If AI plays a role in your product or service – and for more and more companies it does – you’ve got a puzzle on your hands. How loudly should you proclaim your AI credentials?
A Contradictory Picture
On the one hand, AI spells innovation, speed, ease – and whatever specific benefits it adds to your offering. On the other hand, we’re watching a mounting backlash against AI, especially in the United States. You’ve probably read about students booing commencement speakers for lauding AI. Of course, a few hundred college kids don’t represent an entire generation. But they are a straw in the wind.
According to NBC News, around 56% to 60% of Americans report using AI tools. At the same time, nearly half of voters (46%) hold a negative view of AI, compared to only 26% who view it positively. That’s a net negative of -20%. Don’t imagine that the AI haters are a separate group from the AI subscribers. Very likely, there’s a large overlap between the two populations. That’s how conflicted people are, not just between each other, but in themselves.
It’s clear that the days when tacking “AI” on to every name, tagline or message is worse than useless. Think about the contrast in how consumers meet the same two letters. To one shopper, “AI” reads as smart, modern, ahead of the curve. To the next, it reads as dangerous, untrustworthy, here to replace me. You don’t get to choose which reaction you trigger. The customer brings it with them. It makes no sense to attract one half of your market by alienating the other half.
The AI Experience
We have to look a little closer and understand what people like about AI, and what they don’t. Let’s take stock of the issues. Obviously, everyone except a few CEOs is alarmed about AI replacing jobs. Data centers are wildly unpopular because of their massive energy and water consumption, combined with a certain “black box” mystery about what they do. A segment of the population is worried about fake information, and another segment about autonomous weapons.
Notice that none of these negatives includes the experience of actually using AI. For most people, that’s a positive. This is where the contradiction lies: hating the industry for what it does to the world, but liking the product because of what it does for me.
There’s a caveat here. A growing number of consumers (but probably still a minority) are getting sick of finding AI inserted into every digital tool they use, from Gmail to Google searches to Microsoft Office. This experience of “AI stuffing” is a warning to your R&D department. Just as proclaiming AI won’t help your brand, neither will adding gratuitous AI widgets to your product.
Get the Framing Right
But what if you genuinely believe that the AI dimension of your product or service is a key differentiator? Does it serve you to hide it?
Certainly not. What matters is framing. The pathway here is to remember the ABC of brand positioning. Center your messaging on whatever matters to your audience, and how what you offer matches their priorities. Don’t imagine that the inclusion of AI in itself has any perceived value, even those who are well-disposed towards the technology.
No one choosing between two vacuum cleaners is going to say, “Well, I’m picking this one because it has AI.” If your vacuum cleaner includes AI, show the customer exactly why this will make their carpets cleaner with less effort, at less cost, and faster. In other words, allow AI a role in your story to the extent it visibly meets the customer’s needs – and no further.
Visibly is the key word here. Sometimes the role of AI is too subtle or complex to explain to the consumer. It is doing something in the background that massively enhances your technology or services or communications. In that case, there’s no reason to mention it at all.
The solution to the AI conundrum, as for most branding puzzles, is to go back to basics. Speak to your customers’ desires, fears, frustrations and dreams. Everything else will fall into place, including AI.