AI Branding: Hopes and Limitations

AI for branding is a hot topic, and for good reason — it promises speed, efficiency, and cheap design solutions. But let’s be real for a second: AI can’t actually come up with new ideas. It’s like a fancy collage tool, mixing and matching elements from its database but never truly ideating. When you want a logo or brand identity that feels unique, AI isn’t creating something fresh — it’s just remixing what it already knows.

Then there’s the issue with details. AI can throw together something that looks decent from a distance, but when you zoom in, it’s clear it’s missing the nuance. A human designer knows when to tweak the spacing just right or when a color is slightly off for a specific audience. AI just doesn’t have that level of sensitivity.

AI-generated logos and designs look flashy at first, but the moment you try to vectorize them, it’s a whole different story. Most AI tools spit out raster-based images, which means they don’t scale well. And even when you try to convert them into vectors, it’s a bit of a mess. You get a lot of noise, extra points, and weird artifacts that a clean, hand-drawn vector wouldn’t have. So you still need to manually refine and clean up these AI creations, otherwise, they don’t hold up when you try to use them across different formats — from tiny icons to huge billboards.

So yeah, AI has its place — it’s great for quick drafts or inspiration, and for some small-scale projects, it works. But when it comes to branding that really stands out and holds up across all formats, you still need a human touch. AI can help, but it’s definitely not doing all the heavy lifting.