Published on 2025-05-18 13:04
By day, I advise on AI and GTM strategy. By night, I fought a box cutter, a glue gun… and proved a point AI still can’t touch.
This week, I ran a little experiment.
I designed a graduation box for my daughter and also asked AI to generate one too. Something beautiful. Something meaningful.
And honestly, AI did a solid job (right photo). Clean, polished, visually striking.
But here’s what it didn’t do:
Stay up late with a box cutter
Burn its finger on a hot glue gun
Get the warmest hug and biggest smile when my daughter saw it
Hear her friends say, “That’s the cutest graduation box I’ve ever seen”
Watch people pause to leave sweet, heartfelt notes inside
We wrapped it up with the most incredible graduation party at home with 120+ of our dearest family and friends came together to celebrate her.
And now, she’s counting down the days until she becomes a proud CU Buff at the University of Colorado Boulder.
This whole moment reminded me that marketing isn’t arts and crafts. But it lives at the intersection of strategy, creativity, and human connection.
AI can assist, accelerate, and even inspire. But it can’t copy love, laughter, or the pride in creating something with your own hands.
It can’t recreate something so imperfect but so perfect for the moment.
Will AI ever replace that?
Maybe it’ll match the look and feel. But the memory, the meaning, the human in it all?
That’s still ours.
