There is a growing worry that artificial intelligence will make all writing and marketing language sound the same. According to a new study, many financial advisors have been managing to do that without technology.

According to public relations firm Gregory, among the 100 companies in the CNBC Financial Advisor 100, 94 scored below 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 measuring brand originality. 

What that meant, specifically, was firms turning to the same generic phrases to describe themselves on their websites or client service pages. 

Think: Comprehensive. Personalized. Holistic. Independent. Fiduciary. You get the idea.

In all, Gregory used its proprietary AI agent to track 20 terms for the frequency of their appearance on firm websites: comprehensive, personalized, tailored, customized, trusted/trust, holistic, fiduciary, independent, peace of mind, goals/goal-based, partnership, journey, financial wellness/wellbeing, achieve your/their goals, best interest/clients first, disciplined, long-term, wealth management (self-referential), dedicated and client-centric.

Related:SEO and AEO for Financial Advisor Websites

“These are extraordinary businesses as defined by decades of performance, extraordinary client loyalty, billions under management,” said Joe Anthony, president of Gregory. “But their websites all say the same thing. … When every firm sounds identical, none of them sounds credibly differentiated.”

What Anthony calls the “cliché crisis” is a strain on business development programs looking to draw new clients. So while many firms with low originality are successful, their growth trajectories may be limited in an age of more original marketing and younger clientele.

The average originality score across the 100 firms was 5.86. Six laggards were below 4.0, with the team finding “walls of clichés with no identifiable differentiation.”

What about the top performers? Gregory categorized these firms as having a proprietary branding concept that was memorable and could not be copied by competitors.

As Anthony put it, they are the firms that have the “courage to sound like themselves.”

Click through to see the firms and why Gregory liked their branding approach.