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AI tools are becoming indispensable, helping teams generate content at incredible speeds. But one question lingers for many CMOs: Can AI help us connect with our audience in a way that still feels human? To explore this, we recently hosted Nicole Leffer, a tech marketing leader and CMO AI advisor, in our CMOs Tell All session to discuss how CMOs can navigate this balance in 2025 and beyond. 

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Leffer, who has been at the forefront of AI adoption in marketing, shared practical insights from her extensive experience helping marketing teams integrate AI while maintaining their brand’s voice and emotional connection with audiences. She shared how the best marketers use AI to deepen relationships with their audience, not just churning out content.

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The AI Balancing Act: Efficiency vs. Authenticity

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Leffer kicked off the discussion with a clear message: AI is only as good as the input it receives. She shared that while AI has made content creation faster and more efficient, most marketers use it in a way that leads to generic output. Why? They provide simple prompts and expect AI to generate fully formed ideas. However, the results are bland and impersonal when you ask AI to “write a blog post on a product” without giving it your personal voice or context.

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Leffer emphasized that AI should complement human creativity, not replace it. “If you just ask AI to have the ideas, you’re going to get generic content,” she said. She stressed that for AI to generate authentic content, you need to first share your voice and ideas with it. The AI can then refine and shape your thoughts.

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Personalizing AI: How to Make It Sound Like Your Brand

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One common fear is that AI will strip away the personality of your brand or voice. Leffer addressed this by walking us through her customized AI workflow. She uses AI not as a replacement for her voice but as an enhancement. Her process begins with a “thought dump,” where she verbally shares ideas into her customized ChatGPT tool, which then transcribes and refines them.

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To ensure the AI output stays true to your brand persona, Leffer recommends giving the AI a detailed sample of your writing and having it analyze the nuances—phrasing, tone, and word choice. It’s about teaching AI how to sound like you. For those managing multiple brand personas, this step is crucial for ensuring that AI-produced content reflects the right tone and messaging. 

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Nicole cautioned, however, that AI won’t capture your voice perfectly every time. Regular human review and tweaks are still essential for quality control. AI can get you 75-80% of the way there, but the final polish still depends on human oversight.

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Emotional Intelligence and AI: Can They Coexist?

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One of the session’s most intriguing discussions centered on whether AI could help improve emotional intelligence (EQ) in communication. Leffer argued that while AI cannot directly teach us EQ, it can help marketers communicate more thoughtfully by allowing them to better understand their audience’s diverse perspectives. 

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In particular, Leffer shared how she uses AI to refine her messages when working with clients from different cultural backgrounds. By inputting specific cultural and communication preferences into AI, she ensures that her messaging is sensitive, empathetic, and well-received across borders. Her prompts include detailed context about her communication style and that of her clients to foster deeper connections and minimize miscommunication.

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Leffer also highlighted how AI can help marketers navigate challenging interpersonal dynamics within teams. For example, some marketing leaders use AI to frame feedback more effectively, tailoring their communication style to match the preferences of individual team members. This capability helps managers avoid misunderstandings and deliver messages in ways that are more likely to resonate. AI acts almost like an “EQ coach,” assisting leaders in delivering thoughtful, well-crafted feedback that enhances team collaboration and trust.

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Measuring the Impact: Can AI Help Track Authenticity?

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For those wondering how AI can help track the effectiveness of content—whether AI-generated or human-created—Leffer shared that AI can be an excellent tool for analyzing performance data. By uploading data and using AI to run deeper analyses, marketers can better understand which content resonates most with their audience.

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Leffer also made a critical point: AI-assisted content often performs better than purely human-written work. She attributed this to AI’s ability to understand audience preferences more broadly, thanks to its vast training data. However, she reiterated that success comes down to using AI intelligently and combining it with human creativity and insights.

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Empowering Your Team to Use AI Authentically

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For marketing leaders who want their teams to balance AI’s efficiency with authentic storytelling, Leffer recommended that leaders focus on foundational skills like fact-checking, brand voice, and prompt-writing techniques. Don’t shy away from AI, but don’t let your team lean on it mindlessly. Instead, ensure your team knows they’re still responsible for the quality of the final output, whether AI-assisted or not.

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AI is here to stay and can be a powerful tool for efficiency, but it’s up to us to keep the content authentic and emotionally engaging. AI is a tool that can enhance creativity, not replace it. By embedding emotional intelligence into the process, AI can help marketing teams create efficient and deeply authentic content.

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If you’re a marketing leader eager to harness the power of AI while maintaining emotional intelligence in your strategy, the Mavuus community is here for you. Our sessions, featuring experts like Nicole Leffer, offer practical advice and proven techniques to balance innovation with authenticity. Join us to stay ahead and connect with peers navigating this new frontier.

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