# Brand voice for AI: teach the Designer how your brand sounds

[Canonical HTML page](https://gradiently.design/guide/brand-kit-voice)

An AI writes like everyone until you tell it who you are. Gradiently's Designer reads your brand kit before it writes a word, and a few fields do most of the work.

## The short version

- Gradiently's Designer reads the brand kit before it writes, and writes in the kit's voice.
- The voice section holds up to five tone words, a short description in your own words, and lists of what the brand always and never does.
- Audience and About matter as much as tone, because they tell the Designer who it is writing for and what the brand actually offers.
- Specific instructions such as "never use exclamation marks" change AI copy far more than adjectives like "friendly".
- The brand kit is part of Gradiently Pro, and only workspace owners and admins can edit it.

To teach an AI your **brand voice for AI** writing, give it rules it can follow rather than adjectives it has to guess at. In Gradiently, that happens in the brand kit: the Designer reads it before every design and writes in its voice. Four fields carry most of the weight: **Tone**, **In your words**, **Always** and **Never**, backed by **About** and **Who it's for**. Fill those well and the copy that comes back sounds like you on a good day.

This page is about the words. For the full kit, logos and colours included, see [brand kit setup](https://gradiently.design/guide/brand-kit-setup).

## Which brand kit fields the Designer reads

The [Designer](https://gradiently.design/guide/designer-ai-guide) uses the whole kit, but each part shapes something different. Identity and audience decide what it says. Voice decides how it says it. Colours and fonts decide how it looks.

| Field | What you write | What it changes |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Brand name and tagline | The name, and one line on what you do | How the brand is named and introduced |
| About | What you make or offer and what makes it different, up to 1,200 characters | The facts it draws on, so it stops inventing them |
| Tone | Up to five words from a set list | The overall register of every line |
| In your words | How the brand sounds, up to 400 characters | Rhythm, warmth, formality |
| Always / Never | Plain rules, up to 600 characters each | Habits it keeps and habits it drops |
| Who it's for and Industry | One sentence on your audience, and your field | Vocabulary, references, what to explain |
| Colours, fonts, logos | Hex codes, a heading and body face, logo files | How the design looks around the words |

The brand kit fields, from the Brand page, and what each one does to the Designer's work.

## Tone: choose fewer words than you think

The Tone field offers twelve words and lets you pick up to five. Most brands are clearer with three. Every extra word dilutes the others, and some pairs pull against each other: *playful* and *serious* together tell the Designer nothing.

- **Warm, calm, friendly:** cafés, florists, wellness, local services.
- **Precise, technical, confident:** software, engineering, finance tools.
- **Bold, rebellious, witty:** streetwear, music, independent drinks brands.
- **Luxurious, calm, precise:** jewellery, hotels, architecture studios.
- **Playful, warm, witty:** children's products, bakeries, games.

The tone words set the register. The next three fields are where your brand stops sounding like every other warm, friendly brand.

## In your words, Always and Never: write rules, not wishes

An AI follows instructions it can check. "Be approachable" is a wish; "use first names and contractions" is a rule. The best entries are specific enough that two different writers would produce similar copy from them, which is the same test [brand guidelines for AI](https://gradiently.design/guide/brand-guidelines-for-ai) recommends for any assistant.

### Vague

- Friendly and professional
- Engaging, modern copy
- Always on brand
- Never boring

### Specific

- Short sentences. Contractions. Say "we", not "the team".
- Lead with the thing itself: the bread, the date, the price.
- Always say where the coffee comes from.
- Never use exclamation marks, slang or "amazing".

Here is a complete voice section for a small roastery, written to fit inside the field limits. Notice that half of it is about what not to do. Negative rules are often the quickest way to remove the generic AI tone.

```text
Tone:          Warm, Calm, Precise

In your words: Plain and warm, like a regular chatting at the counter.
               Short sentences. British spelling. Never shouty.

Always:        Say where the coffee comes from.
               Name the roast and the brew method.
               Give real times and prices when we have them.

Never:         Exclamation marks, emoji, slang or "amazing".
               Words like "artisanal" or "curated".
               Promise anything we haven't confirmed.
```

A full voice section for a roastery. Each line is something the Designer can either do or visibly fail to do.

## About and audience: the facts behind the voice

A voice without facts produces confident nonsense. **About** is where you put what the brand actually offers: what you make, where, for whom, and what makes it different. Up to 1,200 characters is room for your products, your opening hours, your one unusual promise. When the Designer has those, it uses them instead of inventing filler.

**Who it's for** shapes the vocabulary. *Busy professionals in the city who care where their coffee comes from* produces different copy from *students who want somewhere warm to work*. Choose the industry too, or describe your own if none fits. If you are still working out who the brand is, [brand personality](https://gradiently.design/guide/brand-personality) and [brand voice](https://gradiently.design/guide/brand-voice-and-visuals) are good first reads.

An Instagram post with generic copy reading New beans just dropped, with no details

With an empty kit: generic excitement and no facts.

The same post written in the roastery's voice, naming the origin, roast day and brew method

With the roastery's kit: origin, roast and method, in its calm voice.

## Fill the kit in faster from your website

You don't have to start from blank fields. Add your website in Identity and choose **Read site**: Gradiently fetches the site's name, description, colour and icon, and offers each one to use or ignore. The description often makes a decent first tagline or About. [Import your brand from your website](https://gradiently.design/guide/import-brand-from-website) covers what it reads and how to get the best result.

## How to test your brand voice

1. **Ask for three ordinary posts** Pick everyday jobs, not launches: opening hours change, a new product, a thank you. Ordinary posts are where generic tone creeps in.
2. **Read them aloud** If a line sounds like something you'd never say to a customer, find the rule that would have stopped it and add it to Never.
3. **Check every fact** Invented details mean About is thin. Add the real ones: hours, prices, places, names.
4. **Ask again and compare** Run the same request after the change. One rule at a time makes it obvious which edits help.

> **Who can change the voice** The brand kit is part of Pro. In a shared workspace, only owners and admins can edit it; editors and viewers can see it, and their designs still use it. Each brand you run has its own kit, so a second brand gets its own voice.

The same kit reaches beyond the Studio. When you connect ChatGPT or Claude to Gradiently, the assistant can read your brand profile, voice included, before it lays anything out; see [Gradiently in Claude](https://gradiently.design/guide/design-with-claude-connector). And for a wider set of techniques for words on designs, read [writing copy for visuals](https://gradiently.design/guide/writing-copy-for-visuals).

## FAQ

### How do I teach AI my brand voice?

Give it specific, checkable rules: a few tone words, a short description, and lists of what you always and never do. In Gradiently these live in the brand kit, which the Designer reads before it writes.

### How many tone words should I choose?

Three is usually clearest. The field allows up to five, but each extra word weakens the others, and contradictory pairs cancel out.

### Why does AI copy still sound generic?

Usually because the instructions are adjectives rather than rules, or because the brand's real facts are missing. Add concrete Never rules and fill in About.

### Do ChatGPT and Claude use my Gradiently brand voice?

When connected to Gradiently, they can read your brand profile, including its voice, through the Gradiently tools before they design.

### Is the brand kit free?

The brand kit is part of Gradiently Pro. Free accounts can still design with any unclaimed Mark.