What Should You Include in a Brief for AI Content?

Before commissioning AI content, agree on what must stay accurate, what the creative team can explore, and who approves the finished work. Put those decisions into a short brief with approved references and a clear delivery list. A useful brief gives the team creative room while making it easy to tell whether the result is ready to publish.

“Make it look like our brand” leaves a lot to interpretation. You might mean the colors, the mood, the product, or the way your customers are represented. Those are different instructions. Separating them early helps you review the work with something more useful than “it feels a little off.”

Start with one use and one audience

Choose where the first piece will appear and what you want the viewer to understand. A playful background for an announcement has a different job from a visual explaining a product. Describe that job in one sentence before discussing styles or tools.

Keep the first assignment small enough to review properly. One concept in a few agreed compositions can teach you more about the working relationship than a folder of loosely connected experiments. Decide which composition comes first, then develop the other versions after the direction is approved.

List the finished files you need: still images or motion, intended placements, dimensions, file types, and any space needed for copy. Ask who will handle layout, final text, and resizing. Treat those as parts of the assignment rather than assuming they arrive with every generated image.

Separate fixed details from creative choices

Make two lists. The fixed list contains information the work must preserve: approved product appearance, exact names, current offer wording, and any other detail your team has verified. The flexible list contains choices such as atmosphere, background, lighting direction, or an abstract visual idea.

For example, a hypothetical beverage campaign might allow an imaginative tropical setting while requiring the actual can artwork to stay intact. The brief should specify whether the real product will be photographed, supplied as an approved image, or added during finishing. Ask the team to explain how it will preserve the details you care about.

If a concept implies something about the product, flag it for review. Showing a product in a particular situation can communicate a claim even when there is no written headline. Have someone who knows the offering check that the visual represents it honestly.

Give the team references with a reason attached

Share a small selection of approved brand material and explain what each reference is for. One photograph might establish the product appearance; another might suggest the warmth of the light. Say which details to carry forward. A reference folder without those notes invites people to guess.

Repeak’s published C2O collection combines product and lifestyle photography in tropical settings. The photograph below shows two people drinking from cans beside a pool, with palms behind them. It illustrates how a real photograph can establish product context and atmosphere for a creative conversation.

View the C2O product and lifestyle work →

This is a reference to published photography, not an example of an AI workflow used for that project. For your own assignment, explain whether you want to borrow a general feeling or preserve a specific approved asset. Use material your team is authorized to provide for the intended work.

Plan review before requesting more variations

Give one person responsibility for gathering feedback. Agree on a first review of the concept, a later review of the detailed execution, and a final check of the delivered files. Ask the provider to put the included revision scope and any additional work into the proposal.

At the concept stage, decide whether the idea serves the audience. During detailed review, inspect the full image and close-up details: product shape, text, hands, reflections, background objects, and anything that accidentally changes the meaning. For motion, watch the whole sequence as well as individual frames.

Review the work in its intended layout too. An attractive image can leave nowhere for a headline, lose the subject when cropped, or become confusing at a small size. Approve the main direction before asking for every variation. Otherwise, a small unresolved problem becomes a folder full of revisions.

Use this example brief for your first assignment

Here is a hypothetical starting brief for a beverage brand exploring a campaign concept. Replace every detail with your own requirements before sharing it.

• Purpose: create a playful visual for an upcoming brand announcement, aimed at people already familiar with our product.
• First use: one website announcement image, with clear space for a headline. Agree on dimensions before production.
• Fixed details: use our supplied, approved product image without changing the packaging or inventing label text.
• Creative room: explore a sunny, abstract tropical background. Avoid implying a new flavor or ingredient.
• References: approved product file for accuracy; selected brand photographs for light and color, with notes explaining each choice.
• Review: approve one concept before adaptations; brand lead consolidates feedback and product lead checks accuracy.
• Delivery: agree on final formats, versions, editable files if needed, and who adds the approved headline.

Choose a useful first experiment

Start with a piece you can evaluate against a clear brief. Ask what the team will generate, what it will build or retouch by hand, and what it needs from you. The value of the assignment is a finished asset that does its job, so include human finishing and review in the conversation.

If you would like help shaping that first assignment, bring Repeak your intended placement, approved brand references, and one idea worth exploring. We can discuss the creative direction and what needs to be resolved before production.

Explore AI content with Repeak →