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When was the last time a brand didnt just catch your eye, but moved youmade you feel something real? Today, AI can produce logos, taglines, and campaigns at lightning speed. Algorithms can replicate styles, test headlines, even mimic tone. But as branding becomes more automated, a deeper question emerges: Can machines truly connect with human experience? Or does meaningful branding still depend on uniquely human emotions like empathy, intuition, and lived understanding? After 15 years of building brands across continents and causes, Ive learned that the most powerful branding isnt about perfection. Its about presence. When we show upreally listen, engage, and understandbranding becomes a bridge to transformation. Empathy isnt programmable Consider Sonia, a single mother in Delhi, India, who handcrafts beautiful bags. Her skill was undeniable, but her work was invisible to the market. She didnt need a new product to attract customersshe needed a platform. We helped craft Saffron, a brand that honored her artistry and gave her a place in the conversation. What followed wasnt just commercial growth; it was a personal awakening. Branding turned her story into strength. AI cant do that. It doesnt ask how someone feels, or why their work matters. It optimizesbut it doesnt understand. Intuition creates belonging In Hanoi, Vietnam, a small café run by recent graduates struggled to stay open. They had quality coffee and a noble missionproviding jobs for youthbut no clear identity. We repositioned the space as Friends Coffee Roasters, a name that invited connection and warmth. The transformation was immediate. Customers showed up, reviews surged, and the café became a local favorite on TripAdvisor. A new name didnt just save a businessit saved a dream. Branding didnt just describe what they sold; it reflected who they were becoming. Culture is not universal Technology can scan trends, but it cant live inside a culture. That mattersbecause branding without context can flatten identity instead of elevating it. In the Villa Rica region of Peru, the Yanesha tribe cultivates organic coffee to fund community development. Yet selling unbranded bulk beans kept them trapped in poverty. Working with the tribe, we codeveloped Tierra Fuerte, a brand rooted in resilience and sovereignty. With it came more than just packagingit brought pricing power, dignity, and visibility. A similar challenge arose in Mongolia, where limited access to fresh produce was impacting health. Partnering with local stakeholders, we created Smart Berry to introduce strawberries grown in high-tech smart farm. The brand became more than a productit sparked a national conversation about wellness, youth aspiration, and modern agriculture. In both cases, cultural insightnot codewas the true catalyst. Final thoughts These experiences remind us: While AI is a tool, human intelligence is the soul of branding. The ability to read between the lines, to feel the emotional undercurrent, to design not just for markets but for meaningthose are still human strengths. When branding is approached with care, it can uplift. It can build local economies, support social missions, and shift narratives. It doesnt just sellit serves. And in a time when design tools are increasingly automated, what sets a brand apart isnt how quickly its builtbut how deeply it connects. Sooyoung Cho is CEO of the bread and butter brand consulting LLC.
Category:
E-Commerce
If the last 10 years were about creators building audiences, the next 10 will be about them building infrastructure. Were entering the era of the creator-led studio. Its already happening. Creators are turning themselves into multi-dimensional entertainment businesses. Theyre not just building content pipelines; theyre building worlds, structuring teams, developing IP, launching products, and curating and hosting IRL experiences. Theyre weaving content, community, and commerce into something bigger with the mindset of founders and the ambition of studio executives. Creators are becoming studios Not in the traditional sensenot high rises, backlots, or broadcast slots, but in a way thats native to the internet and modern-day technologies: fast-moving, audience-first, built around trust and consistency. Its a shift from: I make content I build programmingI do brand deals I own the formatsI am the brand I build brands The best creator-led studios arent just launching formats, theyre building systems for turning creative point of view (POV) into repeatable output. Moreover, the creators who scale arent just building content engines; theyre building emotional frameworks. Call it voice, POV, or DNA, its what everything else ladders up to. And at the very bleeding edge, those doing it the best are expanding those frameworks beyond content into commerce, community, courses, products, and live experiences. They are building full-stack media businesses, looking to own the audience, the formats, and the infrastructure. Whats driving it? 1. Creators are maturing into operators Creators who have the desire to go after this opportunity are no longer solo acts. Theyre founders. Theyre hiring. Building teams. Thinking in pipelines, product-market fit, and distribution economics. Theyre not chasing virality, they are building staying power, and its working. I explored this previously, when I discussed the shift from creator to entrepreneur. Now, its evolving again, from entrepreneur to studio builder. One important callout, though. This isnt for every creator and isnt to diminish the incredible value to come from remaining small and mighty. There will be a thriving segment of creators who stick to what theyre doing. However, I believe that the biggest share of audience and money will be held in the relatively few who become studio builders 2. Trust is becoming the most valuable signal As AI floods platforms with synthetic content, trust becomes the premium. As Doug Shapiro put it: Trust is the new oil. Audiences wont just want content; they’ll want curation, context, and a point of view. The creators who earn and sustain that trust wont just be personalities. Theyll be institutions. 3. Audience expectations are shifting Were now in an era where consistency is currency. People want formats they can return to. They want creators they can rely on. They want editorial judgment, recurring presence, and recognizable rhythms. Thats not just a creative instinct; its reinforced by platform algorithms and audience psychology. Recurring formats increase watch time, retention, and subscriber loyalty. When content appears reliably and feels familiar, audiences are more likely to form habits around it. Creators who think in seasons, franchises, and formats wont just gain attention, theyll earn mindshare. 4. Metrics over meaning The traditional media and advertising worlds, in their obsession with hyperperformance, data precision, and efficiency, left behind something essential: emotional connection. In that creative and cultural vacuum, creators stepped in. Not with metrics, but with meaning. Creators are value driven. Theyre plugged into the nuances of pop culture. And theyre intimately connected to their communities through access, respect, and trust. They didnt just inherit the audience. They earned it. Not just as content creators, but creative directors of a new era. Bringing the kind of relevance, emotion, and resonance that modern culture wants. Were still in the early stages of this movement. But this shift is real. The creator economy isnt just growing faster, its growing up. Over the next few years, I believe well see more and more creators evolve from individual success stories into collective media companies. Studios. Networks. Brand ecosystems. Institutions in their own right. Because the future of media isnt just creator-led. Its creator-built. Neil Waller is co-CEO and cofounder of the Whalar Group.
Category:
E-Commerce
Since ChatGPT was released nearly three years ago, individuals and companies have experimented with reactive AI, composing AI prompts to create articles, tables, translations, to-do lists, and chatbots to resolve questions. While these tasks offer practical value, especially boosting efficiency, the next leap isnt just technical. Agentic AI systems can enable organizations to deploy autonomous service agents capable of managing entire organizational processes end to end.The value of agentic AI lies in collaboration, not replacement, where humans and machines each play to their strengths. When workflows combine human judgment with machine precision, organizations can streamline tasks, innovate personalization and insights, sharpen decisions, scale, and measure outcomes that inform ongoing process upgrades. Unlike reactive AI, agentic systems function as digital colleagues, taking initiative, pursuing goals, having memory and context, using tools to learn from outcomes, and adapting in real time. This shift unlocks incremental gains and breakthrough innovation in customer and user experience through reimagined workflows for operational excellence. The catch? Redefining how an organization operates to deliver differentiating value requires careful human orchestration. While agentic AI acts autonomously, it depends on human or enterprise oversight to anchor purpose, set guardrails, and ensure alignment. Effectively implementing agentic AI prioritizes the role of human employees in value creation to a higher level, ensuring transparency, ethical standards, and responsible strategic oversight at every level. Enable seamless integration: The Model Context Protocol To realize agentic AI’s full potential, organizations need to connect AI agents to multiple tools and data sources without building custom integrations for each one. Enter the Model Context Protocol (MCP)an open standard that replaces fragmented integrations with a single, universal protocol. Think of MCP as a USB-C port for AI agents. Just as USB-C standardized device connections, MCP standardizes how AI systems access databases, applications, and external services. No more writing separate code for each integration. For businesses, this means autonomous agents can seamlessly access customer databases, CRM systems, knowledge repositories, and execute actions across platformsall through one standardized protocol. As the ecosystem matures, AI systems maintain context while moving between tools and datasets, creating a sustainable architecture. The result? Dramatically reduced technical complexity and agents with the contextual awareness to deliver transformative customer value. Change management for cross-functional process reengineering Implementing the transformative value of agentic AI requires organizational change managementredesigning organizational processes that efficiently yield quality outcomes. Not just a new tool, impactful agentic AI implementation requires an AI expert as a vital ongoing member of cross-functional mission-based teams focused on a specific process selected for re-engineering. AI experts should not be siloed in the technical function. They should be embedded with the functional process content and outcomes experts, learning from each other as they expand organizational expertise. As the number of reimagined process teams grows, so does the organizational expertise, extending gains achieved and staying ahead of a continuously evolving AI. All of this requires careful orchestration of data, strategy, and organizational readiness focused on the functions to which agentic AI is applied and a work culture that adapts to discover new opportunities. This is transformational enterprise change. It is not an event but a new way of working. The potential, however, is substantial. If your organization is still only implementing prompt engineering, you are lagging. Prioritize process re-engineering targets Another key factor is how to prioritize which re-engineered processes customers and users will value most by seeing how they use the product or service. In the early 1980s, then-NCR Corporation used observational research to identify the most time-consuming challenges their retail cash registers could automate. NCR collaboratively developed the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) protocol and developed a SCSI computer chip that enabled scanning charges to replace hand entry. Similarly standing in their customers shoes, Intuit engineers and product managers spur innovation by regularly engaging in follow-me-home with customers seeing how users apply their product features in their daily lives. This institutionalizes technical experts insights into customer usage to feed innovative ideas for more transformation. Train for an AI world Companies recognizing employees AI skill gaps are providing in-house or commercial training for workers. Higher ed institutions and their nonacademic competitors offer a variety of online courses. With AI continuously evolving, the next generation and their teachers also need training. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Americas second largest teachers union, is starting a training hub with $23 million in funding from Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic to focus on training teachers to generate lesson plans with AI wisely, safely and ethically. AFTs Share My Lesson is now Beta testing an OpenAI-powered teaching assistant, TRYEdBrAIn, that can adapt lesson plans to change grade levels, translate into different languages and many other options. Beta testing is now underway to understand user experience. The Khan Academy is testing an AI-powered teacher assistant as a student tutor in various school districts. As digital transformation accelerates, leading organizations will see agentic AI not as a tool, but as a catalyst for new paradigms of teamwork, value creation, and enterprise agility. Barie Carmichael is senior counselor and David Sanchez is director, AI Business Solutions at APCO Worldwide.
Category:
E-Commerce
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