The Rest of the Story
The New Consumer Behavior
“Hi, my name is Kat. Please keep in mind that my age is 13–14 years old. Can you make me a short story about Arin and Lloyd’s father and son relationship (Lloyd’s the dad, Arin’s the son) from ‘Ninjago: Dragons Rising’? Can you make it heavy with angst and hurt/comfort? Can you also use info from the show, please?”
This was my daughter’s prompt to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. She wrote it after finishing the latest season of her favorite show and reading every piece of fan fiction she could find.
Before you draw conclusions about the “heavy angst” and “hurt/comfort” angle, understand that Ninjago: Dragons Rising is a show that leans heavily into emotional depth and dramatic storytelling. It’s what draws her in (and hey, she’s not alone!).
The result of her prompt led to an hour of “Can you do one where…” and “For the next chapter, make this happen…” But it also led to something bigger: a realization that emerging consumers are no longer waiting for what they want. They’re creating it.
This wasn’t just a sweet moment. It was a signal. Today’s consumers, especially younger ones, don’t just consume content. They expect to co-create it. That expectation is reshaping what brands must deliver.
My Gen Alpha child isn’t content with sitting back and waiting for the next season of her favorite show when she can shape and mold it to her liking with tools right at her fingertips. Mainstream generative AI has introduced a new kind of access. That breathtaking artwork she wants for her wall? It’s now a personalized image created with AI, ordered by an AI agent, and already on its way to our front door. Her new favorite song? She created it. Lyrics bouncing off a beat that matched her mood.
The Opportunity for Brands
While this may seem intimidating to some, it’s actually an invitation. This is an opportunity for brands to engage with consumers in new, interactive ways. Instead of viewers simply waiting for the next season of a show, imagine if they were invited to co-create it. A brand’s generative AI could be deployed to allow fans to submit scripts, remix plotlines, and vote on which ideas get brought to life.
Coca-Cola recently offered a glimpse into what brand co-creation can look like with its “Create Real Magic” campaign. The brand invited digital artists to generate Coke-inspired art using tools like GPT-4 and DALL·E, resulting in over 120,000 unique pieces of artwork and millions of organic impressions across social platforms, without any reported ad spend. This wasn’t just a tech flex. Coca-Cola used AI to democratize access to its brand assets while maintaining quality and alignment with its identity.
This invitation to co-create with Coca-Cola also gave the company rich insight into how users engaged with the experience. Every image created, shared, or reinterpreted became a datapoint, helping the brand understand audience sentiment and fine-tune future messaging. By balancing AI with human creativity, Coca-Cola showed how legacy brands can stay relevant not just by using AI, but by making space for consumers to help shape the story.
Reebok Impact, on the other hand, failed to gain traction in its attempt to introduce co-created AI designs. Just nine months after its press release, the project shows little to no social media presence and even less user activity.
This contrast highlights two key insights:
- Participation needs to be immediate and meaningful. Consumers want to feel like they’re part of something with future outcomes.
- Ease of use matters. Coca-Cola embedded a generative AI tool directly into their site that resembled a simple chatbox. It was intuitive, accessible, and easy to use. Reebok, on the other hand, required users to navigate a complex three-part system with multiple input steps before seeing any output.
When the process is simple and rewarding, users are more likely to stick around because they get to be part of the story in ways they never could before.
The Risk of Ignoring It
Consumers are becoming more selective about how they experience brands. They want content tailored to their preferences in a way that does not feel forced upon them by opaque algorithms. Co-creating tells consumers that what they’re getting isn’t just based on their data but also their input.
As marketing evolves in how it collects and organizes information, the strategy behind it must also evolve. We’re beyond the era of blindly accepting terms and conditions. AI tools can now summarize these documents in seconds, exposing clauses that may put users at a disadvantage. People understand that data is currency and increasingly question systems that extract it without offering meaningful value in return.
This is especially true among younger users. Many have had a digital footprint since childhood, giving AI a rich history to pull from when making predictions about their preferences. It’s important to remember that AI doesn’t "learn" in the human sense. It identifies patterns and predicts what users are most likely to respond to. This process, known as reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF), powers much of the personalization we see today.
Imagine that level of algorithmic customization applied across all consumer experiences, from shopping to streaming—like Netflix’s “Recommended for You” or Amazon’s “You May Also Like,” but for every category of consumption.
In the U.S., legislation has not yet caught up to the broader implications of AI technology. This gap offers an opportunity for businesses to lead by example, setting standards in how they collect, store, and use data. Increased transparency and consumer-first policies will build deeper trust and long-term loyalty.
How Brands Can Respond
Establishing your brand's position on data privacy in a way that is both transparent and clear allows businesses to serve as a solution to users' concerns and a trusted source on ethical AI. This moment presents a chance for businesses to lead on what matters most: safety, authenticity, and convenience. Brands that embrace co-creation, respect user agency, and rethink personalization will not only keep up, they’ll lead.
Whether through interactive tools, content remixing, transparent data use, or meaningful feedback loops, brands that invite users to shape their experience will create more meaningful, lasting connections. If they don’t, consumers will do what my daughter did. They’ll take it into their own hands and write the rest of the story themselves.
