Liz Giorgi is an Emmy-winning creative-turned cofounder and CEO of soona, the world’s first virtual photoshoot platform for e-commerce.
It seems like you can’t do anything online right now without AI coming up. Want to schedule a meeting? Maybe AI can do it. Need a new headshot? How about an AI headshot? Think you are spending too much time on emails? Hey, there’s an AI for that too.
All these emerging implementations of AI in both our work environment and everyday life are exciting developments to witness. But they also bring up important questions about the future and how we will know what is truly a real-life interaction or just computer-generated content. And perhaps even more provocatively, it raises the question: Do we have the right to know when we are interacting with AI instead of someone real?
It’s that second question that I think really brings up some interesting space for exploration as it pertains to e-commerce. Shopify recently announced new AI tools, including a tool called Sidekick, which is helping to buoy their stock price. Klaviyo, the e-commerce email darling, announced a “smart marketing” AI tool for their platform.
And there are even companies like ShipNetwork that are seeking to use AI to improve the returns process. It makes a ton of sense; e-commerce merchants are all trying to find ways to be more efficient and make more money as the stock prices of even the largest direct-to-consumer brands took a hit over the last year.
But in order for AI to make sense and successfully scale in the future, we must go into it with our eyes wide open as far as its potential risks to consumers. Here are a few concerns that I and other members of e-commerce enablement companies are discussing.
1. AI Products And Hallucinations
In a future where AI provides copy on all product listing pages, there is a real risk of the copy generated being full of lies. One such example we can look at is the hallucination rate of ChatGPT by OpenAI.
A hallucination is the simple concept of the AI providing false or misleading information because it is unable to fact-check what it is delivering to the user. By some measures, ChatGPT fails and provides false information about 20% of the time. There are already many companies providing these services. Brands must be aware of the need to fact-check diligently to ensure they aren’t misleading consumers about their products’ benefits.
2. Misleading AI-Generated Images
Many brands are now using AI images to represent their products online. These “representations” may look and feel generally like the final product but are not the actual product itself. This may inadvertently lead a shopper to think that a product will look a certain way, only to be hugely surprised when the final product is delivered to their doorstep.
This issue isn’t something that should be taken lightly either. We should work hard to develop creative parameters that will allow AI and human-generated media to work together to best represent the product fairly and honestly—all while creating cost efficiencies. But long-standing precedent will also come in handy here.
The Federal Trade Commission’s Truth in Advertising mandate requires truthful advertising so that consumers are not in no way duped by the guarantees, messages or assets a brand shares about a product—and that includes images.
3. AI-Generated Versus User-Generated Content
Finally, there is the murky area of AI users and AI commenters on social posts and in reviews. Bots are already regularly found in the comment section of many platforms, but as AI gets smarter, these bots will likely start using the tools to become more and more realistic in their presentation.
This presents yet another Truth in Advertising conundrum. Just this year, Fashion Nova, an online clothing retailer, reached a $4.2 million settlement with the FTC over claims that they had prevented negative product reviews from being placed on their website.
Those reviews were from real users, but it is not a stretch to imagine a future where the same kinds of fake reviews could be interpreted as a similar issue if they were over-emphasized or published to the public.
While AI can certainly help you innovate and improve your business, I believe that you also have to be responsible for how you use these tools. As business leaders, business owners and marketers, we have a collective responsibility to ethically broach these issues in a way that is honest and fair to all.
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