AI Has a Brand Problem. Don't Let It Become Yours.

AI has a brand problem#

AI has its own brand today, and it's low-effort slop. A chef who bought McDonald's and plated it for your anniversary dinner. Lazy bastard couldn't be bothered to cook. Once you touch it, the perception sticks to you: cutting corners, doesn't care about quality, wasting my time. Imagine getting a ChatGPT link as an answer to your question. Worse than "let me Google that for you."

The problem is real. AI lowers production costs, content floods in, attention gets scarcer. The smell of AI becomes a filtering heuristic. Skip, move on.

The wrong response#

The typical reaction I see is rejection. "I'm AI-free." What a declaration. I do everything myself, therefore I'm worthy. Which is unproductive and, frankly, stupid. AI is powerful if you approach it right. You should use it. You have to use it. And sharing AI outputs as part of your work is completely fine.

Your options:

1. Don't use AI. Lose in the long run. Ignore the biggest productivity shift of the era.
2. Use AI but hide it. Spend more energy performing authenticity than developing actual judgment.
3. Use AI openly. Build a new kind of credibility around it.

I'm choosing the third. It still stings sometimes when I click send. But here's how I think about it.

The perception is wrong#

AI isn't McDonald's. When used well, it's closer to a kitchen team — sous-chefs, prep cooks, professional-grade equipment — operating under your direction. You decide what to make, for whom, to what standard. They execute. The judgment remains yours, and the judgment is what makes the difference here.

I've been a director for almost two decades. My team's work is my work, even when I haven't touched the keyboard. That's not a dodge — that's how leadership works. You own the intent, the direction, the quality bar, the decision about what ships. People accept this for human teams without blinking, but not yet for AI. The assumption flips. Now you're the one who didn't think. The AI did. You just forwarded.

The gap is visibility#

The recipient can't see what actually happened:

• What you asked for (the brief, the intent)
• What you rejected (the judgment, the iteration)
• What you chose (the curation, the standard)
• What you added (the frame, the so-what)

They only see output. And the same polished document could be lazy prompting or three rounds of directed refinement. From outside, identical. AI's current reputation fills the gap with the worst assumption.

This is where personal brand earns its keep#

Evaluating every piece of content is expensive. People don't do it. They use shortcuts — names, reputations, track records. Personal brand isn't authenticity theater. It's pre-computed trust. A compression algorithm. When someone sees your name, they're not asking "is this AI?" They're asking "has this person historically been worth my attention?"

AI will still trigger skepticism. First reactions may be dismissive. But if you've built a reputation for sharp thinking, fresh perspective, good intent — people read past the format. They check if there's value. And if there consistently is, you earn a place on their exception list.

The question is how you build that reputation when the tool you're using has a brand problem of its own.

Show that someone was driving#

Not by proving you worked hard. By making visible that judgment happened. That someone directed, decided, curated. That this reflects a point of view, not just a prompt. The test isn't whether you touched the keyboard. It's whether the judgment was yours — the direction, the standard, the decision to ship.

1. Editing shows you chose what matters. Extract the relevant part. Cut the rest. Format it for the reader. This signals you processed it, decided what's worth their time, respected their attention.

2. Framing shows you decided what it means. Why this matters. Why now. What to pay attention to. Without your frame, it's raw material. With it, it's a point of view.

3. Adding your take shows you own the conclusion. What you agree with. What you'd push back on. What you'd bet on. This puts you at the top of the thinking chain. The AI provided input — the conclusion carries your name.

Without these layers, you're a forwarder at best. With them, the AI becomes invisible. What remains is your judgment.

The window is now#

Norms are still forming. People are building their internal filters for what's worth reading and what's noise. Share AI work consciously, openly, without apology — and show that you were driving. Do this consistently, and "AI from you" earns a place on the exception list.

Wait too long, or do it lazily, and you're just another source of noise. The brand damage compounds just as fast.