Last Friday I had the opportunity to facilitate a panel discussion about the future of brand and identity in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) at the Latimer Futures Summit with co-founder Jon Cropper.

It was entitled “The Last Moat.”  AI hands everyone the same intelligence — the same models, the same synthetic insights, the same generated content. When capability is commoditized, brand is the last thing that’s still yours. 

The Thesis

Synthetic data promises to transform market research — faster, cheaper, always-on insight. The whole marketing stack is about to move. But two questions decide who wins: can you trust it, and are you ready to defend your approach to your board, your clients, and your team? 

Here’s the deeper shift. AI is handing everyone the same intelligence — the same tools, the same insights, the same output.  When capability gets commoditized, it stops being a differentiator.. What can’t be handed out equally becomes the whole game:  identity, trust, taste, distinctiveness. Brand is the last moat.

The Question

When everyone has access to the same intelligence — what makes a brand, a brand?

The help answer the question was a cross-section of the marketing and communications industry to help answer the question.  It featured Sean Clayton, Founder of Singulariti.ai , Rob Steven Williams, CEO of prismio.ai and Najoh Tita-Reid, Global Chief Growth Officer of Mars Petcare.

Key Action Steps

What was really great about the panelist was the diversity of industry experience and their entry points into the artificial intelligence conversation.  Below are five takeaways from the panel:

  1. When it comes to your primary, secondary and third party data, assess your current level of data maturity and determine what gaps need to be closed and/or supplemented with synthetic data.
  2. Treat synthetic data as a hypothesis engine, not gospel.
  3. To truly establish a point of brand differentiation, Invest in what can’t be commoditized.
  4. Put guardrails around your data and the use of it before the headline.
  5. Get fluent — don’t delegate the understanding.

Last, the common mistake I’m seeing within the marketplace is the rush to use synthetic data that does not truly reflect the brand’s total addressable and serviceable markets. If you are a brand with little to no investment in primary audience data, then you are likely to treat synthetic data as the gospel with little to no understanding of the implications and impact it will have on your brand long term.

Jeffrey L.Bowman is founder and CEO of Reframe.  A Different Kind of Growth Agency, an award winning Wiley published author, Reframe The Marketplace: The Total Market Approach To Reaching The New Majority.  He pioneered the $1T marketing and communications industry modern approach to value creation, The Total Market Industry Vertical and Approach. This is a summary of the latest Reframe White Paper:  The Total Market Industry Vertical, A Modern Approach To Value Creation.