CMS 2026 — AI Won't Kill Your Brand. Sameness Will. | Ben Barone-Nugent

AI Won't Kill Your Brand. Sameness Will: Strengthening Your Identity in the Age of AI

Session Overview

More of what brands publish—writing, images, video, design—is now created using AI tools. That raises an important question: if every team uses similar models, what keeps our brand sounding and looking like us?

Brand recognition takes years to build—sometimes decades. The gains from AI are real, but without the right knowledge, processes, and measurement frameworks, we risk damaging the brands we've spent so long building.

Korea has more at stake here than most markets. The recognition Korean brands have built globally—in beauty, food, fashion, and entertainment—came from long, consistent work, and it is not easily rebuilt once it slips.

In this session, Ben will explore:

  • Where AI puts a brand at risk: tone of voice, visual identity, and a narrowing creative range
  • What these tools do well, and where they belong in the marketing workflow
  • Which decisions should stay with people, and how to build that into the process
  • Methods for measuring the use of AI in brand and marketing teams

For brand marketers and team leads already using AI at scale, who want to be certain it is not costing them what makes their brand recognizable.

Speaker

Ben Barone-Nugent
Ben Barone-Nugent
Head of Conversation & Model Design
Formerly Canva & Netflix
The things Ben's made have been used by billions of people. Over the past 11 years, he's built consumer and business products at Google, DeepMind, Netflix, and Meta, working across the platforms where much of the world's content now lives.

He has led work across product, design, conversation, and AI, helping shape experiences used by audiences around the world.

His work explores how brands can get the most from AI without losing what makes them recognizable, and how teams can build the roadmaps, processes, and creative culture needed to create work that still feels distinctly their own.

Ben holds an Honors Degree in Cognitive Linguistics from the University of Melbourne and lives in Melbourne, Australia.