiosity of the first time you mixed them as a kid?
Of course not. Because those moments live in a realm AI cannot enter: the human realm. And my friend, branding lives there too.
Why? Because AI lacks the very thing that sets you apart—your higher mental faculties. You’ve been gifted with six incredible tools no machine can truly originate from:
- Imagination – The birthplace of vision
- Intuition – The internal compass that never lies
- Perception – The lens that shapes your reality
- Reason – The ability to choose thoughts and beliefs
- Memory – The database of meaning and identity
- Will – The inner force that keeps you aligned
These are your instruments of creation—your six superpowers. Many people don’t realise how powerful they are, let alone that they can be strengthened and mastered. AI may simulate fragments of logic, pattern-match sentiment, or approximate certain decisions, but it doesn’t possess these faculties. It doesn’t experience intention. It doesn’t choose from desire. It doesn’t create from lived memory. You do.
Simulation isn’t sensation.
The Bacon Test
The Bacon Test is a gut check—a reminder that branding isn’t about templates or tech; it’s about the senses, and a feeling that connects on a deeper level.
See
AI can generate a layout or trendy logo, but it doesn’t see like you do. You see the soul behind the symbol. Branding isn’t just visual—it’s visionary.
Hear
AI can transcribe or even measure tone, but it doesn’t truly listen. It might detect sentiment, yet it can’t hear the pause before the truth. You hear the stories between the words.
Taste
AI can suggest trends, but taste? That’s human. It’s honed through experience, feedback, and gut instinct. AI offers options. You know what nourishes.
Touch
You translate energy into expression. AI can generate formats, but only you can transmit presence through pixels. Your fingerprint makes it human.
Smell
Smell symbolises intuition. AI follows code. You follow resonance. You know when something just doesn’t smell right—even if you can’t explain why.
Feel (Intuition)
This is the one AI won’t touch. Intuition is your edge. It’s the antenna. It’s the vibration that attracts. You don’t just make things—you feel them into form.
What AI Can Do in Branding (Exceptionally Well)
- Generate initial logo concepts, palettes, and visual directions
- Brainstorm names, taglines, and content outlines
- Analyse audience sentiment and engagement patterns at scale
- Accelerate wireframing, ad copy, and multivariate testing
- Support creative teams with speed, structure, and iteration
AI is an incredible accelerator. But when it comes to meaning, emotion, and soul—that’s still human territory.
What AI Misses (And Always Will)
When I’m working with a client on their brand, I’m not just asking “What do you do?” or “Who’s your audience?” I’m listening for something deeper. I’m tuning into what I call shiver moments—the thing they almost didn’t say because it’s too raw, too honest. The moment where the soul reveals itself.
Five years ago, I followed my intuition and retrained as a hypnotherapist. It didn’t make logical sense at the time—but now it does. That decision gave me a deeper way of listening. I don’t just hear what clients say—I understand what’s underneath. The limiting beliefs. The emotional blocks. The parts of their story they’ve never voiced.
It changed how I build brands. It gave me the language of the subconscious.
Today, I’m the only branding hypnotherapist I know of. I’ve blended two worlds that rarely meet. And when you see a brand through the lens of someone’s inner world, you’re not just building a business—you’re helping them realign with who they truly are.
AI can analyse patterns in speech, but it doesn’t feel when someone speaks from their centre. It doesn’t get goosebumps. It doesn’t feel the hairs rise on the back of its neck. Someone once told me those hairs are antennas to the truth—and I believe that.
That intuitive hit—that knowing that says, “This is the story”—that’s a human superpower. Branding isn’t just strategy or style. It’s soul. And soul doesn’t come from a prompt.
Assistant, Not Artist
I’m not anti-AI. Far from it. I use it every single day. It’s even helped me uncover self-limiting beliefs I didn’t realise were holding me back. It’s made me better at what I do—and a better human being.
But here’s my line in the sand: AI is the assistant. I am the artist.
AI can remix and refine. But real creation? That doesn’t come from code. It comes from you.
AI can support, test ideas, throw out suggestions but it shouldn’t take the lead. Your brand is not just a logo. It’s a vibration, a transmission, a living signal of who you are. You can’t template that.
So yes, use AI. Let it sharpen and stretch you. But don’t hand it the brush. Don’t let it hold the mic.
The vision is yours. The energy starts with you.
Don’t Outsource Your Soul
Tools don’t create meaning, you do. It’s your awareness, your intention, your connection to why you’re even doing this in the first place that gives your work power.
The people who will thrive are those who use tech without losing themselves. They lead with values and vision. They use AI to amplify imagination—not replace it.
Because the moment you let the machine make all the choices, the spark fades. It might perform on paper, but it’s missing that edge. That humanness.
You’re not here to echo noise. You’re here to broadcast truth. Because while AI might help you build a brand that performs, only you can build one that resonates.
At our agency, we don’t touch a brand until we’ve uncovered the truth behind it. We need to know the real motivation—the why behind the work, the fire behind the founder. If a client isn’t clear on their vision, we don’t skip past it. We slow down. We go inward first.
Because the worst thing a designer can do is build a brilliant brand for someone who’s not ready to own it.
We don’t just build brands—we build people.
Because if the founder can’t step into their story with confidence and clarity, no AI platform can do it for them.
The Cost of Ignorance
When you let AI take the lead without anchoring it in soul, you don’t just save time—you risk losing yourself. What was once raw and unmistakably you starts to smooth out. The edges get sanded down. The message becomes safer. Cleaner. More “professional.”
And just like that—it fades.
Not because the offer is wrong. But because the energy is gone.
You can feel it: that subtle disconnect. The visuals might look good. The copy might be clever. But there’s no feeling. No friction. No depth.
It’s just another echo in a sea of sameness.
That’s the cost of outsourcing the edge.
Branding isn’t about being everywhere—it’s about being unforgettable in the right places. And that only happens when your voice, your story, your metaphors, your energy are still in the room.
AI can sharpen what you create—but it can’t be the source of it. That’s your job.
Because the moment you trade your voice for speed or safety, you stop being a signal—and start becoming noise.
Keep the soul in the work.
Keep the edge.
That’s what makes people feel you.
Did I use AI to help write this article? Of course I did. But the important word is help. I dictated most of it into voice notes, transcribed them, and used ChatGPT for structure and tone. I even stripped out em dashes and chopped commas.
As a good friend once said, “You can dig a hole with a spoon… or you can use a JCB digger.”
AI didn’t write this for me. It just helped me dig deeper, wider—and a whole lot faster.
The future isn’t Human vs AI. It’s Human + AI.
And the ones who thrive? They’ll be the ones who think independently and create from soul, not script. From feeling, not formula. From presence, not prompts.
From awareness, not just algorithms. (Because when soul leads, technology follows.)
Right now? I’m thinking about how to make the perfect bacon sandwich—not from a recipe, but with love, intention, and the most important question of all…
Red sauce or brown?
