As AI infiltrates the communication landscape, focus your brand and your own communications on humans and humanity
by Tim Nekritz | nekritz@gmail.com
Chances are some emails you’re receiving (especially if sales pitches), project proposals to review and news stories you read are increasingly likely to have been created, in part or on the whole, by some form of artificial intelligence.
But there’s a silver lining in the black cloud of proliferated robotic content.
The more you focus your brand and your own communications on humans and humanity, the more you will stand out among the AI trends.
A communications company called Muck Rack had some eye-opening (and perhaps wince-inducing) stats recently when they noted that communications professionals are getting increasingly comfortable letting AI take over key functions.
In Muck Rack’s “The State of AI in PR 2025,” 9% of respondents said they “often” edit the output of AI-generated text for communications purposes and 2% said “sometimes.” The same survey in 2024 found that 5% said “sometimes” and nobody said “often.” Which meant that the percent of people who said they always edit AI copy had dropped from 95% to 89%.
The amount of editing is decreasing as well. In response to a question about how extensively communications pros edit AI-generated text, people saying they edited most of their text fell from 61% to 51%; those only editing a few paragraphs climbed from 30% to 37%; those only making a few edits to sentences rose from 9% to 12%.
Fake (human) news
Additionally, the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025 found AI bots and interfaces emerging as consumed news sources: “The numbers are still relatively small overall (7% use for news each week) but much higher with under-25s (15%),” the report noted.
But news consumers are taking this with an appropriate grain of salt, the report noted, as “audiences in most countries remain skeptical about the use of AI in the news and are more comfortable with use cases where humans remain in the loop. Across countries they expect that AI will make the news cheaper to make (+29 net difference) and more up-to-date (+16) but less transparent (-8), less accurate (-8) and less trustworthy (-18).
And while, yes, ChatGPT and other such software has improved, that doesn’t mean the outcome still isn’t spoiled by AI hallucinations — coming back with incorrect information from the unreliable and unverifiable wilds of the internet. AI programs also tend to create more homogenous, adjective-overloaded and lifeless copy that can be, to quote Shakespeare, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
In addition to overusing adjectives (often in threes), AI-generated copy is full of repetitive phrases and ideas that fill the page more than they tell relatable human stories.
You can also recognize em-dash phrases without spaces — like this one — plus Subheads That Use Title Case and random bolding of key phrases especially within bulletpoints. And emojis in those bulletpoints, too.
To be transparent, I have used ChatGPT to break down huge documents to provide a briefing or story outline. But I then do a substantial amount of editing and crosschecking, during which I tend to find incredibly simple errors. So it saves time in some ways, yet it doesn’t.
The presenters of the Muck Rack webinar expressed concern for editors seeing more and more AI-generated pitches flooding their inboxes, making it harder to find real (and really good) stories. That leads to communicators getting their messages lost in a flood of bland content and brands finding people engaging less with social media as many companies present content that looks increasingly similar and seems to fall into the uncanny valley of stories that are not quite human.
I’ve seen brands that have clearly surrendered their posts to AI and the result is copy stringing together uninteresting marketing phrases that could apply to 100 of their competitors as well. (As well as the em-dashes, adjective mania, emojis, etc.)
Good news among bad trends
But in all this bad news, there is good if you zig when others zag.
If you post to social media for a company or brand, are you creating copy and using images and video that show why your brand, product, service or offering is special and worth experiencing? As well as some kind of differentiation from everything else in your feed? I would certainly hope so.
If you’re in sales and your pitches come from the heart and showcase your distinct personality and why what you offer is unique, you will break through the clutter way more than something with emojis on every bulletpoint.
Or if you’re new to the business and finding your footing, creating emails, cover letters and resumes that show why you’re the perfect hire from a human standpoint will make you stand out. You don’t want to get noticed the wrong way, like the person who applied for a position in our office with a clearly ChatGPT-generated letter ending with “[Your name].” I am not making this up.
Moreover, in your communications efforts, focus on humans. First, second and always.
Focus on the people who work for you. It sounds super simple, but I always respect bars that post a photo of the bartender working today and that day’s food special. Maybe I’ve met that bartender and they were wonderful. Maybe that food looks delicious (although pretty much any food looks delicious to me).
This personalization shows the true flavor of who you are and what you offer more than a stock photo of a generic beverage or two random people laughing with copy that reads: “From hot foods to cold drinks, you’ll find it all at Joe’s Tavern.” Thousands of other establishments can say the same thing.
Focus on your customers. If you want to show how much you please customers, let’s hear their testimonials, see them enjoying your experience and otherwise fulfilling the old adage of “show, don’t tell.” AI tells. Truly creative people show.
Think about the ancient Greek theories of persuasion: Logos, appealing to logic; ethos, appealing to credibility; and pathos, appealing to emotion. ChatGPT can’t do all three — especially pathos — as well as a human who understands other humans and understands their brand.
Moreover, while AI can probably get the who, what, where, when and how reasonably correct, it’s not great explaining the why. WHY you are special. WHY you make people’s lives better. WHY you do what you do.
Working for SUNY Oswego, I’m super lucky because I connect with thousands of people with thousands of stories and even more WHYs they are part of our campus family. That student who overcame obstacles to excel inside and outside our classrooms. That faculty member whose research can really change the world and what motivates them. That staff member who goes above and beyond to make students succeed because somebody helped them once upon a time.
We all think in stories. We all enjoy stories. Whatever your business or line of work, you tell stories in some way. To give away those stories, those bits of humanity because software can write something meatless and heatless, instead of getting in the kitchen and (metaphorically) cooking up something awesome and engaging and HUMAN, is to surrender to mediocrity.
There’s a story in every person who works for you and who patronizes your business. Get to know them. Show them as the heroes they are. Show their humanity and know that this will appeal to fellow humans way better than anything a machine can create.
I’m not saying the future is as bleak as falling to the rise of the machines, but just like in movies about cyborgs and terminators, generally it is humanity that wins the day. Hyperbole aside, your humanity and willingness to help other humans will always be the best thing your business or brand has to offer.
Note: This column incorporates elements of “In a World of Rising AI Use, Stand Out by Being Human,” presented by the author of the 2025 SUNYCUAD conference in Rochester this June.
TIM NEKRITZ is director of news and media for SUNY Oswego, where he spearheads telling the stories of the campus community.
