Creative Crossroads

There’s a massive, albeit mostly invisible, shift underway in the professional creative world.

It’s being driven by the relentless pursuit of what some "savvy" investors call "efficiency." Conveniently, that "efficiency" is being helped along by the proliferation of Large Language Models (LLMs), which are recklessly steering brands into the vapid and soulless void of meaninglessness. This technological stampede is utterly unconcerned with the collateral damage being left in its wake. Sound dramatic? Oh, it is—and the long-term ramifications aren’t even on most people’s radar. The industry narrative is simple: outsource the creative process wherever possible, especially to AI, do more with less, and watch the profits roll in.

But the true cost of this creative outsourcing is becoming devastatingly clear. The losers aren't just the shrinking creative teams being encouraged to churn out sterile content. The real casualty is the brand itself—and surprise, surprise, most don’t even realize they’re on the road to becoming irrelevant. We are witnessing the mass homogenization of brand voice. Brands are shedding their identity, their perspective, and their unique spark in favor of optimized, algorithm-friendly, utterly boring output.

The ugly antonym we must now face is no longer simply irrelevant or interchangeable. It's something completely new, a horizon on the post-creative landscape, that I call the Irrelevithm.

ir·rel·e·vithm
[ ih-rel-uh-vith-uhm ]
noun
An algorithmic state of terminal obscurity, where a brand’s content and identity are deemed indistinguishable from generic output, resulting in the complete forfeiture of human relevance, subsequent algorithmic suppression, and eventual demise.

In the branding world, we used to treat "relevance" as the high bar. Now, many are just as happy if they can hop over the low bar, which is simply "checking corporate boxes while ensuring you’re not sounding like every other brand currently optimizing for the same algorithms." Yet, still, no one wants to ask the truly disruptive question: “As the Irrelevithm continues to creep into the bones of a brand, how long until we have completely outsourced our voice, our process, and most critically, our creative spark?”

The Irrelevithm’s Echo Chamber

Five years ago, we talked about Google’s Page Experience Update. Today, we are wrestling with Google’s AI Overviews (or SGE) and the rise of the E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) standards. The stakes are no longer about site speed; they are about brand survival.

The zero-click reality is here. The AI Overview synthesizes answers at the top of the search results, often blending multiple sources into a single, curated response—all without the user needing to click your link. This is creating a traffic black hole, robbing sites of organic engagement. The true danger is that these AI systems are learning, and what they are learning is how to produce perfectly optimized, perfectly generic content.

If you build your entire content strategy, down to the CTAs, by feeding inputs into an LLM and hitting "generate," you are willingly contributing to the echo chamber. You are sacrificing unique human insight, proprietary data, and genuine authority for volume. The algorithm, which is now looking specifically for content that demonstrates authentic, first-hand experience—not sterile, synthesized output—will pass you over. If you sound like everyone else, the AI will simply blend you into the background. Hope those profit numbers look good today, because this is not the road to efficiency; it is the fast track to becoming lost in the Irrelevithm.

Lost and Found: From Efficiency to Identity

The goal is no longer simply to rank for a keyword, but to become the authoritative, recognizable source that informs and shapes the AI’s synthesized answer.

I’ll ask the tough questions for you: Are you just in the business of simply selling? Or, shouldn't you be working towards engaging with customers who know, understand, and connect meaningfully with your brand's unique perspective? If you are failing to build brand advocacy now, where will your brand be in 5 years? Hell, let's be real—where will it be in 2-3 years?

To answer these questions demands a complete pivot in thinking. You must invest in finding and amplifying the voices within your organization that hold the deeper, more specialized expertise. Stop pandering to the internal brand committee and stop relying on AI to write, design, and organize every element — from your mission statement to your marketing strategy. Start deeply considering concepts that build true authority: Do we have proprietary data or relationships? What unique position can we claim in the marketplace that can’t be synthesized? Is our voice distinguishable from our closest competitor? Do we…wait for it…actually give a damn about our customers and their brand experience?

Keep it Real

The road to insignificance is not paved with bad intentions; it is paved with the well-intended ideas of simply doing “what’s worked before”—or worse, blindly chasing "efficiency" by letting machines do the thinking.

The natural enemy of the Irrelevithm is unfiltered perspective and bold authenticity. Rather than panicking and pivoting product lines, take steps to ensure that clients and consumers (and the AI that indexes them) understand, connect with, and advocate for your brand's specific, irreplaceable identity. Invest in a real, valued experience that fosters loyalty, rather than chasing fleeting, zero-click metrics.

And honestly, I’m not saying don’t use AI—in fact, it’s not going anywhere, so if you aren’t using it…what rock are you living under? What I am saying is that committing to developing a cohesive, well-defined brand takes vision and integrity. Your brand is an enterprise—an adventure that potential clients and consumers should strive to be a part of, feel proud to invest in, and, most importantly, be excited to support and share.

If your brand is facing the creative crossroads, the time is now to pivot, slow things down a little, reject the sterilized homogeneity of AI output, define your future, and start blazing your own unique, unapologetically human, creative trail.