I asked AI to create a brand from scratch. Here’s why agencies don't need to panic.

AI branding tools excel at speed and structure but fall short on nuance, originality and consistency. This experiment shows that while AI can generate a usable starting point, human agencies are still required to uncover insight, create emotionally resonant ideas and deliver brands that are coherent, distinctive and durable.

The promise of Artificial Intelligence in the creative sector is tantalising: instant results, zero friction, and infinite iterations. But can an algorithm truly understand the soul of a business and translate it into a compelling brand identity?

To find out, I ran an experiment. I created a brief for a fictitious company, "East Hartford Construction," a traditional builder looking to pivot entirely to high-end, sustainable, net-zero housing in the North of England and Scotland.

I fed this brief into a leading AI model and asked it to act as a full-service branding agency. We went through every stage: strategy, competitor analysis, naming, creative direction, logo design, and marketing mockups.

The results were fascinating, occasionally impressive, and ultimately, a stark reminder of why human expertise remains irreplaceable in branding. Here is what I learned.

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The process: speed over nuance

We moved through the branding process at lightning speed. The AI immediately grasped the core challenge of the brief: a traditional builder trying to enter a luxury, eco-conscious market.

Its first significant, and surprisingly astute, piece of advice was to kill the name. It correctly identified that "East Hartford Construction" sounded too generalist and labour-focused for the new premium positioning. It suggested exploring names that sounded more architectural and rooted in the landscape, eventually landing on the strong contender: NorthFrame.

So far, so good. The structure of the strategy it produced was excellent, especially considering how little information I gave it to work with. It defined audiences, pillars, and a tone of voice that felt appropriate for the sector.

The strategic gap: the missing "human truth"

While the strategy looked good on "paper," it felt hollow.

A true brand strategy isn't just about identifying a target audience; it's about a two-way dialogue. A human strategist digs deep, challenges the client's assumptions, unearths uncomfortable truths, and refines the vision until it is uniquely theirs.

The AI's strategy, while competent, felt like a "cookie-cutter" solution. It was a theoretically correct strategy for any sustainable builder, not necessarily this specific one. It lacked the nuance and carefully crafted refinement that comes from real human collaboration. It gave me what I asked for, not what I needed to hear.

Creative ideation: competent but derivative

When we moved to creative directions and taglines, the limitations became clearer. The concepts offered by the AI were average at best.

The ideas felt derivative and obvious - leaning heavily on standard tropes of "green building" (leaves, trees, earthy colours) or "technical drawing" (blueprints, compasses). They lacked a central "human truth" or the creative spark that makes a brand memorable.

While the AI was excellent at structuring the presentation of these ideas, making them sound convincing, the core concepts underneath were flat.

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The dealbreaker: visual inconsistency

Where the AI process truly fell apart was in the visual execution of the final logo. This is currently the biggest technological hurdle for AI in design.

It asked me to pick one of three creative ideas to visualise, this is the first logo it generated for me, I asked it to mock it up across hardhat, uniform, business cards, letter head and brochure. This is what it returned.

The initial logo it created looked a little generic and plain, like something you’ve seen many times before, changing it was no problem - the AI responds well to criticism and doesn’t hold grudges. After giving it some thoughtful critique it instantly gave me another option, still pretty basic but I chose to run with it and see where we went.

The results looked passable, but I noticed something alarming: the logo was different in almost every image it generated. The font weight changed, the icon shape shifted, and the colours varied slightly.

Why? Because current image-generating AI doesn't "have" the logo file. It doesn't understand the concept of a fixed vector asset. Every time you ask for a new image, the AI re-interprets its own text description of the brand identity and draws it again from scratch. Yes ,there are ways around it, but for this test I was trying to see how using AI alone, with minimal human intervention, managed the process.

For any serious business, this lack of consistency is fatal. A brand is consistency.

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The verdict: a great starter, not a finisher

If you are a bootstrapper with zero budget and no idea how to start building a brand, AI tools are a fantastic way to get off the blank page. They can provide a general direction and basic assets to get you going.

However, the output is incredibly general. To make it usable, you need to do a significant amount of heavy lifting to personalise it, refine it, and ensure it actually reflects your values rather than a generic industry standard.

Why agencies still matter

This experiment reinforced that AI is a powerful tool for designers and strategists, but not a replacement for them.

An agency brings the dialogue required to move from a "cookie-cutter" strategy to a bespoke one. They bring the creative intuition to spot ideas that aren't just logical, but emotionally resonant. Most importantly, they bring the technical discipline to ensure your brand looks the same on a business card as it does on a billboard.

AI can build a "NorthFrame" in an afternoon. But it takes human experts to build a brand that lasts.

We’re a brand and creative agency partnering with organisations at pivotal moments of change, growth, and realignment – bringing smart strategy and bold ideas to life.

Whether you need to sharpen your strategy or refresh your identity, we’re here to help. Let’s talk.

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