Generative AI has taken the world by storm. The excitement over exploring its potential applications has been palpable these last few months. However, regulation and best practices have struggled to keep pace with innovation and we’ve ended up in a market free-for-all. Several tech leaders have even called for a pause on AI development until we get some clear guidelines in place.

Regardless, the generative AI technology that already exists holds a lot of promise for marketers when used responsibly. Generative AI offers a solution to quickly personalize relevant content to reach both existing customers and untapped audiences in a fast and cost-effective way – a huge tool for marketers who need new innovative ways to deepen existing relationships and establish new ones.

However, this incredible power of AI for the marketing world also has a flip side – if left unchecked, there are big risks associated with activating AI tied to customer data. While we wait for legislators to catch up to this tremendous technology, brands need to understand how to balance risk and reward so marketing teams can self-regulate their AI programs to ensure ethical operations.

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There are three non-negotiables when it comes to ethically integrating generative AI into your marketing strategy:

1. Center the customer

Just because you can use AI a certain way doesn’t mean you should. Take, for example, a travel site generating content and then utilizing data signals to target a customer who is addicted to gambling and promoting a low-cost trip to Las Vegas. Predatory practices like this happen all the time. Using data and technology to target consumers who are likely to buy your product, even if it harms them, may be good for your bottom line, but it does not demonstrate empathy and can be extremely damaging to a brand’s reputation. Consistently acting in the best interest of your customers results in more authentic, trustworthy connections that will benefit both your company and its customers in the long-run.

2. Leverage fresh data without bias

All AI requires data to operate effectively, and this is especially true for self-learning or adaptive AI. As such, it’s critical to create transparency in processes, data handling, and algorithms. It’s important to be able to explain the decision making processes of AI systems.

When AI makes a particular decision, you need to be able to find out who created it, what data is being used, how it is tested, and how an outcome is reached. This can help you understand if AI is making biased decisions and how you can course correct to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

When it comes to marketing, AI programs will typically draw from your company’s existing customer data. Therefore, the data sources that feed into AI programs must be complete and up-to-date. In this case, “up-to-date” means within the minute. Data from two weeks, to two days, to even two minutes ago can reflect a different moment in time for a customer. Using stale data leads to inaccurate, untimely, or—even worse— bias across customer touchpoints that can have major consequences.

3. Have a human mediator

Finally, it’s critical to understand that AI is not a replacement for people. Businesses are just as accountable for what goes out to their customers when AI generates the content as when humans do. There must be gatekeepers in place to assess AI outcomes and ensure they align with company goals and are ethically sound. If issues do arise, it’s a company’s responsibility to catch and remediate the issue before it has a chance to negatively impact the customer. Leaving AI to its own devices can create a cycle of reinforcing certain biases and wreak havoc on customer experiences. It’s imperative that there is a partnership between humans and technology as we look to AI to make customer engagement more effective.

AI is an incredible tool for marketers, but when it’s not properly managed, it can alienate customers and damage your brand. Regardless of any holds requested or placed on AI innovation, generative AI is here to stay, so it’s time to learn how to use it responsibly for the benefit of customers. Done right, marketers can effectively and ethically use generative AI to present customers with the best, most relevant interactions possible at the ideal moment in time to benefit everyone involved, which is ultimately what we all should want.

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