Brand Guardianship & AI Entropy

There is considerable debate around the merits of AI in business. Although it is commonly accepted that it represents a seismic change in terms of the speed and efficiency in which data can be analysed, outputs generated and tasks automated, there is also the question of what may potentially be lost in terms of quality, accuracy and personalisation. We’ve heard much about AI-Slop, the generic, homogenised and synthetic content created, the concerns over hallucinatory content that is largely inaccurate and misleading. More recently the notion of model collapse has entered into discussion.

Model collapse describes the process by which evolving AI effectively trains itself based on content provided by previous generations – however – feeding on previous synthetic outputs where there have been errors, inaccuracies and hallucinations serves to further compound, amplify and further degrade the quality and veracity of data content. The model recognises that this recursive loop forgets the original data source and builds upon the copy of the copy, ultimately losing context in favour of common or prevalent data patterns. At worst, distortion becomes the norm, creativity superseded by hallucination and communications increasingly irrelevant.

And what does this mean for your brand? Operationally, the benefits of AI are many and should be embraced and explored to improve efficiency and reduce cost – but we must remain vigilant, to ensure the outputs are accurate, compliant – and consistently reflective of business standards and brand values.

AI driven automation of tasks can be perceived as innovative, progressive and proof of a forwards thinking approach. However, adopting this requires us to dig deeper into what it is we are asking these tools to do, what they will say and the level of assumption it will make. Many argue it that if we blithely defer to AI to solve our problems with limited input, we shouldn’t be surprised that the outputs and outcomes won’t be what we expect – that assumption will take precedent over accurate intuition – further accelerating the downward spiral towards model collapse, erosion of brand values and the quality of your communications.

The role of brand guardianship is more important than ever. With those worried that AI will replace the role of the marketer, it is worth considering that the level of judgment and scrutiny that needs to be applied to AI driven, market facing content is perhaps more acute than it has been previously. Preserving the integrity of our messaging,  tone of voice, personality and proposition maintains consistency and distinctiveness - and requires continued (and growing) attention. For marketers, our roles may well evolve to mean that brand guardianship increasingly becomes a battle against entropy.