There’s a Right Way to Market Your Business Using AI – and a Wrong One

You may have already seen influencers and marketing coaches promoting and encouraging the use of AI for marketing your business. So, let’s chat about that. 

To put it simply, generative AI has unlocked a whole lot of potential. This type of artificial intelligence is trained by data input to teach it how to create text, images and more. This has given the average user the potential to generate articles, create or alter images, and even brainstorm ideas by inputting a simple request. Now, this technology is incredible– however, it has opened up several topics for discussion. 

The largest conversation topics currently include:

• the appreciation of human-made creation and the protection of artists
• how AI work can be cited for plagiarism and how its data input may be stealing from creators
• the legality of AI and how future regulations may look

First and foremost, content made by generative AI isn’t a human product. That not only means that it may be severely flawed, but it may feel inhuman or unnatural as well. AI work shouldn’t be used in place of a human touch, in many cases, because there’s no way to replicate the skills, creativity, and knowledge of a living person. You also need to be aware that some forms of AI may be stealing from artists, in a way, as their creations may have been input and used to train the AI to create. The AI may not have only ‘learned’ from the art, but may end up wrongfully copying it as well. 

This leads us into our next point– the accidental plagiarism you may commit by using generative AI. There have been cases where AI creations have been cited for plagiarism because they generated text (or pieces of art) that was provided for them to learn from. Artificial intelligence doesn’t operate with the full capacity to avoid potential problems like this, so you should be wary that any ‘creations’ may actually be stolen. 

Lastly, as the United States begins to tackle the dilemma of regulating and creating laws surrounding the use of AI, it’s important to watch how the situation unfolds. There will likely be limits to how AI may be used, though we have yet to know what that will look like. We should have some idea in the near future, because as of September of 2023, California has been working to start the framework. Their governor signed an executive order “to study the development, use, and risks of artificial intelligence (AI) technology” so that the government could begin to formulate a response to its rapid evolution. As California is often the first state to enact laws and regulations about new technology, we recommend keeping an eye on how they proceed. 

Given all of this discourse related to generative AI use, you must be thinking ‘what is the right way to use it?’ We’re glad you asked! 

So, here’s what we think: use AI to help you brainstorm, improve your work, and edit your images. We would avoid its use for creation, as of now. This will help you not only avoid the biggest problems surrounding AI, but it may also protect you from the future legal implications. 

By utilizing AI as a tool to help you enhance your work, you will still have that human touch– but with a computer’s brain assisting you. For instance:

• Request that AI spell checks your work or adjusts your text to sound more friendly! This is not only helpful, but it means your content can still be human-made. It’s best if your copy is written by a real person, for that special human touch that can showcase how unique your business is!
• Ask AI to edit people or objects out of the background of your pictures! By using a real image, you’re still showing your audience something special to your business. The help with editing is just a special touch that makes the work easier!
• AI can be especially helpful when you need to brainstorm some ideas! Request lists of blog topics, FAQs, or social media post ideas to use for your business. The options are endless when you’re just looking for inspiration, and AI can quickly find it for you.

When it comes to marketing, we know that nothing is as good as the real thing. That’s one reason why we suggest staying away from the use of generative AI for creating any content– and instead, suggest you to use it as an additional resource to what you already have: your own brain!

If you need more help than that, we have a team of experts with real human brains and we’d love to share our talents with you. Let’s get in touch!