CMOs, forget prompt engineering—adopt personality engineering

AI agents will be the emotional interface between brand and customers, making them an interface CMOs must own by shifting the focus from prompt engineering to personality engineering.

Prompt engineering can only get you so far in taking advantage of the generic personalization capabilities of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). Leave your agents speaking in the voice of a.n.other large language model (LLM), and you will relinquish the differentiators you’ve worked so hard to build and end up responding to every customer with the same voice.

Reject one-size-fits-all GenAI in favor of a voice customers can love

Your choices are the bland, generic—unlovable—experience of one-dimensional communications, as delivered by a one-size-fits-all generative AI, OR, actively engaging and designing how your agents speak, act, and connect, personalizing the approach for every customer interaction.

Amdocs’ CMO Gil Rosen called for the rise of “personality engineering” at the firm’s global analyst day in Kent, UK.

Engineering-in all the different facets of a brand’s personality will be no easy task, but it may solve customer demand for a better experience from their bots. Amdocs shared data showing that while 80% of consumers trust AI, those consumers will only accept interaction with AI if the machines deliver a better experience than we have become used to from humans.

Let the engineers obsess over functionality; CMOs must focus on identity, tone, and emotion

Intentional design should reflect brand archetypes, user context, and customer personas. Let the engineering team obsess over functionality. CMOs must place identity, tone, and emotional resonance front and center in agent design.

Personality engineering must open the door to more nuanced and emotionally engaged communication with a brand. This will end an era in which service-center humans have often become little more than the mouthpiece of bland, rote, computer-scripted company platitudes, creating frustration for customers and brands.

HFS called for urgency in applying GenAI to marketing and customer operations as early as 2023 (see Exhibit 1). Personality engineering indicates the industry is waking to the ramifications and benefits of wide-scale personalization enabled through AI.

Exhibit 1: Customer ops and marketing have long been on GenAI’s hit list, but the emergence of personality engineering means CMOs can shift to the front foot

Source: HFS Research, 2025

Get this wrong, and watch your brand equity erode

Personality engineering offers the opportunity to create a differentiated, emotionally intelligent customer experience. Miss this and watch a thousand generic LLM fails erode your brand equity, cut by cut.

CMOs who approach AI as a cost-cutting opportunity are missing the point. You have at your fingertips the opportunity to strengthen brand ties. Allowing your AI agent to be robotic or generic won’t just disappoint; it will drive churn. Amdocs’ data suggests 61% of consumers will switch for a better AI agent experience.

The Bottom Line: CMOs must lead the charge in creating AI agents that reflect their brand’s voice, values, and emotional intelligence.

Personality engineering may seem like a user experience problem or a tech stack issue, but it’s actually right in the CMO’s wheelhouse. Done wrong, it could be the difference between success and failure for brands in a post-agentic environment. To succeed, your marketing department must own the face of the machine or let your brand be defined by someone else’s code.