Meet the expert: Mariia Kulish is a branding and visual identity strategist who helps companies build identities that feel intentional, emotionally grounded and consistent across every touchpoint. She blends creative direction with AI assisted exploration, helping teams move beyond scattered moodboards and toward systems that actually express who they are.
“AI can create stunning visuals, but it cannot read your values or your narrative. That is why people get moodboards instead of identities,” Kulish says.
Where brands go wrong with AI: Kulish often sees teams rushing into Midjourney or DALL·E before defining what their brand represents. Without that foundation, AI does not clarify identity. It multiplies confusion.
“You get futuristic one day, minimalistic the next, Pinterest inspired the day after. Without strategy, AI becomes a chaos multiplier,” she explains.
This pattern mirrors a larger issue in branding today. AI accelerates the creation of visuals, but it has no sense of the emotion a brand is meant to evoke. When meaning is missing, even beautiful work has no direction.
How AI reshaped the creative process: While AI introduces risks, it has also changed what small teams are capable of. Concepting that once took weeks can now be explored in a single afternoon, making room for deeper experimentation and faster iteration.
“AI tore down the barriers. Small teams can now create top tier visual concepts in hours. It makes identity work more dynamic and more experimental,” Kulish says.
This shift allows designers to focus on judgment rather than manual execution. They set the rules, shape the system and refine what AI generates. AI handles the volume. Humans protect the vision.
The challenges that still undermine visual identity: Even with powerful tools, the same foundational problems continue to weaken brands. Inconsistency is the most common one. Without clear rules, visual identity becomes unpredictable.
“One look for Instagram, another for the website, a third in pitch decks. It feels like a different designer wakes up every morning,” Kulish says.
Trend chasing adds instability, pulling the brand further away from anything recognizable. Typography issues create another layer of risk. Weak hierarchy, mismatched fonts or sloppy spacing can harm even the strongest photography. AI only accelerates these problems when the system behind it is unclear.
What actually creates cohesion: Kulish believes memorable brands are defined by systems rather than individual images. Color, rhythm, typography and image treatment work together to create recognition wherever the brand appears.
“A cohesive brand is not about repeating the same image. It is about repeating the same decisions,” she says.
Consistency in execution is just as important as consistency in style. Whether on a tiny profile icon or a full size billboard, the brand’s confidence should remain intact.
Where AI is used well today: Luxury fashion houses are already demonstrating how AI can expand storytelling without diluting a brand’s core codes. Moncler partnered with Maison Meta to generate visuals for the Genius line and released an AI generated film titled From the Mountains to the City. They also collaborated with artist Lulu Li, turning AI experiments into a capsule collection.
Valentino produced its Essentials campaign entirely through AI generated photography, maintaining its signature sense of elegance. And LVMH uses internal AI tools and partners like FancyTech to create high quality product visuals for brands such as Dior, Givenchy, Hublot and Bulgari.
These examples show how AI can elevate creativity when the brand’s identity is clear and well protected.
The bottom line: AI speeds up creation, but it does not create meaning. What separates strong brands from scattered ones is not the tool they use, but the clarity they bring to it. Identity still depends on strategy, consistency and human judgment. AI can support that discipline or weaken it depending on how intentionally teams choose to use it.
