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As artificial intelligence continues to be integrated into every aspect of business, the key to future-proofing your brand is not just to adopt it, but to align it with your core values. It’s hard to escape the feeling that today’s AI technologies will fundamentally change our working lives in the future. As an entrepreneur, you may have a dizzying array of AI considerations, but you may not be considering the impact of adopting AI on your brand.
As an entrepreneur, you may have deep concerns about your ability to adapt to AI due to lack of expertise or budget. However, whether your company adopts these new technologies or not, your company will be affected. Because the public has already formed an opinion about AI, and soon people will start to assume that all companies are using AI. In November 2023, the Pew Research Center found that 52% of Americans use AI. More worried than excited AI: If more Americans learn about AI, I’m getting more and more bored with AI.
I was the first Emerging industry PR agency In 2008, we became accustomed to talking to businesses about integrating social media into their communications. Many businesses were understandably skeptical. However, while businesses were skeptical, social media users jumped on board, and eventually businesses were forced to embrace the use of social media.
AI is different from other social media, where the public embraced AI before it was tainted, but businesses have been slow to adopt it. With AI, the public is skeptical even before it is fully integrated into our online lives, but many businesses are fully committed to it. AI skepticism, combined with growing distrust of businesses, makes it unique for businesses. This widespread skepticism can negatively impact a company’s reputation in a number of ways. Whether you’re already using AI today or considering using it, how can you avoid the risks to your brand reputation from AI?
From a brand reputation perspective, the solution is a values-based AI adoption policy that reflects the values of your brand.
Value-driven AI policies offer three key competitive advantages:
- Consistency over techniqueAs an entrepreneur, you may not be an AI expert, but you are the expert within your company. Adopting an AI policy that reflects your brand’s values will highlight the strengths of your brand rather than the unknown future of the technology.
- Increased trustBy aligning technology with human values, companies can remain agile in integrating emerging technologies like AI while building trust with employees, customers, partners and investors.
- Stay AgileValue-based policies also create permanence that can adapt to rapidly changing technology.
- Competitive AdvantageBy adopting a values-based policy early on, you can differentiate yourself as a leader in the ethical use of AI and attract customers and top talent.
Developing a values-based AI policy doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, the more you align with your brand values, the easier it will be. Consider three pillars of a values-based AI policy:
Related: How to Implement Ethical AI Practices in Your Business
Incorporating humans
While many say AI will be “smarter” than humans, we instinctively know what AI is missing. Consider the backlash Google received for running an ad during the 2024 Olympics in which a young girl wrote a letter to her hero about AI. Google was forced to pull the ad. Even AI acknowledges that humans are uniquely defined by humanity, empathy, mortality, spirituality, emotions, experiences, and reactions. The entire human experience is defined and enriched by real human experiences. AI can save time, but AI will always struggle to contextualize these uniquely human elements.
The first step is to establish an internal AI council made up of reputational stakeholders, from HR to marketing. Involving multiple perspectives ensures that your brand and strategic goals are fully represented. Additionally, the council will increase brand trust both internally and externally.
Moreover, part of a values-based AI policy should clearly state the importance of human oversight of AI and the dangers of relying on generative AI, which can contain bias, errors, and outright fiction.
Transparency
Technology development is just that: development. The introduction of new technology is somewhat expected and relatively easy to make mistakes in. Still, it’s important to be transparent with stakeholders about where and how you’re introducing new technology.
A values-based policy makes it clear that you strive to make decisions that align with your brand’s values. But you might fall short sometimes. And when that happens, your values-based solution acknowledges that. Holding your brand accountable up front humanizes it and makes it more relatable to people.
This is one area where a value-driven policy can be particularly scalable, as it allows you to articulate what you consider before adopting AI technology, rather than constantly updating your policy with detail. For example, you can articulate your brand’s commitment to exposing sensitive data and outline the value-driven considerations your brand takes in doing so. This is more of a social contract with stakeholders than a legal agreement.
Related: I teach AI and entrepreneurship Here’s how entrepreneurs can use AI to better understand their target customers.
Simplicity
Trust isn’t built on 50-page user agreements written by lawyers for lawyers. Your values-based AI policy should be as clear and common sense as possible, ideally boiled down to three core values:
Simplicity also supports flexibility and scalability. Narrowing down to a broad set of values creates a roadmap for future decisions, allowing the company to remain agile while staying true to its values.
Get ahead AI and technology skepticism This is a good move for current and future brands alike, with the added benefit of using this moment to reinforce your company and brand values with customers, employees, and investors. A values-driven AI policy allows you to celebrate the compelling aspects of AI as well as the humanizing values of your company, giving you the best of both worlds.
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