SharePublished 4/15/26
Craig Carbonniere Jr., CHDM, AVP Sales – Hospitality, Milestone*, Marketing Advisory Board Member
Hotel marketers are wrestling with a familiar tension: AI makes everything faster, but it also makes everything feel the same. This came up in a recent discussion with HSMAI’s Marketing Advisory Board about how teams can keep a real, human sounding voice even when they rely on tools to produce content.
One participant put it simply: “AI won’t erase your voice, but it will expose if you never had one.”
The Sameness Problem
Recent industry literature cites the concern about AI pushing brands toward a single, indistinguishable tone. If teams feed the same prompts into the same tools, the output becomes predictable and flat. For hotels, losing character is losing value.
How Teams Use AI Now
Most teams rely on generative tools for web copy, social posts, review responses, and similar needs. Where things get messy is ownership. More than one person may be writing for the same property. Add turnover, and it’s easy for the tone to drift.
Keeping Brand Voice Consistent
Participants shared what helps them stay aligned:
- Clear brand voice documentation supported by real examples
- Guidelines for prompts to feed to AI tools, not just final content
- A dedicated reviewer or editor to catch brand tone shifts
- Onboarding that actually teaches how the brand sounds
The takeaway: AI isn’t the cause of the inconsistency problem. It magnifies whatever is already happening. Without clear brand guidelines, it’s easy to produce off-brand content, even for humans.
Best Practices for Using Voice With AI
Several challenges and practical solutions were discussed:
Problem: AI tools can lead to content sounding robotic and generic.
Solution: By feeding the AI tool with a well-defined brand voice, real content examples, and target audience data, marketers can ensure AI-generated content stays true to the hotel’s unique brand identity, even at scale.
Problem: AI can create content without context or a clear direction.
Solution: Require writers to paste an approved example before generating new content, ensuring consistency with existing materials.
Problem: AI-generated content may not always match the desired tone or style.
Solution: Let humans set the first lines or outline so that the tool mirrors the existing tone, ensuring a smooth integration with the brand’s voice.
Problem: AI can produce content that lacks polish or nuance.
Solution: Treat AI like a junior writer who always needs editing, allowing human oversight to refine the final output. Keep humans in the loop.
A Simple Process for Hotel Teams
A lightweight process was offered:
- Define
Pull brand and tone guidelines, voice and style rules, and samples into one place.
- Input
Feed content samples, guidelines, and style rules into the tool before generating.
- Generate
Ask the tool for a few variations to avoid relying on a single draft.
- Human Edit
A person shapes the final tone and checks accuracy against the guidelines.
I’ll continue this conversation at a session this June during HSMAI’s Commercial Strategy Conference.
Recommended Reading
Questions to Take Back to Your Team
- How many people on your team are using generative tools for marketing content?
- If multiple people manage one property account, how do you maintain tone alignment?
- How do you train new marketing talent to adopt your voice?
- What brand‑voice rules or samples do you provide to AI before generating content?
- What steps in your workflow ensure a human gives the final approval?
*This article reflects the collective views of the individual HSMAI Advisory Board members, and not the views of the author alone or Milestone.