5 Ethical Ways to Use AI to Grow Your Business
By now, I don't think I have to tell you that Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing how we work. Business leaders and founders across all industries are using AI in their day-to-day workflow, for better or worse.
There are a ton of amazing benefits that have come with this technology, like improving customer service and improving website security, just to name a few things.
But the ability to save time and money with AI comes with plenty of risk. Misusing AI can erode user trust, harm your reputation, and even land you in legal hot water. None of this is ideal, regardless of where you are in your journey.
That's exactly why it's so important to make sure you're using AI correctly and ethically across your website and marketing channels.
To help you achieve this, I'll share a few ethical ways you can grow your indie business with AI and best practices for getting the most from each of these strategies.
Let's dive in!
Streamline and Optimize Customer Service
AI chatbots are a necessity for any business that wants to offer a fast, smooth customer support experience. A well-made chatbot can help customers with common questions, act as an onboarding wizard, and even help users navigate your knowledge database.
Once it's set up, all of this happens with little to no human interference --unless the person asks to talk to a representative.
For indie business owners, they save time, reduce costs, and ultimately help create a better user experience.
But you need to be transparent so people know they're talking to a chatbot and not a human being. I suggest labeling all conversations with clear disclaimers, like, "I am an AI assistant here to help you." This seemingly small step helps to build confidence and sets expectations.
It's not uncommon for chatbots to collect user data to do their job. It's a good idea to let people know what you're collecting and give them a chance to opt in. Collect only what is needed and ensure that your system complies with privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA.
My advice is to not use your bots to collect sensitive information like financial data or passwords. Make sure to have one of your human support agents handle this step.
Used ethically, AI chatbots can be a game-changer for helping indie businesses punch above their weight while maintaining customer trust.
Personalize Content and Offers
With AI-driven personalization, indie businesses can tailor content and offers to match the interests of each visitor. By analyzing browsing habits and preferences, AI can suggest relevant articles, products, or services based on each person's experience.
Here's how this could work: let's say you add a new pair of Nike shoes to your virtual shopping cart. This action triggers the AI on the shoe store to ask if you're interested in different laces. Some AI is even able to analyze the color and style and make matching choices.
Want to know how something like this can affect your business? Here's something to think about: we found that 76% of people would rather conduct business with brands that actually understand their goals, needs, and pain points.
However, in order to implement ethical personalization, you have to let people know if you want to use their data to give them suggestions. I suggest showing clear-cut and simple privacy policies so people have complete control over their data and choose to opt out of your personalization features if they're not interested.
You'll need to respect people's boundaries if they don't want to take part. By doing this, you leave the door open for them to come back and check out your site at a later time.
Improve Accessibility
Accessibility is required to create an inclusive website that everyone can use and enjoy. AI can help indie businesses remove these barriers by creating features like image alt text, video transcripts, and multilingual support in the process of making these products usable by people with and without disabilities and with any type of background.
In order to implement these features ethically, you should always stress accuracy and reliability. For example, AI tools can generate alt text for images, which makes it easier for visually impaired users to navigate a site with the use of screen readers. But if you're not regularly reviewing the output, you could actually be confusing people even more.
Here's another way to think about it: AI can create transcripts and subtitles for audio and video content to make them more accessible to people who have hearing impairments. Paired with closed captions, these tools must be highly accurate for them to work.
Similarly, when you're using AI to localize content, it's a good idea to do so in combination with professional translators so that cultural nuances and context are preserved. Following established standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) will help to ensure your features are legally and ethically sound.
Using thoughtful AI and keeping guidelines and accuracy in mind will help businesses create websites that serve all users while showing a commitment to social responsibility.
Use AI to Fight Spam and Protect Users
Spam and potential hackers are a constant challenge for websites. If a page is taken over by "spam" comments or quite literally hijacked, this is bad for the business owner and their customers.
Luckily, AI is making this a battle that many business owners are capable of winning or at least maintaining. One of the ways these tools do this is by filtering out comments and feedback if specific words are used. For example, you could restrict people from commenting if the word "FREE" is included in their message.
But there are other factors to consider. If you want to use AI ethically in spam prevention, you'll need to balance effectiveness with user rights. You'll want to do everything you can to reduce false flags and ensure that those who want to engage with your site can do so.
AI tools, like some spam plugins, can also detect patterns indicative of malicious bots, such as rapid submissions or suspicious IP addresses. It's crucial to implement these measures without creating unnecessary barriers, like excessive CAPTCHA challenges, for real people.
Beyond deploying AI tools, educating users about recognizing phishing attempts, scams, and spam can save time and energy while keeping your site safe from cybercriminals.
Build Forms Faster with AI
Forms are a vital part of almost every website. Whether it's gathering feedback, signing users up for newsletters, or processing orders, forms are essential for capturing user input.
We need this input so we can adjust our marketing strategy, update existing products, and so much more.
With that in mind, you'll probably need quite a few forms on your site!
AI tools can make this process so much easier, efficient, and user-friendly forms that are tailored to specific needs. We've found that this saves time and keeps everything looking professional and engaging.
All you do is type in the prompts that outline your form, such as the title and options, and type and let the program go to work. It has saved us a ton of time and is an ethical use because we are simply putting together forms and not using customer data in the process.
We use WPForm's AI form builder to do this and have had a lot of luck! But keep in mind It's ultimately up to you and what your brand needs.
Final Thoughts
AI has opened up a world of opportunities for indie businesses to improve their websites and take their business to the next level. We've used it for over a year now and have seen tremendous success.
If you're thinking of taking this path -- and you should -- it's so important to use AI ethically. You don't want to end up in a situation where people are frustrated with you, or worse, you're facing legal trouble because you did not use AI-powered tools responsibly.
Use AI thoughtfully, and you'll create an online experience that is not only efficient but memorable and aligns with the needs of your audience. Ultimately, this is how you grow your business, so it only makes sense that AI would become the next logical conclusion for digital marketing and running a small business.
