AI tools for marketing and brand management:

1. Separating the Signal from the Noise

The market for AI in marketing is booming, but a closer look reveals that many of the tools offer strikingly similar features. Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and DALL·E may differ in their training data and workflows, but ultimately, they all generate images. Even smaller AI tools often rely on the same large language models (LLMs).

Before making a decision, it’s worth checking whether a tool really offers new, relevant capabilities—or just a slightly modified version of existing technologies. Spoiler alert: most of the time, it’s the latter!

2. Making Strategic Choices

Most marketing teams already use a wide range of digital tools—from asset management systems to cross-media planning platforms. So one of the first questions when integrating AI into marketing should be: Should existing software be extended with AI features? Or do we want to introduce a completely new category of tools powered by AI?

• Extending Existing Systems: If you already use tools like Figma, you can benefit from an AI plugin that integrates seamlessly.

• Standalone AI Tools: These often offer more features than plugins but come with a higher implementation overhead.

3. Choosing the Right AI Model

Whether it’s ChatGPT, LLaMA, Gemini, or Claude—the differences between large language models (LLMs) are often marginal. That’s why brand decision-makers can take a pragmatic approach: choose the model that best integrates with your existing IT and marketing infrastructure. For example, if you're using Microsoft Azure, OpenAI services like ChatGPT will likely cause the fewest integration headaches. And your IT team, which has to manage and maintain the tools, will also appreciate a solution that’s compatible and low-maintenance.

4. Developing Custom AI Solutions

But what if no available tool meets your brand’s specific needs? The answer might be to develop a custom AI solution. Sounds like a massive undertaking—but often, it’s the smarter choice. Creating a proprietary AI system doesn’t necessarily require huge budgets or major consulting firms. Collaborating with local software developers or universities can often result in tailored AI applications for brand management (at Strichpunkt, for example, we’ve had great success working with Stuttgart’s Media University).

And the game is changing again: lightweight models like Deepseek make it easier than ever to train custom-fit AI models. In the future, building your own AI will be even more accessible!

5. Knowing and Mitigating the Risks

Even though integrating AI tools may be technically seamless, the legal framework around AI-powered marketing tools is still full of uncertainty. Two examples illustrate this:

• Copyright Issues: Many AI models are trained on text and images—often (carefully worded) without obtaining the explicit consent of the original creators. These creators may sue for copyright infringement (and some already have). Until legal clarity is established, AI-generated content remains in a gray area.

• Lack of Copyright Protection: Currently, there’s no uniform copyright law for AI-generated text, images, or videos. This means competitors could reuse such content freely, and there’s little legal recourse to stop them.

“Even though integrating AI tools may be technically smooth, the legal conditions surrounding most AI-powered marketing tools remain unresolved.” — Andreas Stiegler, Strichpunkt Design

To avoid these legal pitfalls, it's wise to opt for AI models with transparent data sources—like Stable Diffusion, which is trained using the European LAION dataset.

Get Ready for the (Next) Disruption

Right now, the focus is on how AI is changing our tech environment, our workflows, and our brands—and rightly so. But make no mistake: AI is not the last disruptive innovation to shake up our industry. It’s just the first to arrive with such breathtaking speed. Very soon, the next big technological shift will be upon us—and then another.

What does this mean for marketing and brand management? Simply put: If you want your brand to stay successful over the next three years, you need to design your processes to integrate innovation as smoothly and cost-effectively as possible. That includes critically evaluating even your most cherished tools and routines—on both the brand and agency side.

Nature has been showing us the way for over 4.5 billion years: those who can’t adapt to changing environments don’t survive. No matter how big or successful they once were.

Author: Dr. Andreas Stiegler, Creative Technologist at Strichpunkt