Journal / Brand systems
AI brand guidelines: what to put in them
Brand guidelines for ChatGPT and Claude are not a shorter PDF. They are a different document, built to be pasted, checked and kept current.
Vedran ObradovićFounder & Branding Specialist - 2026-10-14 - 6 min
1. A facts register
What is live, what is coming soon, which numbers and customers you may name. AI gets facts wrong long before it gets tone wrong, so this comes first.
2. Never-promise rules
Claims nobody may make: guarantees, unreleased features described as live, competitor comparisons, legal limits. Write them as plain sentences the AI can check against.
3. Voice in examples, not adjectives
"Friendly but professional" means nothing to a model. Ten before-and-after lines in your real voice do. Add the words you always use and the ones you never use.
4. Prompt kits for recurring jobs
- A sales email to a new lead.
- A LinkedIn post about a launch.
- A case study summary.
- A proposal intro.
5. A check before anything ships
A short voice and facts check your team runs on every draft. The draft either passes the rules or gets fixed before a client sees it.
6. One live place
All of it on one link next to the logo files and templates, kept current when the product changes. That is the job of a brand portal, not of a PDF attachment.
This is what goes into the AI Kit and the Rules of Brand OS Portal. See the full page on AI-ready brand guidelines, or run the free AI-Ready Check.
