Brand Storytelling with Generative AI: Beyond the Boilerplate

Dear ChatGPT, write a striking story about how our product changed our customers’ lives.

Pika, create the most cinematic video depicting our brand’s origin.

And DALL·E, please generate social media illustrations that capture what our company is committed to achieving.

Sounds like an easy plan, right?

Just feed the right prompt to the right AI tool, and it’ll deliver exactly what your brand needs at any given moment.

But if it were that simple, every business would be thriving, without needing tips or guidance.

The thing about brand storytelling with generative AI is that it often feels impersonal and falls short without a human touch.

This article will show you how to use AI strategically and move beyond the same old approaches you’ve seen one too many times.

What is Generative AI?

Albeit it may feel like handy magic at times, generative AI is fundamentally an algorithm-driven technology. In essence, it uses machine learning and a training-based knowledge database to recognize patterns in human communication and expression.

As a result, genAI can predict what comes next, whether it’s a word or a brushstroke. But understanding the meaning is not a part of its design.

In other words, it remixes everything it’s seen before, and it does so faster than we can blink.

Generative AI is guessing rather than thinking, even though its output may come across as original. And while it can write product stories or animate your company’s origin quite well, your values and voice are necessary for an outstanding result.

The Possibilities of AI in Branding

Generative AI is becoming one of the central parts of how brands create and communicate. Some have even handed it the entire creative control.

Heinz, for instance, ran a campaign using DALL·E 2 to answer a simple question: what does “ketchup” look like? The AI responded with images that looked unmistakably like Heinz bottles.

The point wasn’t subtle. Heinz had become the automatic choice in many people’s (and AI’s) minds.

You, too, can now use AI tools to write social posts, figure out product descriptions, build pitch decks, and test out brand visuals. 

Some teams are trying AI-generated jingles. Others are training chatbots to reflect a brand’s exact tone of voice.

The range is wide, and companies are jumping in. Exploding Topics reports that 71% of them already use generative AI in at least one part of their business.

Oversight, though, is hit-or-miss. According to McKinsey, only 27% of companies say they review all content before it reaches the public. Another 27% check very little (20 percent or less).

So while AI helps scale content, a lot of what’s published might not pass through human hands at all. Despite this, the momentum keeps building. Ninety-two percent of companies plan to invest more in AI over the next three years, and Bloomberg estimates the generative AI market will reach 1.3 trillion dollars by 2032.

Branding is no longer only a creative act but also an operational decision. After all, generative AI makes it easier to produce more, test faster, and pivot often, despite still requiring human supervision and checks.

What AI Brings to the Table in Branding

Most AI-in-branding think pieces will tell you the same predictable things: speed, scale, personalization, cost-effectiveness. Sure, those are true, but they’re not why a smart brand team should care.

You’re certainly already past the basics, so here’s what generative AI is useful for when it comes to brand storytelling:

1. Testing bold ideas without the boardroom having a meltdown

Want to see how your brand tone would sound if it were 30% more irreverent or 50% more Gen Z? Generative AI lets you safely pressure-test voice shifts, taglines, visuals, or even campaign concepts. You can have all of that and not commit to an agency-wide pivot or worry that someone’s egos might end up bruised.

2. Filling creative gaps before they turn into missed deadlines

Your creative team is busy (or on vacation, or both). But there’s always AI to help plug small holes (minus the compromised quality), creating a draft for an idea deck, a placeholder visual for a pitch, or a mock social caption to get stakeholders off your back.

3. Document Your Brand Voice Without Falling Asleep

Brand guidelines are important. Yet they’re also painfully boring to create 99% of the time. Why struggle with that when AI can help structure your brand’s tone, vocabulary, messaging, and dos/don’ts in a way that doesn’t feel like a corporate sleep aid. Think of it as your first intern who doesn’t pretend to listen.

4. Build Consistency Across All Your Teams

At some point, your company will start to grow, and the odds are, your messaging might become diluted. But you can rely on AI as your brand filter to make it easier for non-writers to create consistent, on-brand copy, all without running after the content team for approval every five minutes.

Brand Storytelling with Generative AI: Tools That Are Already Doing the Work

Generative AI is no longer an experiment meant only for tech enthusiasts. It’s everywhere, and it’s becoming harder to find the ones not using it.

And it’s not just ChatGPT, though it’s definitely leading the charge. With over 700 million weekly users, it’s the go-to for everything from campaign copy to concept brainstorming.

But real storytelling is multi-layered, and that’s why other tools should join your toolkit.

Midjourney, which saw more than 500 million visits since 2022, helps brands create surreal, scroll-stopping visuals. DALL·E, now generating over 2 million images per day, has been used by creators across industries to translate brand values into shareable art.

But there’s more. Whether you’re building a voice or a full-blown narrative arc, trust us, there’s a tool for it.

Here are some of the top generative AI tools creatives use for brand storytelling:

• ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini: brand messaging, scripts, dialogue
• Jasper, Copy.ai, Writer: long-form copy, taglines, brand voice development
• Midjourney, DALL·E, Leonardo AI: visuals, concept art, product campaigns
• Runway ML, Pika, Sora: video, motion content, explainer reels
• ElevenLabs, Play.ht, Resemble AI: AI voiceovers, branded audio
• Synthesia, D-ID, Hour One: AI avatars for testimonials and tutorials
• Canva, Adobe Firefly, Visme: fast branding assets, pitch decks, graphics

Some may still call these gimmicks. But we can go as far as calling them creative infrastructure. And brands that know how to use them are inherently going to be ahead of those unwilling to give generative AI a chance.

How to Use AI for Content Creation Without Sounding (or Looking) Like a Robot

You don’t need another list telling you to use AI to “speed up your workflow” or “generate blog ideas.” If you’re reading this, you’ve already done that. Probably months ago.

So let’s talk about what’s worth your time now. These are original, practical strategies for using AI for brand storytelling that go beyond the obvious.

1. Train a Mini Content Assistant on Your Brand Voice

Instead of feeding AI prompts like it’s a vending machine, invest one afternoon into fine-tuning an open-source language model like Mistral or using tools like Poe or Claude with a custom dataset.

Feed it your past newsletters, blog posts, social captions, and even internal docs. The result? A reusable AI assistant that sounds like you and doesn’t suggest inauthentic things like “synergy” or “leverage TikTok trends” when you’re clearly B2B.

Keep in mind you’ll still need to edit (because AI doesn’t understand nuance like you do), but it’ll save precious hours on every draft.

2. Use AI to Simulate Stakeholder Pushback

This one’s surprisingly useful. Before pitching or publishing, run your content through an AI agent trained to emulate a skeptical CMO, a nitpicky compliance officer, or even your favorite “but what’s the ROI?” colleague.

You can use custom instructions in ChatGPT to create lightweight personas or experiment with tools like Vellum’s simulator for feedback testing. It won’t catch everything, but it’ll force you to tighten your arguments and anticipate concerns, especially in high-stakes content.

3. Build Modular Content with AI-Powered Personalization

Forget static one-size-fits-all blogs. Start with a core piece (let’s say a 1000-word article), then break it into flexible content blocks. 

Use an AI model like Writer or Jasper to rewrite these blocks tailored to:

• Different buyer personas
• Industries
• Funnel stages
• Content formats (text, video scripts, email snippets)

Plug these blocks into your CMS or email platform and combine them dynamically depending on who’s reading. With AI-powered personalization at this level, your content both scales and adapts.

3. Let Multimodal AI Improve Your Content Before a Human Ever Reads It

Use tools like Claude or GPT4 to cross-analyze your visuals and text before posting. For instance, if you’re publishing a carousel, have the model look at your copy and design together.

Ask it to flag poor image choices or CTAs that stray too far from the visual flow. Of course, it won’t replace human QA, but it’s like having a second set of eyes that never get tired. Most pros don’t do this yet. You definitely should.

4. Mine Your Hidden Content Gold with AI Agents

Have hundreds of slide decks, meeting notes, or conference transcripts sitting and collecting dust? Set up an AI agent that combs through your internal archives weekly and flags potential content angles.

Use LangChain, AutoGPT, or something no-code like Taskade’s AI workflows. Then build a backlog of repurposed ideas with less effort than you spend naming a Google Doc.

5. Use Visuals to Say What Words Can’t

You can write a hypnotic narrative, but sometimes, people just want to see it, or they’ll scroll past it. You can easily create riveting imagery and videos with tools like Midjourney and Runway, without resorting to awkward stock photos or stiff explainer animations.

Want to sketch out a campaign direction or bring a weird metaphor to life? Generative AI can do all of that and more. 

And you can also work with a full-service digital agency (not a tool, a real team) to make the brainstorming and prototyping process much faster, but without sacrificing originality or taste.

Conclusion

You may still have holdbacks and perceive generative AI as an impostor or pastiche production machine. Or you might see it as an innovative tool that democratizes art and creativity, bound to make branding easier.

No matter which category you fall into, you’re likely aware that this technology is becoming unavoidable and that the best you can do is use it to advance your business.

So, why not partner brand storytelling with generative AI and mix it up with a wise strategy and insightful human touch? Your brand doesn’t have to lose its edge to stay current, as with the right AI development services, it can evolve without sounding like everyone else.

The photos in the article are provided by the company(s) mentioned in the article and used with permission.