The Human Imperative: Preserving Authenticity in an AI-Driven World
Authored by: Adam Driggs, Director of Adobe Solutions
Introduction: The Paradox of Scale
For marketing and creative leaders, the promise of AI is impossible to ignore. AI tools can now produce a staggering amount of content in seconds. Creative professionals can build campaign assets including copy, images, and even videos at the push of a button. In an era where 96% of marketers say content demand has more than doubled in the last two years (Adobe, 2025), recent innovation in AI feels like salvation.
But there’s a paradox. As AI makes it easier to generate content, audiences are demanding something much harder to deliver: authenticity. The Edelman Trust Barometer shows that 81% of consumers need to trust a brand before buying from it, and 84% say authenticity is more important than ever.
So the question for CMOs, Creative Directors, and Marketing Operations leaders is clear: How do we harness AI’s potential for speed and personalization at scale without eroding the authenticity that builds brand trust?
The Promise of AI at Scale
AI is already reshaping creative and marketing services. Platforms like Adobe Firefly, Claude, and ChatGPT are rapidly moving from experimentation to mainstream use in agencies and in-house teams. Their appeal is undeniable:
- Velocity: AI can create dozens of ad variations in minutes, where it once took weeks. Recent Adobe research suggests that creative professionals who use generative AI are not only creating better content, but 58% say they’ve increased the quantity of content they create (Adobe, 2024).
- Higher-Value Work: By automating repetitive design and copywriting tasks, AI frees teams to focus on higher-value strategy and creative direction.
- Creative Catalyst: Many creatives are finding AI acts as a brainstorming partner, helping them generate first drafts or explore visual ideas faster.
Looking ahead, it’s easy to imagine a near future where AI handles most of the production-level work like resizing display ads to drafting social media posts while humans focus on strategy and storytelling. For marketing leaders under constant pressure to deliver more with less, this is an exciting vision.
The Authenticity Crisis
But scale alone comes with risks. The very strengths of AI (speed, volume, and automation) have the potential to erode consumer trust if not managed thoughtfully.
- Content Homogenization: AI-driven systems that are designed to optimize efficiency, can inadvertently lead to a uniformity in artistic expression, cultural experiences and creative content (Forbes).
- Content Spam: The ability to flood channels with cheap content can tempt teams to prioritize volume over resonance. Already, 62% of audiences expect new content weekly or more often (Adobe, 2025) — a cadence many brands chase at the expense of quality.
- Erosion of Trust: Audiences are adept at spotting generic AI content. A Forrester study found that 54% of consumers trust brands less if they use AI without transparency (Forrester, 2023).
- Ethical and Legal Risks: From copyright disputes to deepfake misuse, unchecked AI creates brand safety challenges. Forrester also notes that only 30% of CMOs feel their organizations are prepared for the legal risks of AI (Forrester, 2023).
This is why authenticity matters more than ever. Consumers increasingly “buy on belief” which rewards brands that act transparently, show humanity, and communicate with integrity (Edelman, 2025).
The message is clear: While AI can accelerate creative production, it’s human authenticity that builds trust.
Finding the Balance: Human + AI
The solution is not to reject AI, but to design workflows where AI augments creativity without replacing authenticity. We call this balance augmented creativity.
Here are five principles for achieving it:
- Human Oversight: Final assets should always pass through human review. Creative leaders act as curators, ensuring final outputs align with brand voice and strategy. Use AI-powered brand checks as a first pass to reduce the total number of assets needing human review and approval.
- Brand Training: AI models should be calibrated with brand guidelines, past campaigns, and style guides. Adobe research shows that 84% of marketers plan to use generative AI to support content workflows this year (Adobe, 2025). The opportunity is to make sure that AI-powered workflows adhere to brand guidelines.
- Quality over Quantity: Resist the temptation to flood every channel with AI-created content. McKinsey found that while AI accelerates volume, the greatest ROI comes when brands combine it with human-driven creativity and emotional resonance (McKinsey, 2023).
- Ethical Guardrails: Establish governance frameworks around how AI is used, with clear policies for attribution, transparency, and compliance. This not only protects the brand but signals accountability to customers.
- Internal Transparency: Creatives need clarity around the why, and not just what AI is doing. Communicate how AI supports, not replaces, their role in the creative process. While concerns about replacement are valid, the reality is that AI reduces manual lift, freeing creatives to focus on high-impact, imaginative work. Skilled individuals remain the soul of creative organizations, crafting original visions. AI cannot replicate that.
In other words, the future isn’t AI versus humans but rather AI with humans, working in concert.
What This Means for Marketing & Creative Leaders
The implications of this shift differ depending on your role:
- For CMOs: The mandate is to define what authenticity looks like in your brand’s communication and to set the standards AI must adhere to.
- For Creative Directors: Leadership expands beyond aesthetics. It’s about ensuring human storytelling remains at the center of AI-enabled workflows. Creative Directors become the stewards of authenticity.
- For Marketing Ops Leaders: The challenge is operational. Workflows must evolve so AI-generated content flows into platforms like Workfront and Adobe Experience Manager with the right checkpoints for human review.
Designing for Authenticity at Scale
At LeapPoint, an Omnicom Precision Marketing Group company, we believe technology should amplify people, not replace them. AI is a powerful tool, but without the right workflows and governance, it risks becoming a content treadmill.
Our approach is grounded in helping organizations:
- Build centers of excellence (CoEs) to define how and when AI should be used.
- Establish governance frameworks that embed brand voice and compliance into workflows.
- Create opportunities for existing team members to take on new roles, like the Creative Engineer who can bridge creative operations with AI orchestration.
- Design content supply chains that balance velocity with integrity, ensuring teams deliver the right content, to the right audience, at the right time.
In our work with global brands, we’ve seen firsthand that organizations who adopt this mindset don’t just scale faster but build stronger, more trusted connections with their customers.
Conclusion: Scaling Trust in an AI World
AI is transforming the creative and marketing landscape. It offers unprecedented speed and scale but speed and scale aren’t enough. In an age where customers are more discerning than ever, the brands that win will be those who lead with authenticity alongside content.
The paradox of AI is that it can create infinite content, but people make it meaningful.
We’re here to help organizations design the workflows, governance, and culture needed to strike that balance. Because in the end, while AI scales creative production, it’s human authenticity that builds trust.
About this article: This article was co-created with GenAI tools. From shaping the big idea to tightening up the final edits, I use GenAI as a creative partner to think more clearly, write more efficiently, and to enjoy the process a whole lot more.
