Ménage à Trois: Brands, Consumers & AI's Messy Complicationship

Consumers use ChatGPT daily, then revolt against AI-generated ads. Brands need AI to survive, but audiences flee toward anything "human-made." Welcome to marketing's most dysfunctional three-way relationship.

Here's how the affair plays out. Brands and AI are getting cozy behind closed doors - media planning, consumer insights, asset production, what used to take weeks now takes hours. Consumers feel left out and react increasingly erratic. But here's the twist: those same consumers are having their own AI affair. They love AI, just not when you use it on them.

So what do you do when the threesome turns into a fight?

Brands and AI are in their honeymoon phase. Amazon's Creative Agent generates streaming TV ads from product pages. Meta's Advantage+ automates campaigns. Google's AI Max handles performance workflows. The tools actually work, which is half the problem.

When production costs approach zero, things become possible that weren't before. The output has that distinctive AI look though - over-warmed colors, smooth textures. Would you use it for your flagship campaign? Probably not. For testing product variations at scale? Sure. Maybe that's exactly the point.

Consumers watch brands embrace AI and something feels fundamentally off. The word that keeps surfacing: soul.

Guess ran AI models in Vogue's August 2025 issue. Two synthetic women named "Vivienne" and "Anastasia," flawlessly beautiful in that too-perfect way. TikTok erupted about the fake beauty standards being set. Real models displaced by synthetic perfection that cost nothing to generate. That's soul leaving the room in real time.

Google's Dear Sidney ad during the Olympics should have been safe. A Dad uses Gemini to help his daughter write a fan letter to an athlete. But showing it publicly broke something - it completely negated why someone would write a letter. The struggle, the personal effort, the intention, all replaced by prompt efficiency.

The pattern: when AI replaces invisible infrastructure - media planning, A/B testing - nobody cares. When AI replaces perceived soul - models, a child's effort - revolt.

Those furious consumers? Using ChatGPT for cover letters, birthday cards, reaching out to their idols. The backlash isn't about the tech itself, but about control. When I use AI, empowerment. When you use AI on me, soulless cost-cutting.

Sometimes the betrayed unite against the third. Anti-AI positioning has become the luxury flex of 2025.

Heineken vs. Friend AI. The latter had plastered NYC subways with ads for algorithmic companionship. Those ads got vandalized fast - "AI doesn't care if you live or die" spray-painted across the posters. Heineken swept in with "You can't create real friends with AI." Zero subtlety, completely on-brand for a company selling social lubrication.

Polaroid placed bus stop ads near Apple and Google headquarters: "AI can't generate sand between your toes." It works because Polaroid's entire brand is built on imperfection as a feature. Everything AI promises to fix, Polaroid celebrates as the point.

These campaigns work because they're expensive signals only certain brands can afford. Notice who can't pull this off: SMBs on compressed margins, anyone for whom platform tools are becoming mandatory.

Know what your consumers think has soul

Soul is one of those infuriating concepts that makes analytics uncomfortable, which is exactly why it matters. You can't A/B test for it, can't optimize toward it. But consumers know when it's missing.

The question isn't "does this require human skill" but rather "will consumers feel betrayed when they find out a machine did this?" Fashion models have soul to consumers. Stock photo backgrounds don't. A child's letter has soul. Media planning doesn't.

Here's the annoying part - it's different for every category and you have to guess. Think of it like relationship boundaries. Some things feel like betrayal, others don't. You won't know all of them until you cross one.

Let AI be your affair, use the gains to romance your actual relationship

If the platforms deliver what they promise - time and budget savings - don't just let finance reclaim those gains. Use them to fund the weird, signature stuff that makes your brand yours.

Let Amazon handle product testing. Spend the savings on that experimental hero campaign. When everyone has the same AI tools generating the same aesthetic, your only moat is distinctiveness. This is relationship advice applied to brand management - AI handles mundane logistics, but you still show up for moments that matter.

Don't reject your AI partner unless you can afford to be single

The anti-AI stance only works if you're rich enough to mean it. Heineken, Polaroid can afford it because their brand DNA already pointed toward "real" anyway.

For most brands on compressed margins where platform tools are becoming mandatory, this positioning is expensive fantasy. Better to stay quiet, use tools where they solve problems, and maintain distinctiveness through what you do with efficiency gains.

The failure mode isn't using AI - everyone is. The failure mode is letting it make you forgettable while chasing optimization metrics that hollow out brand equity. You're staying in a complicated relationship because leaving would be economically devastating. Just don't pretend you're there by choice, and don't let the relationship consume everything that made you interesting.