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A Primer on Responsible AI for Digital Marketing Teams
In today's digital age, artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming a cornerstone of marketing strategies and tactics, driving innovation and efficiency in the many tasks marketers must accomplish. But as AI technology becomes increasingly integrated into digital marketing teams, the need for ethical guidelines and responsible use becomes increasingly important.
Let's be clear: AI is powerful, but content production and digital teams are quickly starting to use tools like these: Chat GPT, First Officerand Gemini I believe there needs to be a careful approach and a set of guidelines in place to properly integrate these tools into your content operations without consideration of how to use them responsibly.
Does your digital marketing team use an AI policy? Mine doesn't. In fact, I don't think most teams prioritize such a policy. I think it's about time to start thinking about implementing one.
Below we provide some background and context that may be useful, along with some key factors to consider when developing guidelines for your team's responsible use of AI.
The Rise of AI in Digital Marketing
AI is revolutionizing the world of marketing, providing tools to create content, translate from one language to another, automate content delivery, optimize campaign performance, etc. These advancements are helping digital marketing teams achieve greater efficiency, leading to more effective writing and increased ROI.
CMS platforms and tools Content.ai, Sitecore, Kentico, satisfaction, optimization, Story Blocks, I have seen many of them first-hand, as companies like Salesforce, Salesforce.com, and Salesforce.com are all working hard to add value to their products with AI-enabled features. All of these platforms want to be recognized as market leaders in their fields through AI innovation.
in fact, Futurepedia, A tool that tracks new AI tools as they come onto the market lists over 211 AI tools in the digital marketing category.
By the time this article is published, there will probably be a list of more than 212. The pace of change and innovation is incredible.
But with great power comes great responsibility, and relying on AI-driven tools requires a framework that ensures these technologies are used correctly, both from a vendor perspective and from the digital team’s perspective.
How do we apply some governance to all of this change? The answer is to approach AI thoughtfully, with responsible AI as a core theme.
What is Responsible AI?
Responsible AI refers to developing and using artificial intelligence in a way that prioritizes ethical, fair, and safe outcomes. Large technology companies such as Google, Meta, IBM, and Microsoft have emphasized that organizations need to follow a set of key principles when leveraging AI. The principles listed below are the most common ones I see. Combined, they provide a set of guiding principles for using AI:
Six important principles for using AI
- fairness: AI systems need to treat everyone fairly.
- Reliable and secure: AI systems need to operate reliably and securely.
- Privacy and Security: AI systems need to be safe and respect privacy.
- Comprehensiveness: AI systems need to empower everyone and engage people.
- transparency: AI systems must be understandable.
- Accountability: People should be held accountable for their AI systems.
I actually completely agree with the way Microsoft and other companies have explained this. These big tech companies have elaborate resource sites and big PDFs that go into more detail about how to think about responsible AI. The problem is, these resources WidespreadAs an example, Meta Responsible AI Guide It's over 25 pages long. It's hard enough to motivate anyone to read through it all and browse multiple pages on the Microsoft Responsible AI site. I can't imagine my team or my client's team will read through all of that information. That's why I really want to focus on the six key principles above.
I believe a responsible approach is important when using or creating AI tools within an organization, and this is something that digital marketing/content teams need too. That's why I started down this path: I wanted to put a policy in place at my agency. BizStream.
Why an AI policy is essential
Implementing AI in digital marketing isn't just about leveraging new technology to improve outcomes. It also means recognizing and mitigating the potential risks associated with AI's autonomy and influence. Issues such as data privacy, bias, and the possibility of hallucinations (errors made by generative AI tools) pose major challenges. Without a comprehensive AI policy, organizations risk violating ethical standards, betraying customer trust, and incurring legal liability.
In fact, to me, the clearest example of where generative AI goes wrong is with publicly available information. Air Canada's chatbot fails. A ruling earlier this year found in favor of the end customer, with Air Canada now being held liable for AI that wasn't used responsibly.
An AI policy provides guidance for your digital marketing team and ensures that all AI-driven efforts are aligned with ethical principles and company values. It helps establish clear boundaries and standards for the use of AI and addresses concerns like fairness, transparency, and accountability.
The role of principles in AI adoption
Digital marketing teams can take inspiration from established frameworks such as Microsoft's six principles for responsible AI (fairness, trust and safety, privacy and security, inclusion, transparency, and accountability) to develop robust policies governing their use of AI. These principles are not just theoretical ideals, but essentials that shape how you select, deploy, and manage AI tools within your team.
As digital marketing continues to evolve alongside advances in AI, having a clear and responsible AI policy can help reduce friction around its use, allowing organizations to pursue technological innovation while staying true to their commitment to ethical practices, full transparency, and operating in line with social norms.
Responsible AI Principles Worksheet
Returning to my situation, as 2024 progressed, my team was using more and more AI tools. On the one hand, this was great because I was seeing first-hand the benefits in speeding up content creation for our website, email, and social media channels. On the other hand, I was a bit concerned about two things: first, our SaaS tool spend was growing rapidly as more tools were added to our digital marketing stack, and second, I wondered if all these tools were being used safely and responsibly.
To ensure that my team at BizStream is well-trained on the benefits and risks of using AI in marketing, we've built the following tools internally to ensure that all team members working with these tools understand a set of guardrails and guidelines.
I used the core principles of responsible AI (fairness, trust and safety, privacy and security, etc.) as my primary set of information. From there, I organized these principles into a table and included the categories or types of activities you would perform in your digital marketing efforts. I then added explanations to further explain what considerations should be taken into account regarding the types of activities that align with the principles. Here's what it looked like:
After we finished the first draft, our marketers asked us some questions about this, so we added some guiding questions in the last column to help kick-start the brainstorming process. Our current draft looks like this screenshot:
you can Download an editable version of our Responsible AI Principles and Guidelines for Content Teams. For free.
Our goal with this tool is to ensure that responsible AI practices are taken into consideration when selecting third-party vendors, tools, platform capabilities, and subscription services, and we hope that with this tool we will add additional governance to both our own and our clients' deployments.
Additionally, we believe that when we bring on new marketing team members or interns, they will learn how to operate as a team more quickly. We are working on improving this process, but only time will tell.
Review your AI policies periodically according to a schedule
One more word of caution: Don't make the mistake of thinking that your AI policy or any single document is something you “set and forget.” The world of AI, especially generative AI, is constantly changing, and so are the laws and regulations that relate to it. Your AI policy should be treated as a living, breathing document. Make sure you schedule time to review it regularly to account for changes that occur rapidly.
Feedback wanted
As with any new idea, we want to gather feedback so we can improve it. Download the worksheet and let us know what you think! LinkedIn or email.
Conclusion
Using AI in digital marketing and content creation comes with many benefits and responsibilities. Following clear guidelines and responsible principles can help ensure that AI is used ethically and efficiently. We encourage all digital marketing teams to strive to implement a responsible AI policy.
Notes: The above information is written to provide general guidance only. It is not the same as legal advice. Legal requirements vary from location to location, and laws and regulations governing AI, privacy, and cybersecurity are not consistent.
Notes: Generative AI was used to edit the document's grammar and spelling.
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