People ask me all the time which AI tools we use. Fair question. We use good ones, and I love them. Our agents draft emails, write follow-ups, and build briefs faster than I can say “let me circle back.” Actually, I've never said that in my life.
The tools are the easy part, though. Anyone can buy them. What makes a Brand Vault work is what goes into it. And what goes into it starts with a conversation, and with the questions I ask.
An essay in The New York Times today put words to something I have felt for a long time. Big thanks to my friend Pat Sears for sending me this one this morning. Pat first reached out to me to help Temple Sinai in Vermont with their marketing, and we've become great friends since.
What does the New York Times essay say?
Short answer: It says the slow, messy middle of making something is where a person's point of view shows up. AI makes that part very easy to skip.
The essay is “A.I. Shortcuts Are Ruining How We Think” by Giorgia Lupi, a New York Times Opinion essay published September 27, 2026. It also ran under the headline “The Path to Great Art Is Not Through A.I.” Her subject is art and creativity. Her point is that AI differs from older tools because it can hand you a finished result before any creative thinking has happened. Reach for it too early, and you can cut out the stage where your own experience and point of view shape the work.
She worries that, over time, this could wear away something very human: the slow way lived experience turns into a clear point of view. The essay's summary line says it well: “Anything worth remembering came from a person who did not know where she or he was going until arriving.” Read the essay in The New York Times. Heads up, it may be behind a paywall.
Do we agree with all of it?
Short answer: Mostly. Lupi is more skeptical of AI than we are, and she is writing about art. We write emails and briefs for busy executives.
We run AI agents every day, and they are great at scale. So our point is narrower. Human thinking comes first. Then AI takes that thinking and scales it. The order is everything.
To be clear, this is Lupi's essay about art. We simply saw our own process in it.
How does this match the way we build a Brand Vault?
Short answer: The Brand Vault is the human part, done first. The agents come after.
Your Brand Vault is the guardrails for everything the agents write. It holds your executive's voice: tone, phrasing, sign-offs, and the words they use and steer clear of. Every email draft, follow-up, and brief is written inside the vault, so it reads like it came from them.
We build it before the agents launch. Here is how:
- We gather how your executive already talks and writes: sent emails, call recordings, talks, and bios.
- We interview your executive and the team.
- We test drafts until your executive says they sound like them.
- We learn from every edit they make.
That is the slow part Lupi is talking about. We do it on purpose, and a person does it. Once the vault holds a real point of view, the agents can move fast and keep it.
What part of discovery can only a person do?
Short answer: Asking the right questions, and noticing when an answer is still too vague. That part is me.
Gathering emails is the easy half. The real work happens in the interviews. I listen for the thing that makes a business different. Usually it is buried under words like “quality” and “service” that every company in the category uses.
So I ask a series of questions. A few of my favorites:
- What are your revenue goals?
- What do the tire-kickers just NOT get about your company?
- What's your most underappreciated differentiator?
Then I follow my curiosity until something true and specific shows up. I basically turn into a wannabe reporter doing an exposé on their business. The good kind, where the only secrets I dig up are the ones that make them look great.
I was born a marketer. I was a creative kid, and I made up words for almost everything. In high school, a friend told me I should write “Deana Rock's Book of Slang.” That friend had a point.
I've owned my own business since 1995. I had to sell my own brand, or I wouldn't survive. That taught me what my clients feel every day, because when it's your name on the door, the marketing has to work. All of that goes into those conversations. It ends up in the vault, and the agents work with whatever is in there. My thinking is the raw material.
“You have to know what to ask. You've got to get them to tell exactly what makes them unique. If they don't know that and it's not blatantly obvious to me, then we aren't a good fit for them.”
Deana Rock, Co-Founder and President, RevRocket
The bots are good. The questions are the secret.
What if a business can't say what makes it unique?
Short answer: We tell them on day one that we aren't a good fit. Honest and early beats polite and late.
Sometimes I ask every question I've got and the answer stays fuzzy. If the owner can't say what makes them unique, and it isn't obvious to me either, the vault would be thin. The agents would write the same polite, forgettable stuff everyone else gets.
So we say it on day one. Kindly and plainly. It saves everyone time, money, and a few awkward meetings down the road.
The short version
AI is a great amplifier. It scales whatever you give it. Give it a clear, specific point of view, and it scales that. So we start with people, questions, and a lot of listening. Then we let the agents run.
Agents do the work. You have the final say.
Want drafts that sound like you?
Afterburn turns your meetings and calls into drafts, tasks, and follow-ups, all written inside your Brand Vault. Start with a fit call. We'll give you a straight answer, and we'll keep it friendly either way.
Or take the quick Am I a Fit? check first.