AEC Brand Voice in the Age of AI Sameness

In my recent SMPS Fellows Cohort, I shared conflicting emotions I’m having about the use of AI in AEC marketing. We’ve been early adopters at Dragonfly. Like most, we started by experimenting with individual prompts, each leveraging our shared platform (lovingly dubbed Wingman) in our own ways. Over time, we’ve built a pretty effective little ecosystem of targeted GPTs, tools, and guidelines to help us work smarter as a team. But the one thing I just can’t seem to get right is our social voice.

The challenge AEC marketers and brand builders face now is how to use AI without eroding the very things that make our brands recognizable in the first place.

We’ve done all the right things. Fed Wingman our brand voice guidelines, set boundaries around the use of obvious AI tells, repeatedly asked it to avoid “it’s not this, it’s that” sentence structures (though it’s still finding new ways to work them in). But when it comes to generating our social content, Wingman just doesn’t cut it. Which is weird, because social content is often considered the lowest-hanging fruit when it comes to AI adoption for marketing teams.

Partly, I think it’s because the content just doesn’t have the heart or humor I hear in our original writing. But mostly, I think it’s because the results just sound like everyone else.

And the second we start to sound like everyone else, we’re toast.

We’re all feeling the tension

Worrying about my use of em dashes and sentence structures dubbed dead giveaways is exhausting. We’re supposed to use AI. But not sound like we use it.

I get it. I’m also one of the judgy people. I’m reading content on LinkedIn that’s “obviously AI” and thinking less of it. Getting disappointed when brands I love fall into the same trap as those trying to keep up with them. Scrolling on without engaging at all. Wondering how many people are tired of the sea of sameness I’m seeing.

Turns out, it's a lot of people. Including the ones at LinkedIn. In fact, they just announced LinkedIn is implementing new measures to combat the rise of AI slop.

"It’s ok to use AI to help you write, but your posts and comments need to represent your voice and your perspectives. The ultimate value comes from the human behind the tool.” Laura Lorenzetti, LinkedIn Global Editorial VP

The risk of sameness

But even if LinkedIn starts prioritizing human-generated content (while simultaneously rolling out in-platform AI tools), obvious AI content is only part of the problem for AEC marketers. As someone who’s spent my career building brands for AEC firms, the bigger risk of relying on AI is brand commoditization.

Our competitor analysis work consistently highlights how many firms already lean on generic positioning and interchangeable messaging. The fight against commoditization in AEC marketing isn’t new. But AI has amplified the sameness problem by presenting all firms with a similar solution.

AI learns from patterns that already perform well online. The more those patterns succeed, the more they get repeated until everyone starts sounding the same. Then the cycle starts over again.

This dynamic should feel familiar to brand builders. No matter what firms do to stand out—through product or service innovation, clever positioning and identity design, or meaningful campaigns and messaging—competitors eventually adapt and emulate to catch up.

Strong brands survive by evolving ahead of the sameness. The last thing AEC needs are firms that invest time, energy, and resources building truly distinct brands to slowly, but surely, surrender them for the sake of speed or volume.

When volume stops being impressive

AI is lowering the cost—and the bar—for content production. We can create more and do it quickly. But when everyone can produce more content, volume stops being impressive. It doesn’t matter how much you create if no one is reading or remembering it.

Writing is still a craft. And like any craft, it gets weaker when we stop practicing it. Can AI reduce the amount of time you spend on content creation? Absolutely. But does that content carry the personality, conviction, and perspective that make your brand memorable? Usually not.

At first, AI content felt like a godsend. Technically, there was nothing wrong with it. It's consistently polished, agreeable, and structurally correct.

In other words: safe.

And safe has never been the goal of great branding.

Protecting AEC brand voice in the age of AI

Content creators are brand stewards. We have a responsibility to know, use, and protect our voices to maintain their value.

I’m not telling you not to use AI. I use it all the time—including to edit this post.

I’m reminding you to pay attention to how you’re using it. We’ve found it's a tool that best functions in support of our perspective, not in place of it. Audit your use. Evaluate your content. Develop guidelines for how, when, and why AI shows up in your process. Flag clear wins and moments of conflict and frustration. Talk about them as a team. We do. Every quarter.

The challenge AEC marketers face now is how to use AI without eroding the very things that make our brands recognizable in the first place.

Because the second you start to sound like everyone else, you're toast.