> This page is part of the [Customer.io documentation](https://docs.customer.io). For the complete index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.customer.io/llms.txt).
> Last updated: September 24, 2026
> To take actions in Customer.io from an agent, use the [Customer.io CLI](https://docs.customer.io/ai/cli/get-started.md) or the [MCP server](https://docs.customer.io/ai/mcp/get-started.md).

# Generate styles & brand rules with AI

From Design Studio's *Styles* page, you can automatically pull styles and content rules from a variety of sources to generate a coherent brand document for your Design Studio messages.

Global styles capture your brand’s *values*—a color’s hex code, a font family, and more. The brand document captures the *rules*: which role each color plays, which pairings you use, how much space separates a headline from its body, and the tone of your copy. AI features in Design Studio read this document before they write or edit email content, so their output is more consistent across your files.

This feature requires Customer.io AI

Generating a brand document requires [Customer.io AI](/accounts/security/ai-settings/) turned on for your account.

## Generate your styles & brand document

This is a great task for Customer.io’s agent or a third-party agent to handle. You can prompt it to generate your styles and brand info, provide the files and websites it should pull from, and then it’ll extract and save this info to Design Studio.

 ![](https://docs.customer.io/images/prompt-generate-styles.png)

In your Customer.io workspace, you can start this process by clicking **Generate** at the top of *Styles* or under the *Brand* section.

1.  Go to **Design Studio**, and choose *Styles*.
2.  Click *Generate*.
3.  [Add up to five sources](#add-your-sources) and click **Generate**.
4.  Review the suggested variables and components.

     ![](https://docs.customer.io/images/ds-style-generation.png)

    If you’re regenerating styles, make sure you understand which values would be overwritten. After the final review stage (step 7), saving styles that overwrite others may impact your emails. Look for the label “Overwrites current value”.
5.  Make your style choices. Select each change you want. Unselect any change you don’t want to save.
6.  Review the [brand document](#brand-document) Design Studio writes from those sources.
7.  Click **Save updates** to save your styles and brand document together.

You can also [update the brand document](#edit-the-brand-document) later without regenerating it. Anyone with edit access to Design Studio content can open it in *Styles* and revise a section directly.

## Add your sources

Include multiple brand assets and links to generate your styles and brand rules.

**You can add up to five sources per run.** If you want to update styles from more than five files, run the generator again with your additional sources.

### Website URLs

Add a link to a website that reflects your brand.

Design Studio scrapes the website you link to—not a single page. When you generate your styles from a website, Design Studio gathers brand assets and suggestions to augment your global style colors.

If you already set up a [sending domain](https://fly.customer.io/workspaces/last/settings/actions/email/sending_domains), you’ll see it as an option when choosing sources. Your domain doesn’t have to be verified, and if you have multiple sending domains, we use the oldest one.

Design Studio can’t scrape internal or private network addresses, `localhost`, free email domains like gmail.com, or disposable domains. It also can’t read computed or interactive styles like hover states and transitions.

Your URL must load a webpage

If a URL doesn’t load a webpage, Design Studio can’t generate styles from it. You’ll have to [manually enter your styles](/messaging/design-studio/emails/styles/set-styles/) or remove that source and try another.

### Uploaded files

Drop in screenshots or images, PDF files, or text files including CSS, HTML, JSON, Markdown, CSV, or email exports (`.eml`).

Customer.io can’t read Word documents, PowerPoint files, design-tool files like Figma or Sketch, video, audio, or archives. Convert or export relevant content from those into one of the supported types first.

## What’s in the brand document?

The document is a brand guide based on how Customer.io’s AI interprets the sources you give it. It’s organized into the following sections:

*   **Brand essence**: a description of your brand’s visual personality, in language specific enough to distinguish you from a competitor in the same category.
*   **Signature moves**: design elements that make your brand uniquely yours, like a layout habit or a recurring color pairing.
*   **Color system**: the role each color plays—like background, text, and accent—the measured contrast ratio for any pairing that carries text, and which pairings fail accessibility standards.
*   **Typography**: the detected fonts mapped to email-safe font stacks. Includes sizes, weights, and line heights for each text style.
*   **Layout & structure**: container width, section padding, spacing between elements, and corner-radius conventions.
*   **Components**: specs for the parts of your email—header, hero, buttons, cards, dividers, footer—each dense enough to build from.
*   **Assets**: a table of any brand images you imported during style generation, their intended role, and usage rules. This section only appears when you imported assets as sources. Design Studio saves them to your asset library.
*   **Voice & tone**: a description of your reading level and sentence length, a list of words and phrases to use and avoid, and separate guidance for subject lines, preheaders, and call-to-action copy.
*   **Evidence & limitations**: what the sources actually showed, what Design Studio inferred rather than observed, and anything the sources couldn’t confirm.

Wherever a color or type value already exists as a variable, the document cites that variable directly instead of restating a hex code or pixel value. This keeps your document and styles inline.

## Generate only brand rules

You can also exclusively generate brand rules if you already set up your styles.

1.  Go to **Design Studio**, and choose *Styles*.
2.  Click *Generate*.
3.  [Add up to five sources](#add-your-sources) and click **Generate**.
4.  Uncheck every box to keep your existing styles in tact.
5.  Click **Generate**.
6.  Review the [brand document](#brand-document) Design Studio writes from those sources.
7.  Click **Save updates** to save your brand rules only.

## Edit the brand document

After you generate the brand file, you can click **Edit** at any time to update the content as markdown. You don’t have to regenerate the document with AI to change the contents.

However, keep in mind that your [assets library](https://fly.customer.io/workspaces/last/assets) stores your brand document’s assets—screenshots, logos, and other references to your sources. So if you want to make a change to the assets referenced by the document, you have to change them in both the brand document and your assets library, located in the folder titled “Brand”. You can also ask the agent to make these changes for you.

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