Well, hello there. This is Elevated, the podcast all about helping you build a better kitchen and bath design business. I'm Brandy, your host, a systems advocate, and, oh yeah, all around efficiency enthusiast. In this season, we're examining the world of artificial intelligence as it relates to running your business. By now, you've noticed that there's been no episode or discussion about using AI for the designing part of your business? That's intentional. My expertise is in business systems and how systems can support service businesses like yours. There are many other design experts out there that can give you insights on how to use AI in your craft. Or maybe you'll be inspired by these examples of how to use AI to run your business and give some of those a try. In either case, I'm leaving the design and craft to you and those other experts. There are plenty of them out there. Here, we'll focus on the infrastructure, skills, and systems you need to build a business around your craft. On to today's episode, where we're talking about integrity and ethics when it comes to using AI. Some of the challenges in using AI ethically is that it's moving really fast. Best practices and legislation, They can't keep up. Unlike in other places, like email marketing, where there are clear laws and best practices, if you're using AI, it's not going to work to rely on others to show you how to do it well. Now, it might feel easy then to just resign ourselves to accepting it's the Wild West out there for AI and disregard the need to create our own set of rules to play by. I believe in personal accountability, and I think this is precisely the place where businesses need to step up and define their own rules in line with their core values. So, in hopes of helping you somewhat easily create your own frameworks for ethically using AI, here's what I've come up with for best practices based on my research and use. First of all, be transparent. More simply put, disclose that you're using AI. This can be as simple as including additional clauses and contracts that state that AI is used in creating communications, or wherever else it might be used. If AI is used to help generate content, email drafts, or enhanced images, you can give it credit by saying it was created with the help of AI. Great! 2. Use your core values to guide you. When in doubt, check your core values. If you find yourself wrestling with when and where to use AI in your business, the fastest way to decide is to It's to check with your core values. Because two of our core values at Fiery Effects are give a damn and figure it out and get shit done. We are all in on embracing AI and using it to support and power what humans in our organization are capable of. Number three, create checkpoints. We're all human beings and even with the best of instructions and intentions, we can't Still make errors. Creating checkpoints can help catch mistakes and give us helpful structure to assist in better decisions and outcomes. This could look like having a peer review of articles before they go out, or a checklist for publishing, a review committee for new email templates, or even just a couple questions that get answered before anything gets sent to a client when using AI. And fourth, be explicit about expectations. One of my favorite anecdotes was when a speaker asked the audience, What the leading cause of divorce was? All the usual and expected answers came from the audience, but the speaker said they were all wrong. The leading cause of divorce was unmet expectations. You can visualize the mind blown emoji here for how I felt in that moment. Of course! Isn't that essentially the reason any relationship fails? To avoid the catastrophes that can develop from unmet expectations, Be explicit about your expectations in your business. Not only when it comes to how and when AI gets used, but really about anything else. Yeah, even which way to put the toilet paper on in the office bathroom. Walking through these best practices can help you create your own set of guiding principles when it comes to how you use AI in your business. In the next episode, We'll discuss some specific scenarios of using AI and when and how to disclose that AI was used. Are you all in on using AI in your business but need some hands on expert help? Book 15 minutes with me at fieryfx. com slash chat to get personalized guidance.