Does using AI to write your content align with your brand values?

As part of my work on brand messaging, I often help businesses draft their brand values: the principles that guide how a company moves through the world, from how it hires staff to how it treats its customers. 

I think a question not enough businesses are asking is: “Does our use of AI align with our brand values?”

Amazon tells us: “We work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust”. 

Starbucks tells us: “We actively listen and connect with warmth and transparency”.

Patagonia tells us: “We value integrity”.

Now, I don’t know what their AI policies are, but let’s say they were churning out customer-facing content at a rate of knots using AI, would this align? Does it show warmth and connection? Does it show integrity? Does it earn and keep customer trust? 

I guess that would depend on how they were using it and how transparent they were being. 

For me, using AI to brainstorm and beef up an existing draft with more ideas, more examples, feels okay. Using AI to write content from scratch on repeat, not so good. I also think we need to be telling our readers or customers where they’re getting robots and where they’re getting us. Just like you know when you use a chatbot whether it’s a person or a machine.

I’m not saying don’t use AI. Not at all. Each of these companies also has a value that runs something along the lines of trying new things, staying ahead of the curve, developing new ways to do things. Which, of course, AI is. 

And, naturally, priority one for most businesses is making a profit. So if they can make content cheaper, then fantastic. But if the cost of that cheaper content is customers turning away feeling cheated, was it worth it? 

Before we dive headlong into AI content creation, it’s worth asking ourselves where we draw the line, where our customers draw the line and how we can communicate about this transparently. 

If you’d like to chat more about writing for your business, including writing about your brand values or writing your AI manifesto, I’d love to hear from you.