Artificial intelligence is becoming more prevalent. AI is everywhere, from customer service chatbots and academic papers to fake Drake music.

As exciting as AI is, several legal, social, and ethical concerns still need to be addressed.

What’s the “right way” to use AI for email marketing? This blog post will examine how email marketers can integrate generative AI into their email programs while adhering to some guiding principles to address the most important concerns around AI.

The evolution of AI

is a big player in AI, and this has a profound impact on marketing. For better or worse.

How did we arrive here?

The AI arms race was sparked by the release of DALL-E 2, and ChatGPT. ChatGPT even set records for being the largest beta test “…, while also exposing its flaws.

AI is a subject that has raised many concerns.

• Privacy and surveillance
• Bias, discrimination, and prejudice
• Inaccurate data
• Copyright infringement
• Plagiarism
• Data Breach

These are serious issues. This list of concerns should give any marketer some pause, despite all the benefits AI can provide in terms of time savings.

How is AI regulated in the present?

There is not much regulation of AI in the United States today. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will testify in front of Congress on May 16th, 2023. Meanwhile, lawmakers are pushing to create comprehensive guardrails that address AI’s growing concerns.

The U.S. government has also taken action. The Federal Trade Commission has released guidelines for misleading claims about AI-powered services, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology is an agency within the Department of Commerce. It has created a framework to use AI responsibly.

In Europe, the Artificial Intelligence Act and in Canada, the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act have been passed.

is the buzzword in the industry as we are still figuring out the regulations that should be implemented around AI?

Use AI in email marketing responsibly: Guiding principles

Despite knowing the dangers of AI, everyone still uses it. Why? Well, a top selling point for using AI is its potential to yield productivity-boosting benefits. It promises to help you do more while spending less.

It sounds great, right? Email marketers can help. Nearly 80% of respondents to our 2021 State of Email survey ranked email as one of the three most effective marketing channels. Yet, 70% of those surveyed said that their workload was increasing.

AI has the power to help email marketers write copy, create imagery, provide hyper-personalization, and create automations. As attractive as these advantages are, they come with a price. We’ll just have to use common sense until the regulations are in place.

Here are some practical guidelines from our team on how to use AI in email marketing.

Vet your vendors.

Priority one: check out your vendors. Consider these factors when choosing the right tool or service for you:

• What are the steps they are taking to ensure data security and privacy? AI systems often depend on user data. How do they protect this data?
• In what ways are they monitoring the accuracy of data over time? Are they constantly checking their data’s accuracy?
• What language models and data sets do they use? Will you be able to see them? You can evaluate the accuracy of output by gaining visibility.

This basic knowledge will allow you to use AI more confidently in your emails. You should have a good understanding of the AI and your chosen vendor so that you can explain it to colleagues, clients, and subscribers.

Regularly check for bias and discrimination.

r regularly evaluate your vendors to check for biases that might be present in their model. Responsible AI Practices should eliminate any biases inherent in the models that their systems are trained on. AI systems may produce unfair outcomes that perpetuate bias and discrimination.

Beware of email images

When using generative AI to create imagery, email marketers need to be extra careful. Researchers found that DALLE-2’s depiction was ” biased for public consumption” in 2022. It generated images of mainly white men, and sexualized women, and reinforced racial stereotyping.

OpenAI is still a work in progress. Although it has implemented techniques that more accurately reflect diverse populations, there are still some imperfections.

A final point to remember: AI-generated images are trained using billions and billions of pictures on the web. This includes the use of artists’ work without their permission. This is an intellectual-property problem that may violate copyrights.

In several instances, creators or artists have found that their work was used to train a model of generative AI. lawsuits have been filed against Stability AI and Midjourney. However, regulations are still in their infancy.

Beware of email copies

Remember that AI tools, like humans, are not perfect. Some AI tools have produced outputs that were offensive or nonsensical. Take this into consideration if you are using generative AI for copywriting. Use it when needed, but use caution and good judgment.

All in all, if you’re using generative AI tools, we recommend you…

Transparency is key.

Transparency is essential. In a study by Dentsu, over 70% of respondents wanted to reveal when brands use AI in products, services, and experiences.

Building trust is achieved by being transparent in your marketing.

It is sufficient to include a few sentences that inform the subscribers of AI’s use.

In a recent newsletter, we used generative AI as a tool to help with Email Copywriting. The email ended with the simple acknowledgment “This email was created using Jasper”, weaving it as naturally into the copywriting as possible.

They even shared the tool and prompt they used.

Give credit if you are ever in doubt. In your email, a simple “powered by AI”, can do a lot to build brand trust.

Great power comes with great responsibility

AI is not the enemy, even though it comes with its own set of challenges and risks. As the “human” side of the AI equation, we should be aware of practitioners who engage with these tools, fully aware of their capabilities and shortcomings.