AI has been the loudest conversation in the room for some time now.
But beneath all the headlines and predictions, something more useful is happening. The tools are sorting themselves out, and little by little, so are we.
That feels like progress.
This Morning’s Reminder
In fact, I had one of those moments this morning.
I was working in Gemini, honing prompts and building out some custom GEM’s. In one of the processes, I had it create an infographic. I gave it the branding materials. I gave it the information. I gave it what it needed to do the job.
And what came back was what I would call AI slop.
Not Big Water CI branding. Not even close.
It was AI-branded. Averaged out. Smoothed over. Generic in all the wrong ways.
The information was decent, but it still didn’t hit home. The graphics were polished in that familiar AI way, clean enough to pass at a glance, but empty of the actual brand they were supposed to represent. Round after round of corrections, and it never got there. Nothing spectacular. Nothing specific. Nothing truly in the Big Water CI voice or visual identity.
After five rounds, I was still nowhere near the mark. If this had been a real team member, we would have been having a very serious conversation about whether they understood the assignment at all.
And that made the point for me in real time.
AI can assist. It can produce. It can help organize information. But left to itself, it often defaults to the middle. The average. The safe. The familiar. It can get you something usable, but not necessarily something true to your brand.
That part still belongs to us.
Lately, the image that comes to mind for me is the bridge of a starship. A wide front window. A commander at the center. Specialists at their stations. One watching navigation. One monitoring systems. One managing communications. One reading data. Each station handling a different stream of information, each focused on its own job.
That is what this season in marketing feels like to me.
Everywhere we turn, there is another console blinking for our attention. One tool helps write. Another summarizes. Another tracks behavior. Another organizes data. Another suggests headlines, keywords, visuals, audience patterns, or timing.
It’s a lot.
Some days it feels less like marketing and more like standing on the bridge with five stations calling out updates while you try to remember what mission you were on in the first place.
Who’s Steering?
The real question is not whether AI exists. Of course it does. And yes, the tools are getting better.
The real question is: who is at the helm?
These systems can support the work and speed up the process, but they should not be steering your brand.
In marketing, it is easy to confuse polished with personal, and “good enough” with “this is who we are.” But the customer is still out there. The community is still out there. Real people are still out there. And the last thing we want for our marketing is average.
No dashboard changes that.
So yes, learn the tools. Understand the stations. Figure out what belongs where. But adaptation is not surrender. We can use these systems without handing them command.
Because someone still has to look out the window.
And last I checked, that part still belongs to us.
AI is here. It is powerful. And now that the noise is settling, we can finally get practical. These tools can support the work, speed up the process, and help at their stations. But they still default to the average unless a human is at the helm.
This morning’s failed infographic reminded me of that in a very real way. The machine gave me something polished, but not branded. Usable, but not true. And that is the difference.
The tools may be on the bridge, but the brand still needs a captain.
If there is a topic you’d like to hear more about by all means comment below or direct message and I’ll do my best.
Nothing better than a good question to jump into.
Reach out for a talk over coffee or a hike. I give information freely. I only ask to be paid when I do the work. tgold@bigwaterci.com
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Trina Gold
Master Creator
