How Marketers can use AI to Elevate Creative Storytelling and Stay on Brand

Using AI to elevate creative storytelling and stay on brand.

This post is part of the ongoing Partnered Intelligence series exploring practical AI tools for professional-services marketers. Each installment focuses on a different marketing need — from PR and content to design, video, and business development — and the AI tools that can make your work faster, more creative, and more strategic. Today’s spotlight: design and branding.

In professional services, design is often the unsung hero. It’s how clients feel your brand before they ever read a word. Yet design teams (or solo marketers wearing too many hats) are constantly under pressure to produce more content in less time — and keep every pixel on-brand.

AI tools can bridge that gap. They won’t replace designers — but they can help marketers ideate, prototype, and maintain brand consistency with remarkable speed. Here are a few tools I’ve found especially helpful for elevating visual storytelling.

🎨 Canva

Best for: Design, graphics, presentations, and quick-turn visuals.

Why it matters: Canva has become the modern marketer’s Swiss Army knife. The AI features — from text-to-image and background removal to Magic Resize — streamline repetitive design work.

Pro tip: Build brand kits and templates that enforce logo usage, colors, and fonts. This keeps even fast-turn designs aligned with your firm’s identity.

🧠 GetPoppy (Poppy AI)

Best for: Social post visuals, ads, and content virality testing.

Why it matters: GetPoppy helps automate ad and post creation, using AI to suggest high-performing designs and copy pairings. It’s great for marketers testing creative combinations before handing final concepts to designers.

Pro tip: Treat its outputs as idea starters, not finished products — a fast way to spark new visual directions while staying on brand.

🖼️ Midjourney

Best for: Concept art, campaign imagery, and mood boards.

Why it matters: When you need inspiration for a creative direction — say, a visual metaphor for innovation or teamwork — Midjourney’s text-to-image generation is unparalleled.

Pro tip: Use Midjourney early in the design process. Prompt it to create mood board concepts that help align internal stakeholders before production begins.

🧰 Photopea

Best for: Advanced image editing (Photoshop-style) directly in your browser.

Why it matters: For marketers who don’t have Photoshop or need quick edits on the go, Photopea provides professional-level flexibility — layers, masks, filters — without software installs.

Pro tip: Great for resizing or retouching campaign images without sending every change to your design team.

✨ Putting It All Together

AI-powered design tools are at their best when they enhance creative flow, not replace it. Use them to jumpstart ideation, ensure brand consistency, and handle repetitive edits — but keep human judgment front and center.

Before integrating a tool, ask:

• Does it align with our brand guidelines?

• Can it save meaningful time or cost without compromising quality?

• Will it empower non-designers to stay on brand?

  
  

If yes, it’s worth exploring.

Visual storytelling has always been about emotion and clarity — AI just gives us more ways to achieve both. For professional-services marketers, these tools can help bridge the gap between strategy and execution, enabling faster iteration without losing polish or professionalism.

I often tell teams: AI can’t make you creative — but it can remove the barriers that keep you from getting there.

What design or branding tools have you been experimenting with lately? Which ones are helping you keep pace without sacrificing quality?