Despite running an AI company, Clay's co-founder warns against using LLMs for marketing. He argues that AI models are designed to synthesize information and find the average, which is the opposite of marketing's goal: to stand out and be original. His team is discouraged from using it for marketing copy.

With 85% of marketers using ChatGPT, brand voices are converging into a generic, AI-generated tone. This erodes a brand's unique identity, making marketing campaigns completely ineffective because they fail to differentiate in a crowded market and are easily ignored by consumers.

When brands use AI tools like LLMs as their primary creative director instead of as an assistant, they produce generic outputs based on existing data. This leads to a "sea of sameness" and a loss of brand distinctiveness.

The true danger of AI in copywriting is not job replacement, but marketers outsourcing their creativity and decision-making. Relying on AI for a final product robs humans of the messy, valuable creative process, leading to generic content that fails to resonate with customers.

Generic AI copy is poor because LLMs learn from the internet's vast, low-quality content. The key to effective AI-generated copy is training it on a user's specific values, personality, and brand voice, moving beyond generic prompts to create something that resonates authentically with a target audience.

AI is an accelerator, not a replacement for talent. Giving AI to a bad marketer just produces bad content faster. Great marketers use it to produce great content more efficiently. The key is training AI on a unique brand voice, not outsourcing taste and strategy to the tool.

GM's CMO warns that AI in creative often produces average results because it finds the "most likely next answer," reflecting the category norm, not a distinctive brand voice. Simple edits can also trigger a full re-render, introducing new errors and creating more work.

AI's strength in copywriting is not generating final text, which often lacks a human touch. Instead, use it as a research assistant to find unique concepts, analogies, or data (like the 'Michelangelo effect') that can serve as the core, attention-grabbing idea for your campaign.

As more companies use the same AI models, marketing content risks becoming generic and indistinguishable. To stand out, brands must reinvest the time saved by AI into authentic, human-to-human connections and unique brand experiences that machines cannot replicate.