When AI Helps, and When It Hallucinates.
Let’s get one thing straight: AI isn’t coming for your job. But it might be gunning for your inbox. That’s because tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and a thousand others can now whip up headlines, draft emails, generate images, and even plan your content calendar. It’s fast. It’s cheap. And sometimes, it’s scarily good. But here’s the thing: AI is your intern, not your strategist.
The Good News: AI Is a Damn Good Intern
It works nights. It doesn’t get tired. And it’s surprisingly competent at a few key tasks:
Idea generation: Need ten headline options or fifty hashtags? It’s got you.
Draft writing: Bios, blog posts, even ad copy, it can give you a solid first pass.
Summarizing data: Feed it a wall of text, and it’ll give you a tidy TL;DR.
Rewriting for tone: Want your bio to sound more confident / casual / Gen Z? Easy.
SEO optimization: Plug in the right prompts, and it’ll spit out keyword-rich content.
For scrappy businesses with lean teams (or no team at all), that’s real value.
The Bad News: AI Doesn’t Know You, Your Brand, or Your Market
AI is great at sounding smart. It’s less great at being smart.It doesn’t know your voice. It doesn’t know what makes your salon different from the one down the street. And it definitely doesn’t know that cannabis advertising in Michigan has different rules than in California.That’s where the hallucinations start: confident-sounding answers that are flat-out wrong. Generic ideas that could fit any brand. SEO “tips” that are five years out of date.
In other words: this intern needs supervision.
What AI Can’t Replace
- Strategy. AI won’t build your growth plan or prioritize which channels matter most.
- Taste. It can generate a hundred logo options, and none of them will feel quite right.
- Context. It doesn’t know your audience, your neighborhood, or your backstory.
- Ethics. It’ll make up quotes, invent sources, and plagiarize content if you let it.
- Originality. By design, it pulls from what already exists. It can remix, not invent.
If your brand’s just getting by with AI copy and Canva templates, you might blend in. But you won’t stand out.
Use It Wisely. And Know When to Call in Backup.
AI is a great tool in the right hands. But tools don’t build brands. People do.At Nephew, we use AI like a smart assistant. one that helps us move faster, explore more ideas, and sharpen what we deliver. But every word, every design, every campaign still goes through the same human filter: strategic, intentional, and made for your business.Because your intern shouldn’t run the show.
Let’s make your next move your smartest one.
From brand to clicks to conversions, we build marketing that actually works.