According to Business Insider, companies like Unilever and L’Oreal are now deploying AI chatbots to answer job applicants’ questions with personalized responses. Experts like Victoria Bracco, CEO of Encore Media Agency, argue that AI’s real power for talent attraction lies in data-driven storytelling. It can mine social media, online reviews, and internal feedback to perform sentiment analysis on what people really think about a company. This data is then used to shape job descriptions, career pages, and social media messaging that resonates. The goal is to give candidates clarity on a company’s culture and values before they even apply. However, leaders like Polina Dimitrova of Make warn that AI is not a substitute for an authentic brand strategy.
AI, the brand psychologist
Here’s the thing: a company’s brand used to be what its marketing department said it was. Now, it’s the aggregate of a million online whispers—Glassdoor reviews, LinkedIn rants, TikTok videos from employees. It’s overwhelming. The pitch in this article is that AI can be the tool to listen to all that noise and find the signal. It can identify if people think your company is innovative or stagnant, supportive or cutthroat. That’s powerful intel. Kaz Hassan from Unily points out this lets companies “respond quickly to emerging issues before they become reputation problems.” Basically, it’s a reputation early-warning system. But it also feels a bit… corporate surveillance-y, doesn’t it? Mining employee sentiment to craft an external story walks a fine line between being responsive and being manipulative.
Crafting the “perfect” narrative
So you’ve got all this data. The next step, as outlined, is to use AI to synthesize it and help write the story. It can blend brand sentiment with the skills the company needs and employee performance insights to spit out targeted job posts. The aim is to be unbiased and focus on “culture, purpose, and growth,” as Bracco says. And look, there’s a clear logic here. If you’re a candidate, you want to know the real deal. As seen with L’Oreal’s earlier AI recruitment tools, personalization works. But this is where it gets tricky. Lana Peters from Klaar says AI can “shape an unbiased story,” and that’s a bold claim. AI is only as unbiased as the data it’s fed and the parameters set by humans. An AI tasked with making the company look good is, by definition, not unbiased. It’s a spin doctor.
The human firewall
Thankfully, every expert quoted throws cold water on the idea of full automation. Dimitrova calls out that your brand is fundamentally “how you hire, how you develop people, how leaders behave.” You can’t AI-generate that. Bracco gives the crucial caveat: AI is there to speed things up, but the final message “must have your voice, your judgment, and your direction.” This is the most important paragraph in the whole piece. Because candidates, as they note, can spot a forced message a mile away. An overly polished, AI-perfected story that doesn’t match the reality behind the career page is worse than a messy but authentic one. The “real stories from real people” that Hassan mentions are the antidote. AI might help find those employees with compelling stories, but it shouldn’t write their testimonials for them.
A tool, not a strategy
My take? This is a classic case of a powerful tool being sold as a magic bullet. Using AI to listen and analyze is smart business. Using it to *define* your story is risky. The article positions this as a talent acquisition play, but it’s really a core branding and integrity exercise. If the AI analysis reveals your employees feel unrecognized and under-appreciated, the solution isn’t to craft better social media posts about appreciation. It’s to actually appreciate your employees. As Dimitrova puts it, coming across as disingenuous is a turn-off. The companies that will win are the ones who use AI’s insights to drive real internal change, and then let that authentic change become the story. Anything else is just high-tech perfume on a stagnant culture. And nobody wants to hire into that.
