Why Brands Are Desperately Seeking ‘Storytellers’
in the AI Era
Session Overview
Why did some AI-generated advertisements receive backlash, even as technology continues to advance? As AI increasingly creates content, defines brand tone, and shapes marketing strategies, digital marketing has become faster, more efficient, and highly optimized. Yet as technology advances, consumer responses grow more complex.
AI-generated images and messages are quickly consumed, but often leave behind a sense of coldness and unfamiliarity. People begin to ask, “Is this real?”—and question the authenticity of brand narratives. This growing tension is often described as “AI Fatigue”.
As AI-generated content floods the market, people respond less to technical perfection and more to stories that feel real—rooted in context, emotion, and lived experience. Authenticity, not polish, has become the foundation of trust. This is why leading brands now treat storytelling not as a tactic, but as a core capability essential to credibility and long-term survival.
This session steps back from technology-centered AI marketing discourse to ask a more fundamental question: What do people respond to, what moves them emotionally, and what do they trust in the age of AI?
Drawing from brand editorial and documentary projects, the talk explores why human narratives and authenticity have become increasingly important, and how brands can coexist with AI while building genuine trust through authenticity-driven storytelling.
In a time when technology appears capable of replacing almost everything, the more advanced it becomes, the more people respond to what is deeply human. Ultimately, a brand’s competitive advantage in the age of AI lies in its ability to tell authentic stories that genuinely move people.
Speaker
Building on this global experience, he has worked with international organizations, governments, corporations, small businesses, and individuals—translating brand stories not through advertising, but through editorial and documentary-driven visual storytelling. Through real-world projects, he has continuously examined and validated the conditions under which people genuinely respond to and trust images and narratives.
Urim Hong currently serves as a Brand Committee Member for the Seoul Metropolitan Government and is the author of the bestselling book ONE CUT: Visual Brandtelling Strategies. He is also the founder and CEO of RE.BRAND, a visual brandtelling studio dedicated to researching and implementing strategies that visually articulate human narratives and structures of trust—elements brands must preserve in an era increasingly dominated by AI, automation, and algorithm-driven marketing.