Human After All

Reflections from an AI Bootcamp

My AI Twin (Image Created by Higgsfield)

What happens when you drop a creative thinker into a world of algorithms, prompts, and machine learning?

Welcome to Human After All, a blog series chronicling my personal journey through an AI Creative Bootcamp. This isn’t a technical deep dive or a tutorial on how to build the next ChatGPT clone. It’s something more personal, more nuanced. It’s about the emotional, intellectual, and creative evolution that unfolds when you collaborate with machines to make meaning, tell stories, and shape brand identities.

Each week, I’ll be sharing reflections, lessons, challenges, and moments of clarity as I explore the intersection of human intuition and artificial intelligence. I’ll talk about how AI is forcing me to become a sharper strategist, a more adaptable creative, and paradoxically, more human.

Some entries will be personal. Others will break down assignments or creative strategies. But all of them will be honest.

To kick things off, I’m sharing my latest reflection from our Week 3 assignment on brand voice. It pushed me to not only think like a strategist, but to also consider what makes voice… alive. When we ask AI to speak for us, what are we really asking it to say?

Let’s find out together.

Reflection Essay: Human-AI Collaboration in Brand Voice Development

Working with AI to develop a comprehensive voice system for Target has been a revealing exercise in both creative strategy and critical thinking. At the beginning, I assumed AI tools would serve primarily as time-saving utilities, helping me generate quick iterations of marketing copy. What I discovered instead was a more collaborative dynamic, one that challenged me to define the voice of a brand more clearly, articulate emotional and linguistic goals, and become more intentional in how voice expresses identity across channels.

One of the clearest benefits of AI collaboration is speed. I was able to generate multiple variations of Instagram captions, email subject lines, and product descriptions within seconds. However, the most impactful part of the process wasn’t in choosing which version sounded "better", it was in refining the AI output using human intuition, emotional nuance, and brand awareness. For example, AI often defaults to hyper-enthusiastic or generic promotional tones unless guided. Phrases like "Don't miss out!" or "Grab yours now!" frequently surfaced, which felt off-brand for Target's more thoughtful and playful tone. It became clear that the human role is not just editing for clarity but also curating for resonance.

Another insight was how AI revealed gaps in consistency. By feeding AI examples from different Target channels, I could see how voice fragmentation was not just a creative oversight but a structural problem. Product descriptions felt cold and utilitarian, while Instagram posts were lively and personal. These contrasts helped highlight the need for a scalable voice system that adapts to the context but never loses its core identity. The framework tools we used in class, from Voice DNA to Context Adaptability, helped me translate these findings into structured brand language that I could then feed back into the AI for more aligned iterations.

Human-AI collaboration also exposed how subtle elements like emoji usage, sentence rhythm, and cultural intelligence make or break voice effectiveness. AI-generated text was often grammatically perfect but emotionally flat. In contrast, small human-led tweaks, adding playful idioms, relatable metaphors, or a gentle pause, transformed functional content into something more human. This reinforced that voice is more than copywriting; it's an experience.

Finally, the experience shifted how I view AI in my own creative process. Rather than replacing my ideas, it serves as an accelerant for them. It pushes me to clarify strategy, name the feeling I'm aiming to evoke, and translate brand values into concrete language. And, crucially, it gives me room to experiment without wasting time. I now see AI as a creative partner, one that is powerful, but only as effective as the human intention guiding it.

In the end, this assignment wasn’t just about improving Target’s brand voice. It was about sharpening my own voice as a strategist and storyteller. Working with AI forced me to step into the role of editor, translator, and empath all at once. And it taught me that even in an automated future, the human touch is what makes a brand voice truly come alive.

Image created with ChatGPT