AI Is Making Authenticity More Valuable than Ever

I had two discovery calls last week with businesses in exactly the same industry.

Both sold skincare.

Both had ambitious founders. And both had invested heavily in growing their businesses.

But that was where the similarities ended.

The first business had embraced AI completely.

Their campaign photography was AI generated. Their product imagery was AI generated. Even the lifestyle shots were AI generated. Honestly, I struggled to tell what was real anymore.

It looked incredible.

The website was sleek, modern and built to convert.

Then two days later I met another skincare company.

They were larger.

Older.

Far more established.

And they wanted the complete opposite.

No AI models.

No AI skincare.

Not a single AI generated person.

Everything had to be real.

Real customers.

Real treatments.

And real skin.

So neither business was wrong.

They were simply betting on different competitive advantages.

That got me thinking.

Maybe we’ve been asking the wrong question all along.

AI isn’t replacing authenticity, it’s repricing it

Every few months someone declares that AI is replacing marketers, photographers, designers or copywriters. It’s the same energy as the “will web design be automated” panic.

But I don’t think that’s what’s happening.

Instead, I think something far more interesting is going on.

AI has dramatically reduced the cost of creating beautiful marketing.

Images that once cost thousands of dollars can now be generated in minutes.

Landing pages are built faster.

Videos are easier to edit.

And copy can be drafted almost instantly.

That’s incredible. We lean on it every day, and there’s a real cost-effective way to put AI to work.

But it’s also changing where businesses compete.

Because when everybody has access to the same technology, the technology stops being the competitive advantage.

So the advantage moves somewhere else.

Trust.

Credibility.

Authenticity.

These are the things AI can’t manufacture, and the same things that make emotional marketing work in the first place.

From the studio
Those two skincare consultations have stayed with me all week. One founder wanted to know how AI could replace expensive photoshoots. The other wanted to prove every image on their site was genuine. Same industry. Same goal. Opposite strategy. Both made perfect sense.

This isn’t an AI story, it’s an economics story

Here’s the principle underneath all of it.

When a technology makes something abundant, value migrates to whatever stays scarce.

That’s not a hot take. In fact, it’s just how markets behave, over and over, every time the cost of something collapses.

Spotify didn’t kill vinyl

Instead, it made vinyl cooler.

Streaming gave us unlimited convenience.

But vinyl offered ritual. Ownership. An experience.

Supermarkets didn’t kill farmers markets

Instead, they made authenticity more valuable.

Because people happily pay more to shake the hand of the person who grew their food.

Smartphones didn’t kill luxury watches

Your phone tells better time than a Rolex.

But that’s never been the point.

People buy craftsmanship. Heritage. Status.

And recordings didn’t replace live music

You can listen to almost any song ever recorded for a few dollars a month.

Yet artists continue selling out stadiums around the world.

The recording isn’t scarce.

Being there is.

Which brings me back to Polaroid

I recently came across Polaroid’s latest campaign, “The Camera for an Analog Life.”

“AI can’t generate sand between your toes.”

Most people read that as an anti-AI campaign.

But I don’t.

To me, it’s one of the smartest positioning plays I’ve seen this year.

Polaroid isn’t competing with AI image generators.

Instead, they’re competing for something completely different.

Memory. Presence. Nostalgia.

The feeling of holding a moment in your hands.

Every improvement in AI makes that proposition stronger, not weaker.

The brands getting this right

Polaroid isn’t the only company leaning into humanity.

Aerie keeps building campaigns around unretouched photography and real women.

Patagonia tells stories about real people, real adventures, and repairing products instead of replacing them.

Even Heineken’s Social Off Socials campaign nudges people to put their phones away and spend more time together.

Different industries.

Same pattern.

Technology creates efficiency.

Brands create meaning. It’s the whole reason brand still moves numbers.

So should your business use AI?

Absolutely.

In fact, we use it every day.

It helps us analyse data, organise ideas, write code, build systems and move dramatically faster. If you want the honest version of what it costs and returns, we broke that down in AI vs traditional marketing and what AI integration actually costs.

Ignoring it would be irresponsible.

But I’d be careful about replacing the very thing your customers are buying.

If you’re competing on speed, AI is an enormous advantage.

If you’re competing on trust, expertise, craftsmanship or luxury, authenticity becomes part of the product itself.

So that’s exactly why both skincare businesses I met could be making the right call.

One is using AI to remove friction.

Meanwhile, the other is using authenticity to create differentiation.

The smartest brands won’t choose one or the other.

Instead, they’ll know exactly where their customers care.

The future belongs to businesses that understand the difference

I don’t think AI will replace great brands.

But I do think it will expose average ones.

Because when everyone can generate beautiful content in seconds, beautiful content stops being remarkable.

Original thinking becomes remarkable.

Real experiences become remarkable.

Human connection becomes remarkable.

AI lowered the cost of creating content.

It raised the value of being human.

AI and authenticity FAQs

Is AI-generated content bad for my brand?

Not inherently. It’s a tool, and we use it daily. The risk is using AI to replace the exact thing your customers are paying for. If your edge is speed or volume, AI helps. If your edge is trust, craft or luxury, keep the human parts human and let AI handle the rest.

Will AI replace marketers and designers?

It replaces tasks, not judgement. AI makes producing content cheap, which means the scarce, valuable work shifts to strategy, taste, original thinking and genuine human connection, the things it can’t manufacture.

Why is authenticity more valuable now?

Because abundance reprices scarcity. When beautiful content becomes instant and everywhere, it stops being a differentiator, and trust, real experience and proof that something is human become the things people actually pay a premium for.

Should my business go all-in on AI or all-in on “real”?

Usually neither. The strongest position is knowing where your customers care. Use AI to remove friction and move faster; keep authenticity where it’s part of the product. Both skincare brands in this piece could be right, because they’re competing on different advantages.