Authenticity

in

the

age

of

AI

If you work in advertising or marketing today, you’re likely walking a tightrope.

On one side, your creative briefs call for authenticity. You want campaigns that feel real, that show real people living real lives. Your brand book reveres natural light, candid faces, and maybe even a reportage aesthetic that whispers, “We’re just like you.”

On the other side, you're scrambling to make content faster, cheaper, and with fewer human hands. Generative AI is suddenly a part of every workflow conversation. You're experimenting with AI-generated voiceovers and synthetic product imagery. You're asking: “How much can we automate before it feels fake?”

This may feel like a balancing act, but it’s more fundamental than that. It’s about redefining what feels real in an era when “real” is increasingly produced by code.

Let’s unpick this problem.

“Authenticity” as we talk about it in modern marketing is a relatively new concept. Philosopher Charles Taylor argued in The Ethics of Authenticity that it’s a uniquely modern value, predicated on being true to our individual, inner selves. (Before the Enlightenment, we didn’t worry about being “true to ourselves”, we worried about being obedient to God, country, caste, or crown … and trying to live past 35.)

So when a brand today claims to be “authentic,” it’s really trying to project a form of human truth. Not just an accurate depiction of reality, but something emotionally honest. Something that “feels true.”

Which is precisely why the rise of generative AI in branding feels so strange, even uncanny. The instinctive reaction is: “This isn’t real.” AI content is synthetic, suspect. And fair enough: when ChatGPT writes a press release, or Midjourney spits out a glossy campaign image, many marketers twitch and ask, “But where is the soul in this?”

Cue the philosophers again.

French theorist Jean Baudrillard warned of a future dominated by simulation. In his concept of hyperreality, simulations no longer imitate reality, they replace it. Copies become so perfect, so ubiquitous, that we lose sight of what was ever "real" to begin with.

We’re standing at that soft, vertigo-inducing edge now. And your brand is probably dangling one foot over the cliff.

But here’s the twist: history shows that ubiquity changes perception.

When synthesizers first hit the music scene in the 1960s and '70s, they were dismissed as inhuman. Musicians' unions considered banning them. Critics feared they’d make bands obsolete. Synths weren’t deemed “real” instruments by the traditionalists.

Today? Synths are everywhere. No one hears a banging dance track or the Stranger Things theme and cries for the oboe. Electronic music is respected, deeply human, and just part of the creative tool belt.

The same will happen with AI.

As AI-generated images, voices, and videos become more prevalent, our perception will shift. Not because the tech gets less artificial, but because we’ll get more used to it.

Psychologists call this the mere-exposure effect: a bias where we tend to prefer what we see and hear more often. Familiarity breeds affinity.

So, the question won't be, “Was this made by a person?” but rather, “Does this feel real?”

In the coming age of synthetic creativity, authenticity will be decoupled from origin. It’s no longer about whether an image was "real" in the traditional sense, but whether the emotion it evokes is sincere, earned, and resonant.

Here, we meet Roland Barthes’ famous argument: “the death of the author.” According to Barthes, the meaning of a work doesn’t sit with the creator. It emerges through the audience’s interpretation. In the AI era, that’s not just theoretical, it’s literal.

A touching image generated by AI may move a viewer more deeply than a real photo of the same scene. If the AI version connects, if it tells a story better does it matter who (or what) made it?

To purists, this might sound like surrender. But this isn’t about giving up on what’s human. It’s about redefining it. Emotional resonance will become the new benchmark for “real." The human response, not the human hand, will be how we judge authenticity.

But (and this is important) we’re not there yet.

Right now, generative AI still stutters. It hallucinates. You can get it to produce final outputs, but it’s not always easy. Consumers can still sniff out content that lacks a pulse. The uncanny valley is very real. But if you think the valley won’t be bridged, you haven’t been paying attention.

This week, your team might reject an AI image as “cold” or “fake.” Next week, they’ll ask you why your AI-generated product demo isn’t looped for TikTok. The shift won’t be seismic. It will be subtle, cumulative, until one day, something wholly synthetic moves you to tears, and you find yourself believing in pixels over people.

So where does that leave your brand?

It means now is the moment to decide what authenticity really means to you. Not just what looks real, but what feels real. Not just what’s true at the surface, but what’s resonant at the core. Are your values performative or sincere? Are your stories emotionally specific or generically uplifting? If an AI-generated voiceover said your brand purpose statement tomorrow, would anyone believe it? Because if you can’t move people with real tools now, you definitely won’t be able to fake it with synthetic ones later.

Succeeding in the AI age won’t require you to be more digital. It’ll demand that you be more human, with precision.