Snapchat and Google Just Sent Brands the Same Warning About AI
- Sophia Brading
- Aug 1
- 6 min read
Snapchat is restricting wholly AI-generated videos from its Spotlight recommendations. Google says AI-assisted content can perform well when it is genuinely useful.
At first, these appear to be two very different responses to artificial intelligence.
Snapchat seems to be drawing a line against AI content.
Google appears willing to accept it.
But look more closely and both companies are sending brands the same message:
AI can help create content. It cannot replace the human value that makes content worth seeing.
This is what I have believed from the beginning.
AI will transform how businesses research, create and communicate. It can make marketing faster, more efficient and more accessible.
But when every business can access similar technology, the technology itself will not be the differentiator.
Being human will be.
What Snapchat has actually changed
Snapchat has not banned AI-generated video from its platform.
Instead, Snap has announced that videos produced wholly by AI will no longer be eligible for recommendation within Spotlight, its short-form video feed.
That distinction matters.
People may still be able to create and share AI-generated content. Snapchat is simply deciding that fully synthetic videos will not receive the same opportunity for algorithmic promotion.
The company says it wants Spotlight to reward authentic creativity, personal stories and original perspectives from real people.
It is not rejecting AI entirely.
Content that has been edited or enhanced using AI tools may still be eligible for recommendation. Snap is also continuing to develop AI-powered tools for users and advertisers.
Its position is therefore not anti-technology.
It is drawing a line between:
Human creativity supported by AI
and
AI-generated content with little meaningful human contribution
That difference will become increasingly important for brands.
Google is taking a different route
Google does not automatically reject website content because generative AI was used to produce it.
Its official guidance recognises that AI can help businesses research topics, organise information and structure original material.
However, Google also warns against using AI to publish large volumes of pages without adding meaningful value.
Its priority remains content that is useful, reliable and created primarily for people rather than content designed simply to influence search rankings.
Google is not asking:
“Was AI used?”
It is asking:
“Is this content worth finding?”
That is an mportant question.
Google’s guidance increasingly encourages businesses to produce original, non-commodity content based on first-hand experience, expertise and distinctive points of view.
In other words, Google does not simply want another article repeating what already exists online.
It wants businesses to contribute something meaningful.
Different policies, one conclusion
Snapchat is deciding what deserves to be recommended within a social feed.
Google is deciding what deserves visibility in search.
They operate differently because they are solving different problems.
But both are looking for similar signals:
Originality
Useful information
Real experience
Expert judgement
Authentic creativity
A recognisable human contribution
Neither company is rejecting AI as a tool.
Both are questioning content that exists only because a machine could produce it quickly.
AI is creating an age of commodity content
Before generative AI, producing a strong article, video or campaign required time, skill and resources.
That naturally limited how much content organisations could create.
AI has changed that.
A business can now generate multiple blog articles, dozens of social posts, a video script and an email campaign in a single afternoon.
The volume of content is rising dramatically.
Human attention is not.
That creates a simple commercial reality.
When something becomes easier and cheaper to produce, the ability to produce it becomes less valuable.
The competitive advantage moves towards what remains difficult to automate:
Experience. Judgement. Originality. Personality. Proof.
AI will not make content irrelevant.
It will make generic content easier to ignore.
The real mistake businesses are making
The mistake is not using AI.
The mistake is expecting AI to provide the original thinking.
Ask an AI tool to write an article explaining why a business needs a professional website and it will probably produce something perfectly competent.
It may discuss first impressions, mobile responsiveness, credibility and user experience.
None of that is necessarily wrong.
But it could have been written for almost any company, by almost anyone.
Now consider a different starting point:
Why did potential customers hesitate before contacting us?
What did they misunderstand about our service?
What patterns have we noticed across recent projects?
What changes produced the strongest results?
What have we learnt that our clients would benefit from knowing?
That material comes from real experience.
AI can help organise it, strengthen the structure and make the writing clearer.
But the value came from the business.
This is the difference between using AI to amplify expertise and using AI to simulate expertise.
What businesses must add that AI cannot
To create content that remains valuable in an AI-saturated market, businesses need to contribute something the technology could not know without them.
Experience
What has your organisation learnt by doing the work?
Your strongest content may already exist inside client conversations, completed projects, internal meetings and the minds of experienced employees.
A hotel may know what genuinely influences a guest’s booking decision.
An architect may recognise a recurring mistake that causes projects to stall.
A professional services firm may understand the concerns clients are reluctant to say aloud.
These insights are far more valuable than another general list of industry tips.
Judgement
Information is abundant.
Judgement is not.
Useful content helps people understand what matters, what can be ignored and what they should do next.
Businesses should be prepared to explain:
What they recommend
What they would avoid
What clients regularly misunderstand
Where money is often wasted
Which common industry assumptions they challenge
How they would approach a difficult decision
AI can summarise existing opinions.
A strong business should be able to form one.
Proof
AI can generate a claim.
It cannot create genuine evidence that the claim is true.
Strong marketing should include proof wherever possible:
Case studies
Client results
Project details
Testimonials
Original photographs
Before-and-after examples
Data gathered by the business
Lessons from real situations
Proof turns polished language into something believable.
What this means for content marketing
The answer is not to stop publishing.
It is to stop treating volume as the goal.
One useful article based on real expertise can be more valuable than ten generic articles targeting slightly different search terms.
A strong piece of content might:
Explain a difficult buying decision
Compare two genuine options
Answer a recurring client question
Challenge a misleading industry belief
Share lessons from a completed project
Reveal an insight from customer research
Turn technical knowledge into something buyers can understand
The strongest content does not begin with a keyword or a prompt.
It begins with something worth knowing.
What this means for brands
For years, businesses have removed personality from their communications in an attempt to appear more professional.
Websites became filled with familiar statements:
“Committed to excellence.”
“Delivering tailored solutions.”
“Putting clients at the heart of everything we do.”
These phrases are not necessarily false.
They are simply so widely used that they no longer help a buyer distinguish one company from another.
AI can now produce polished corporate language instantly.
That makes recognisable human language even more valuable.
The brands people remember will have a perspective.
They will sound like someone.
They will show how they think, what they notice and why their work matters.
AI should reveal the business, not replace it
At Colloco, we use AI because it can improve research, uncover opportunities, accelerate processes and help strong ideas travel further.
But the technology should support the thinking, not replace it.
The danger is not that businesses will use AI.
The danger is that they will use it to remove everything that makes them interesting.
Their experience becomes a generic summary.
Their opinions become safe statements.
Their personality becomes polished corporate language.
Their expertise becomes another article that could belong to any competitor.
The result may look professional.
But it will not create preference.
This is particularly important for established organisations experiencing a perception gap.
The expertise, quality and personality already exist inside the business.
The challenge is making sure the outside world can see them.
AI can help communicate that value more efficiently.
It cannot invent it on the organisation’s behalf.
Being human will become the difference
Snapchat and Google are responding to AI-generated content in different ways because they operate different platforms.
But both recognise that the internet does not need an unlimited supply of repetitive, low-value content.
It needs useful knowledge.
Original creativity.
Real experience.
Clear judgement.
A reason to trust the person or business behind the message.
The organisations that benefit most from AI will not be those that surrender their marketing to it.
They will be those that understand what they know, recognise what makes them different and use technology to communicate it more powerfully.
AI will make content abundant.
Humanity will make brands distinctive.
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