Lessons from Alex Pollock on Personal Branding in the AI Era

Picture this: a sauce-splattered apron, a kitchen swirling with aromas, and the chef—Alex Pollock—waving a wooden spoon. Except, in this kitchen, ingredients are tweets and LinkedIn posts, and the main dish is personal branding in the wild, unpredictable AI age.

Alex Pollock’s approach to brand-building isn’t confined to shiny logos or clever taglines. He’s a storyteller, a curator, a conductor of chaos. In a time when algorithms and deepfakes threaten to turn everyone’s online presence into lukewarm soup, Alex’s focus is raw, honest connection. Dodging AI sameness means showing up as you, defenses down, quirks cranked to eleven.

One golden nugget he often shares? “If ChatGPT could say it, don’t.” AI can write decent bios and spit out “passionate about innovation” by the truckload. But when Alex posts, he leans in to the left-field stuff: book recommendations nobody else is talking about, jokes about his coffee habit, failures that still sting, and questions he honestly can’t answer. That unpredictability is his signature sauce. Data backs him up—profiles with authentic quirks see engagement soar. Nearly 68% of professionals trust the people behind a brand more than traditional marketing.

Alex skips the stock photos. He might share a blurry selfie from a 3am hackathon or a picture of his dog crashing a video call. While AI can craft flawless headshots, audiences crave sincerity, not curated perfection. Pollock’s mantra? “If your life isn’t Instagrammable, it’s probably interesting.” It’s this kind of vulnerability that makes connections last longer than a viral TikTok.

AI tools are fantastic for grunt work—scheduling posts, brainstorming catchy headers, tracking analytics. But it’s the human oddities, the voice that cracks now and then, the moments of self-doubt woven into captions—that forge trust. People remember stories, not data dumps. Pollock advises treating every AI tool as a flashlight, not a replacement chef.