In my final semester for my UX research and design certificate, I took Professional Writing and Rhetoric 320: Content Strategy. For the final, I was tasked with creating a conceptual branding plan for a hypothetical company with the assistance of an AI.

I chose to utilize Anthropic’s Claude platform as I didn’t want to rely on AI image or video generation for the mockup. The assignment called for writing up a newsletter email, a blogpost, and a social media post. I was surprised at the ability to actually latch onto the tone that I had built for the brand. Despite that, there were still telltale signs of AI usage that stood out; the constant using of em dashes, the outgoing usage of emojis, and just an overall robotic tone due to the lack of in-person experience all play a part in the somewhat lower level content that was generated. While it had some level of usability for a professional brand, it wasn’t at a level at which human-generated content would’ve been.

The newsletter was the strongest output, hitting the bold and community-driven tone I had established for the brand. The blog post was solid structurally but felt too long and impersonal, missing the kind of detail that only comes from someone who has actually experienced the events being described.

The Instagram content was where AI struggled most. The carousel concept was well-organized, but the caption felt tailored to an existing audience rather than designed to pull in new ones. However, the hashtag strategy was the one area where AI genuinely delivered without needing much correction for this medium of content.

My takeaway was that Claude works best as a strategic launchpad: strong for structure, SEO ideation, and keyword strategy, but the authentic brand voice still needs a human hand to land correctly. The assignment pushed me to think critically about where AI genuinely adds value in a content workflow versus where it risks flattening the personality a brand works hard to build.

The full report for this is available here.