Using A.I. avatars, personalities, whatever you wish to call them, can be a tricky business. What should business owners consider about using this technology? And, testing the current cultural waters, could be considered the acceptable boundaries for implementing A.I. avatars?
The Five Most Key Takeaways from This Blog Post
- Using A.I. avatars to sell things and attract audiences is an emerging practice. Business owners around the world are testing the waters as far as what audiences will tolerate.
- These avatars can be completely fake, or based off of real people. The latter kinds of avatars, which are sort of like digital clones, are not always deceptive deepfakes. In some instances, such as a new wave of endorsement deals, these avatars are the result of a collaboration between the actual person (typically, an e-celebrity) and a company looking to get an endorsement from that person.
- One of the issues here is the problem of deception. If the audience is not explicitly clued in to the fact that the audience is looking at A.I., then that can be a major issue. In general, it can risk a customer base’s trust in the company that does this.
- Another issue is using A.I.-generated versions of dead cultural figures to get audiences’ attention. For many people, this is naturally controversial as the practice more or less involves putting new words in a dead person’s mouth. Of course, there is technological precedent for this in the form of hologram pop stars and advertisements using the images of pop stars and other famous figures.
- For some people, A.I. avatars’ effectiveness is inherently limited, as human representatives tend to feel, well, more human. For this reason, the business owners that benefit the most from this emerging technology will most likely be the ones that use A.I. avatars in moderation.
Truth in A.I. Advertising
The truth about truth in advertising is that most people nowadays are quite skeptical about ads being entirely truthful. Recent history still lingering in customers’ consciousnesses is tobacco companies continuing to run ads claiming doctors recommend smoking cigarettes, long after learning that research strongly indicated that smoking leads to many medical issues.
So, most customers will have their guard up whenever they see an ad, wondering just what the angle is, and what to trust. And more frequently, customers are seeing ads where the people are not human actors, but mere computer-generated images.
That being said, the very existence of the technology suddenly allows many businesses that, in years past, would never be able to afford to create T.V.-quality advertisements are now able to use A.I. avatars to create original marketing content.
And since these ads can indeed be quite effective, the question remains as to how to best use them.
So, what is a business owner to make of this emerging, tempting practice to start generating A.I. avatars to hawk the business’ products?
Well, first off, it is worth mentioning that audience response is not always friendly to this. One of the biggest hurdles that business owners using A.I. will need to contend with is the problem of deception-perception.
Deepfakes and Deception-Perception
Many people had their introduction to gen-A.I. avatars in the form of deepfakes, which are specifically made for the purpose of deceiving the viewer. For instance,
First impressions matter, and that first impression leaves people feeling as if using A.I. avatars could be by and large a deceptive practice, even if the A.I. avatar is fictional, meaning not based off any real person.
Of course, there is reason for them to believe so, because there are cases where businesses do not disclose that the person they are seeing in the product’s ad is an A.I. avatar.
The Golden Rule
If there is a golden rule to subscribe to, business owners should be upfront about the use of A.I. A small banner in the video saying “generated by A.I.” or “made using A.I.”, something of the sort, can help sidestep some of the trust issues that many people have with A.I. ads.
Business owners with endorsement deals should be realistic in understanding that using A.I. avatars of real-life personalities, living or dead, will be seen as inherently deceptive by a fair number of customers. Run that risk at your own risk.
Other Great GO AI Blog Posts
GO AI the blog offers a combination of information about, analysis of, and editorializing on A.I. technologies of interest to business owners, with especial focus on the impact this tech will have on commerce as a whole.
On a usual week, there are multiple GO AI blog posts going out. Here are some notable recent articles:
For Businesses and Other Organizations, What Makes a Successful Chatbot?
IBM Watson vs. ChatGPT vs. Gemini: How Will Each Affect Search Engines?
Using A.I. to Find Resources for Business Owners
How Would Restricting Open-Source A.I. Affect Business Owners?
The EU’s A.I. Act Has Become Law: The Implications for Business Owners (Especially American)
In addition to our GO AI blog, we also have a blog that offers important updates in the world of search engine optimization (SEO), with blog posts like “Google Ends Its Plan to End Third-Party Cookies”.
