The rise of AI has completely changed the game for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Tools like ChatGPT and Copilot have unlocked unprecedented productivity by automating repetitive processes, generating mountains of content and eliminating human error.

The challenge is that AI is also a double-edged sword. Everyone has access to the same tools, resulting in the market being flooded with content that fails to hit the mark. While AI can produce content that is technically correct and grammatically flawless, its message is often lifeless and generic. While speed was once the competitive advantage of AI, authenticity and strategic design are becoming more important.

This is where entrepreneurs often fail with AI. They believe that launching the latest and greatest AI model is the secret recipe to success. Unfortunately, many business owners have relied on AI so heavily that they have become nothing more than a passenger in their own story. Their brand’s voice eventually gets lost in an algorithmic jumble of buzzwords and incohesive content.

While AI can do the majority of the heavy lifting, it needs a lot of guidance. Entrepreneurs must understand that their primary role is driving cohesion across various platforms and mediums through scalable systems. Instead of simply being a content creator, you have to embrace the role of Narrative Architect, or Narritect.

Related: Why AI Makes Your Brand Voice More Valuable Than Ever

1. Define your narrative pillars

Like constructing a building, the first step to embracing the role of Narritect is to start with the foundation. Your narrative pillars are the non-negotiable attributes of your entire brand story. By understanding what you want people to experience through your brand, you can create a framework that ensures every post or piece of content aligns with this message.

Defining these core beliefs will provide your team, and more importantly, your AI tools, with the North Star they need. This is a critical step to ensure your brand has clarity at any scale. The last thing you want is to have to waste energy re-explaining your vision across numerous touchpoints with customers. Not only does this provide brand consistency, but it also provides relief from the business owner getting bogged down with every marketing or content decision.

2. Map the narrative flow

Most modern businesses operate across a myriad of platforms, from social media posts to email newsletters to website chatbots. Without narrative architecture, a brand’s message can become inconsistent, diluted or even contradictory across different touchpoints or over time. This can create chaos when trying to shape a consumer’s image of your brand.

As a Narritect, your job is to map the customer journey as a cohesive stream of experiences instead of a series of isolated events to ensure your brand identity stays intact throughout the awareness, engagement, conversion and advocacy stages.

A great way to test your narrative flow is to audit several customer touchpoints. Do they all express the same underlying message, tone or feel? If successful, every touchpoint should align perfectly with your narrative pillars. By creating this synchronization, you’ll be able to remove unnecessary static that can negatively influence consumer perception, brand recognition and trust.

Related: The Unbeatable Power of Storytelling in Today’s AI-Driven World

3. Teach the machines

One of the biggest challenges with AI is that it often defaults to a pre-programmed tone and voice of the underlying model. Unless you give it deliberate instructions, the output will be bland and generic. Many entrepreneurs have compensated by providing the AI model with basic brand guidelines.

The Narritect takes this a step further. Their focus is on helping the AI understand the soul of the brand itself. With this approach, you get the AI model to authentically create content that aligns with your narrative pillars rather than just parroting brand guidelines.

To accomplish this, entrepreneurs need to dedicate time to creating a comprehensive library of resources to train the AI model. These resources can include prompt libraries, detailed descriptions of brand tone and banned buzzwords or industry cliches. Only by helping your AI intimately understand your brand can you leverage it to truly amplify your brand’s authentic voice.

4. Use data to drive real brand refinement

Data is an extremely powerful tool when trying to drive customer engagement. We can measure success through open rates, impressions, clicks and conversions. The challenge is that on the surface, these metrics don’t always tell the whole story. Narritects take these indicators as an opportunity to dig deeper from the perspective of narrative. If the performance of a specific touchpoint declines, it’s critical to understand if the message or story has lost its effectiveness or has somehow become misaligned with your narrative pillars.

Leveraging data storytelling is a powerful way to accelerate trust with your consumer by refining your brand to match what customers are feeling and experiencing in real-time. The best way to do this is to pair quantitative metrics with qualitative data, such as surveys or reviews. This not only helps you refine your brand narrative but also demonstrates that you are genuinely listening to what your customer is saying about your brand.

Related: How to Humanize AI Content: 3 Strategies for Authentic Engagement

5. Build your narrative operating system (OS)

Most importantly, Narritects must have centralized systems in place to successfully and consistently deliver brand storytelling. This Narrative OS will serve as the framework that goes beyond a basic content calendar to guide you and your team. This framework includes a voice map, required narrative elements, best practices and guidelines on how the team will gather and respond to feedback. Having this operating system in place will ultimately ensure that your brand culture remains consistent through rapid changes in the industry, fads, trends and voice drift.

AI alone is no longer a competitive advantage. To truly build a brand that emotionally connects with consumers, entrepreneurs must build the right architecture that allows AI to intentionally and purposefully embody the brand’s authentic voice.