Generative AI has accelerated rapidly since late 2023. Across Indian agencies today, it drafts copy, scans culture, builds decks, analyses sentiment, generates images, restructures strategies and compresses timelines. What began as experimentation has now become infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\nInside creative, marketing and PR firms, AI is no longer a side tool. It is embedded into everyday workflows.<\/p>\n
\nBut as machine-generated content floods the system, a new problem is emerging \u2014 not of productivity, but of personality.<\/p>\n
\nWhy is AI-written copy starting to look the same? And why are clients and readers beginning to notice?<\/p>\n
\nThe rise of the \u2018sea of sameness\u2019<\/p>\n
\nAccording to Maninder Singh, chief of innovation and creative at Rediffusion Brand Solutions, the most visible failure of AI-generated work is not inaccuracy, but indistinction.<\/p>\n
\nRead More: AI in Advertising: A game-changer or a creativity killer?<\/a><\/p>\n \n\u201cAI tends towards politeness, explanation and consensus,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are fatal qualities in strong communication. It struggles with subtext, irony and incompleteness \u2014 the very things that make ideas powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n \nClients, he added, are already sensing this hollowness.<\/p>\n \n\u201cThere have been clear instances where work felt technically sound but spiritually empty. When an AI copy is treated as final rather than provisional, its greatest weakness shows \u2014 it cannot feel the consequences of what it says.\u201d<\/p>\n \nVML India CEO Babita Baruah believes the industry is entering what many marketers quietly describe as a \u201csea of sameness\u201d.<\/p>\n \n\u201cContent may be grammatically perfect, but emotionally flat,\u201d she said. \u201cIt lacks jagged edges, wit and distinct perspective. Brands begin to sound alike because they are all drawing from the same AI well.\u201d<\/p>\n \nAt ad agency Talented, the resistance often appears subtly. \u201cThe feedback usually comes as, \u2018This feels generic\u2019 or \u2018This doesn\u2019t sound like us,\u2019\u201d Varun Khiatani, strategy, Talented said. \u201cThat is the AI problem in its most visible form.\u201d<\/p>\n \nKushager Tuli, president (creative), Tilt Brand Solutions, put it more bluntly. \u201cAI-generated copy lacks soul for the most part. People can see through the coldness and the lack of real thought.\u201d<\/p>\n \nAs generative tools flood the system with competent writing, what is becoming scarce is not content \u2014 but character.<\/p>\n \nSpeed without meaning<\/p>\n \nAnup Sharma, PR and strategic communications advisor, believes AI\u2019s most dangerous impact is not creative. It is cultural.<\/p>\n \n\u201cAI has lowered the barrier to publishing. When content is abundant, meaning becomes scarce,\u201d he said. \u201cAI amplifies what already exists. If the narrative is shallow, it simply scales the problem faster.\u201d<\/p>\n \nSharma pointed to over-automation, weak editorial oversight, uncorrected bias and ethical shortcuts as the most common missteps.<\/p>\n \n\u201cAI can help detect misinformation. But deciding how to respond requires moral judgement. Ethical communication has become more important, not less.\u201d<\/p>\n \nHe added that AI often produces polished language without emotional or cultural depth.<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt struggles with humour, regional nuance and the subtle signals that shape public perception. A message in Dibrugarh cannot sound like one in Muzaffarpur. That difference has to remain human.\u201d<\/p>\n \nThis loss of emotional calibration is increasingly being felt in both advertising and public relations, where credibility depends less on output and more on intent.<\/p>\n \nWhen technology becomes the idea<\/p>\n \nIndia has already seen both the promise and the pitfalls of AI-led creativity.<\/p>\n \nIn 2021, Mondelez International\u2019s \u2018Shah Rukh Khan My Ad\u2019 Diwali campaign used AI and machine learning to generate thousands of personalised ads for local retailers, allowing small businesses to appear alongside the actor in hyper-localised films. The campaign was widely celebrated as a meaningful use of technology in service of a human idea.<\/p>\n \nBut recent years have also delivered cautionary tales.<\/p>\n \nIn 2024, Coca-Cola faced global backlash for an AI-generated film referencing its iconic \u2018Holidays Are Coming\u2019 commercial<\/a>, criticised for feeling soulless and emotionally hollow. A similar reaction followed its 2025 AI-led holiday campaign. McDonald\u2019s Netherlands also drew criticism for an AI-generated Christmas film<\/a> that quickly became a reputational problem rather than a creative one.<\/p>\n \nAt Talented, Khiatani said most AI-led campaigns fail for two reasons \u2014 one on the creator\u2019s side and one on the consumer\u2019s.<\/p>\n \n\u201cOn the creator\u2019s side, there is over-reliance. Brands start mistaking the use of AI for the idea. AI is not the idea. It\u2019s a means to an end,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cWhen AI becomes the reason a campaign exists, the work feels like posturing rather than innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n \nOn the consumer side, the problem is trust. \u201cPoorly executed AI content still feels cheap. Audiences sense when effort is missing. Right now, the backlash isn\u2019t against AI. It\u2019s against weak creative decisions dressed up as technology.\u201d<\/p>\n \nSingh agreed. \u201cMany campaigns fail because they confuse novelty with relevance. Audiences can tell when technology is being used as a shortcut rather than a tool.\u201d<\/p>\n \nAlongside this sits an ethical undertone that is growing harder to ignore. Questions of authorship, authenticity and cultural exploitation are increasingly shaping how audiences judge brand communication.<\/p>\n \nThe erosion of judgement<\/p>\n \nCarol Goyal, chief of client servicing and business development at Rediffusion, believes the deeper crisis is not output \u2014 it is discernment.<\/p>\n \n\u201cAI has democratised generation. It has not democratised judgement,\u201d she said. \u201cCreativity today is less about producing ideas and more about recognising which ideas matter.\u201d<\/p>\n \nWhile AI accelerates exploration, she argued, it must never define voice.<\/p>\n \n\u201cHuman creativity brings lived experience, moral awareness and cultural memory. In a landscape saturated with content, meaning is the true differentiator \u2014 and meaning remains a human responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n \nAgency leaders increasingly describe this erosion of judgement as the real risk: when speed replaces thinking, and coherence replaces courage.<\/p>\n \nWhy human creativity is becoming premium again<\/p>\n \nIronically, as AI makes execution cheap, it is making human creativity more valuable.<\/p>\n \n\u201cAt near-zero cost, almost anything can now be made,\u201d said Talented\u2019s Khiatani. \u201cWhich means execution alone is no longer impressive. The only real differentiator left is the quality of the idea.\u201d<\/p>\n \nSharma echoed this. \u201cAI analyses patterns. It does not live experience. Creativity in communications is about judgement, restraint and emotional intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n \nBaruah added that the biggest drawback of AI-generated work is the loss of emotional edge.<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt misses discomfort, humour and risk \u2014 the things that create distinctive brand voices. Clients are becoming sensitive to that loss because it works directly against authenticity.\u201d<\/p>\n \nTuli believes agencies putting out average work in the name of being \u201cAI-forward\u201d are making a strategic error. \u201cIt signals laziness more than innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n \nAs AI commoditises production, agencies are rediscovering that originality, taste and point of view cannot be automated.<\/p>\n \nFrom automation back to authorship<\/p>\n \nMost agency leaders agree the way forward is not less AI \u2014 but far stronger human control.<\/p>\n \n\u201cAgencies must shift from automation to strategy,\u201d Sharma said. \u201cAI should support listening, analysis, testing and optimisation. Humans must lead storytelling, ethics and relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n \nSingh framed it more bluntly. \u201cAI is a multiplier, not a mind. It expands possibilities. It does not decide meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n \nGoyal summed it up: \u201cOriginality survives when humans retain control over point of view and emotional calibration. AI should widen the field. Humans must decide where to stand.\u201d<\/p>\n First Published on\u00a0Jan 12, 2026 8:05 AM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Generative AI has accelerated rapidly since late 2023. 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