Using AI Doesn’t Have to Be Unethical — Build a Values-Driven AI Policy in 3 Steps

As artificial intelligence continues to integrate into every facet of business, the key to future-proofing your brand lies not just in adoption, but in aligning it with your core values. It’s difficult to escape the feeling that today’s AI technologies will radically change our work lives in the future. As an entrepreneur, it feels like a dizzying array of considerations about AI, but here’s another you may not have considered: the brand impact of AI adoption.

As an entrepreneur, you may feel deeply concerned about your ability to address AI due to a lack of expertise or budget. However, whether your company adopts these new technologies or not, your company will be affected because the public is already forming opinions about AI, and soon, people will start to assume that all companies are using AI. In November 2023, Pew Research found that 52% of Americans were more concerned than excited about AI. And it’s possible that with all the exposure Americans are getting, they are getting wearier and wearier of AI.

When I first started my emerging industries PR agency in 2008, we became adept at talking to businesses about integrating social media for their communications. Many businesses were understandably skeptical. But while businesses remained skeptical, social media users were full steam ahead, and eventually, businesses had to buy into using social media.

AI is unlike other social media, where the public bought into it before it turned sour, but companies were slower to adopt it. With AI, the public is skeptical before it’s even fully integrated into our online lives, but many companies are full steam ahead. AI cynicism combined with increased corporate distrust makes AI different for businesses. This rampant skepticism can bleed over your company’s reputation in many ways. Whether you’re already using AI today or thinking about it, how can you hedge against any brand reputation risks of AI?

From a brand reputation perspective, the solution is values-driven AI adoption policies. A values-driven policy is a mirror of your brand values.

There are three key competitive advantages of a values-driven AI policy:

1. Consistency over technology. As an entrepreneur, you may or may not be an AI expert, but you are an expert in your company. By leaning into an AI policy that reflects your brand’s values, you emphasize your brand strengths over the unknown technology future.
2. Increased trust. By keeping tech in check with human values, your company can increase trust from employees, customers, partners and investors while staying nimble enough to integrate emerging technologies like AI.
3. Staying nimble. A values-driven policy also creates longevity that stays nimble in the face of fast-changing technologies.
4. Competitive edge. Adopting a values-driven policy early on sets you apart as a leader in ethical AI use which can attract customers and talent.

Developing a values-driven AI policy doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, the more deeply engaged you are with your brand values, the easier it will be. Consider these three pillars of a values-driven AI policy.

Related: How to Implement Ethical AI Practices in Your Company

Incorporate humans

While many say AI will be “smarter” than humans, we innately understand what AI lacks. Consider the backlash Google experienced by running an advertisement showcasing a little girl writing her hero a letter on AI during the 2024 Olympic Games; Google had to pull the ads. Even AI acknowledges that humans are uniquely defined by our humanities, empathy, mortality, spirituality, emotions, experiences and responses. The entirety of the human experience is both defined and enriched by the actual human experience. AI can save us time, but AI will always struggle to contextualize these uniquely human elements.

The first step is to develop an internal AI council made up of reputational stakeholders from HR to marketing. Involving several perspectives will help ensure that your brand and strategic goals are fully represented. Further, a council enhances brand trust, both inside and out.

Additionally, part of your values-driven AI policy should articulate the importance of human oversight of AI and the dangers of relying on generative AI, which sometimes contains bias, errors and outright fiction.

Transparency

Developing technologies are just that, developing. Adopting any new technology is expected to some degree, and mistakes can be more easily forgiven. Still, it’s important to be transparent with stakeholders about where and how you’re adopting new technologies.

Your values-driven policy can make clear that you endeavor to make decisions consistent with your brand’s value system. However, you may sometimes fall short, and when you do, you will acknowledge it with a values-driven solution. Falling on your brand sword in advance adds humanity to your brand, which makes it more relatable to humans.

This is one area where a values-driven policy is particularly scalable because instead of constantly updating a policy with specifics, you may articulate the considerations you will make before adopting AI technology. For example, you may articulate your brand commitment to sensitive data exposure and outline the value-driven considerations your brand takes to do so. This is less of a legal contract and more of a social compact that you have with stakeholders.

Related: I Teach AI and Entrepreneurship. Here’s How Entrepreneurs Can Use AI to Better Understand Their Target Customers.

Simplicity

Trust isn’t built with 50-page user agreements written by lawyers for lawyers. Keep your values-driven AI policy as straightforward and common sense as possible. Boiling it down to three key values is ideal.

Simplicity also supports flexibility and scalability. Boiling it down to broad values creates a roadmap for future decision-making and empowers the company to stay nimble while staying true to its values.

Getting ahead of AI and technology skepticism is a good move both for your brand today and the brand of tomorrow. Plus, there is the added benefit of using this moment in time to reinforce your company and brand values to customers, employees and investors. A values-driven AI policy allows you to celebrate the exciting aspects of AI and the humanizing values of your company, giving you the best of both worlds.