AI is still hogging the limelight as the cure-all for all marketing ills. In fact, the noise around AI has been so loud that it has almost created its own trope. And the phrase ‘AI-washing’ seems appropriate given the predilection of all brands to append AI to anything and everything.
Last year we wrote about greenwashing. And the similarities to where we are with AI is uncanny. The United Nations summarises greenwashing eloquently: “By misleading the public to believe that a company or other entity is doing more to protect the environment than it is, greenwashing promotes false solutions to the climate crisis that distract from and delay concrete and credible action”
Whilst AI–washing, is less consequential to the preservation of Earth, it certainly promotes false solutions and distracts from other credible options. Whether that be influencing and underwhelming us in our technology buying decisions, or more damagingly, obscuring meaningful advancements in technology development.
So, what is AI powered anyway?
Computing based on decision trees, algorithms or mathematical models seem to have been relabelled as ‘AI’. But a majority of these are the product of human thinking and are incapable of learning, adaption, autonomy or new problem solving.
This reminds us of a decade ago when everything was ‘cloud based’, essentially a blanket term for the utilisation of ‘as a service’-type technology offering. A product being ‘in the cloud’ was more marketable, but it also typically demonstrated it was built with scalability and increased redundancy in mind. Disadvantages of which have been slower to materialise: From WhatsApp to Greggs – why is tech going down more
AI products, in comparison, do not appear to consistently demonstrate shared benefits such as improved quality, effectiveness or even time/resource saving – as illustrated by Amazon’s ‘Just Walk Out’ human reviewers or McDonald’s ‘Bacon Ice Cream’ ordering technology. Whilst there is some genuinely amazing AI technology, ‘AI powered’ certainly isn’t the badge of honour that it’s often marketed as.
AI generated – or AI edited?
You probably wouldn’t see an illustrator or proof-reader cited as a co-author of a book, yet there appears to be a tendency to over credit involvement of AI in similar creative and development processes.
Origination of ideas and concepts, and whether contribution was generation or augmentation, often gets lost in the excitement to declare something as being ‘generated by AI’.
This not only overlooks intelligent, hardworking humans responsible for the work, but it also sets an unfair expectation of what AI is capable of.
So how to navigate the AI minefield?
To avoid contributing to AI-washing, you could just adopt simpler and clearer terminology to highlight how AI was involved and what it contributed.
To help we’ve had a crack at coming up with a few definitions and alternative AI terms to get things started:
Your AI cheat sheet:
AI-Powered
Abandon completely. It lacks all clarity of meaning.
AI-Generated
Output that was completely produced by AI and unaltered by humans.
AI-Augmented
Human or AI generated input that has been passed through AI for refinement and improvement.
AI-Iteration
Output passed through multiple iterations of AI treatment for refinement and improvement.
AI-Assisted
Output whereby quality, speed or cost has been positively impacted by the utilisation of AI.
AI-Informed
AI was used to assist in the research, planning and facilitation of analysis, thinking and decision making.
AI-Verification / AI-Moderated
AI used to validate and assess probability of an input meeting certain criteria.
AI as a Service
Technology that facilitates the creation of AI powered functionality or automation.
Examples: generative and natural language models which can be used to provide AI capabilities.
AI Caramba
Surprise output you unexpectedly experience from AI.
AI is great at doing lots of things. But it’s not the marketing panacea everyone is hoping it will be. A meaningful brand is still the most valuable asset a business can have. And we can help realise this hidden brand potential through a robust suite of tools, including AI.
So, if you want help to cut through any industry buzzwords, TLAs, jargon, or plain BS please get in touch for a no obligation chat on how we can accelerate the growth of your brand.
