Kate Watts is a 25-year veteran of the digital agency world having started her career at MarchFirst and Digitas. She then went to the global digital experience agency Huge, founding their DC office and building it into their fastest-growing office in the US. Her success led to her taking on the Presidency of Huge US where she oversaw their domestic offices and worked with major brands including Target, HBO, Audi, and Pfizer. Leaving Huge, Watts founded Faire Design, an integrated brand experience consultancy, which she later sold to The Atlantic. As a 3x agency + consultancy founder, Kate achieved an early exit to The Atlantic – their first ever acquisition in 164 years – and led digital transformation, GTM, product design & development, UX, marketing, branding, and communications projects for Fortune 500 & SMB clients across various industries. Fifty Thousand Feet has offices in Chicago, New York, and London; clients include BCG, Mastercard and Google.
***
It has never been easier to create more and yet harder to create meaning.
AI has fundamentally changed the way brands operate. Tools that once took days or weeks of human effort can now produce competent marketing assets in seconds. Copy, design, campaign variants, audience targeting — many of the most resource-intensive tasks in marketing have become fast, automated, and scalable. It’s a remarkable shift in capability.
Yet with that capability comes a paradox: when every brand has access to the same tools, algorithms, and optimization playbooks, they begin to sound and feel the same. Efficiency alone no longer distinguishes you. As content production accelerates, sameness becomes the unintended consequence. Brands risk flooding their own channels with technically correct but emotionally empty work.
What sets brands apart in this environment is not how much they can automate, but how clearly they understand what should remain untouched by machines.
Identity, rooted in values, voice, and human understanding, is still the ultimate differentiator. And it is up to people, not platforms, to protect it.
.
Why Efficiency ≠ Distinctiveness
Marketers face increasing pressure to deliver faster, cheaper, and with greater scale. AI answers that call with measurable results. Bain says that marketers using generative AI have seen campaign time to market reduced by up to 50%, and that content creation time has dropped by 30%–50%. These benefits are real, and they’re not going away.
But faster content is not necessarily better content.
AI can replicate tone, repackage content, and generate endless versions. What it lacks is intuition. It doesn’t know when a message feels flat or out of step with the audience. It can produce language but not meaning. It can mimic your brand’s voice, but it can’t recognize when that voice has lost credibility.
Without the right guidance, AI leads to volume, not value. That’s the risk: achieving more output, but less impact.
.
What Timeless Brands Already Know
Some brands have managed to remain distinct even as the tools around them evolve. Their longevity has less to do with resisting change and more to do with being clear about what matters.
Nike has consistently adapted to new technologies and cultural shifts, but empowerment remains its foundation. Whether through shoes, digital fitness tools, or AI-powered personalization, the brand knows its promise, and every new channel must serve it.
LVMH, the parent company of luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Tiffany & Co., has adopted AI across its operations to improve logistics, optimizing inventory, and power personalization in ecommerce. But it hasn’t diluted what its brands stand for. Every use of AI serves the purpose of elevating craftsmanship, exclusivity, and emotion. LVMH ensures that AI supports its identity, not the other way around. Its lesson to brand leaders: technology can scale the experience, but it should never replace the meaning.
American Express has integrated AI into fraud detection and customer engagement, but the core idea of membership and trust continues to define its brand experience. Tools support the promise; they don’t set it.
These brands succeed because they adopt new capabilities with discernment. Their values act as a filter. Technology is used in service of identity, not as a substitute for it.
.
How to Build Defensible Differentiation
For marketers navigating this new terrain, the first step is clarity. Before introducing AI into workflows, define what makes the brand distinct. Codify tone, voice, and values. Identify the non-negotiables. This isn’t about creating rigid rules. It’s about drawing a clear line between what can flex and what must remain constant.
Then apply AI where it enhances, not replaces, your existing strengths. Use it to reduce friction in repetitive tasks, assist with early drafts, or explore variations. Let it speed up the work that benefits from automation but leave room for human interpretation where judgment is critical.
Create systems for feedback. AI should not operate on autopilot. Curate its output. Review how it performs not just in metrics, but in meaning. Pay attention to consistency across touchpoints and how well each message reinforces the brand promise.
Finally, use the time saved by AI to double down on cultural awareness. Read customer reviews. Listen to sales calls. Observe how people live, search, and scroll. What resonates today may not show up in your dashboards until much later. Insight is earned through attention, not automation.
.
Distinctiveness Is a Discipline
The future of brand building will depend on how wisely we use our tools. Technology can amplify a message, but it can’t define what that message should be. That responsibility still belongs to people.
Brands that break through will be those with the discipline to stay grounded in their purpose. They’ll set clear boundaries for automation and make space for observation, reflection, and refinement. They’ll be intentional not just about what they say, but how they say it, and why it matters.
In a world of endless content, it’s not enough to be productive. You have to be recognizable. And recognition comes from coherence, character, and conviction, none of which can be generated on demand.
