Why you should avoid using AI to design things for your business
putting the human back into business“While it might be tempting to jump on the bandwagon, there's a few reasons why you should probably put ChatGPT down and step away from this route when it comes specifically to designing things for your business.”
AI is definitely a contentious topic right now, and your girl has got some opinions on it.
I've seen an influx of AI generated flyers and content on my feed recently.
From events to promotions, brand photos and everything in between – it seems like genAI is all the rage in small business marketing right now. While it might be tempting to jump on the bandwagon, there's a few reasons why you should probably put ChatGPT and Gemini down and step away from this route when it comes specifically to designing things for your business.
I know not everyone is going to agree with me on this, but I do think it’s something that small businesses should avoid.
Before anyone comes for me, I’m not anti-AI! I think it has a great role to play in improving efficiencies within the day-to-day task-based work that we all do, especially within small and micro businesses who are usually working with more limited resources to begin with.
Small business owners wear enough hats already, and if AI can help you summarise meeting notes, organise spreadsheets, or bulk update product information, I'm all for it. Those are tasks that simply help you get from A to B a little faster.
What I vehemently disagree with is when the use of AI moves beyond improving efficiency and starts replacing creative work that relies on the skills and experience of artists and designers, and infringes on their copyright and intellectual property.
And that’s only the beginning.
It's technically stealing from other people's work
Generative AI doesn't create in the same way people do. It works by scraping the internet for publicly available existing content – including artwork, photography, branding, illustrations, logos and designs – to create a derivative asset that contains the details it feels is the closest match to the prompt you've given it.
The problem with this? While much of the content the models are scraping on the internet (like my own work) are freely available to view, that doesn't mean they're free from copyright.
It's not okay when a human copies another designer's work, or uses it without consent, credit, or financial compensation – so it shouldn't be okay for you to do it through an LLM either.
Whether legislation eventually catches up or not, it's something every business owner should consider before relying on AI-generated creative assets.
They all look the same. (AKA sloppy)
We've all seen the look, right? RIGHT?
The same fonts, the same graphics, the same dramatic style, the same weird yellow overtone, the same way it fills every single pixel of white space with CLUTTER. AI generated assets have developed their own recognisable aesthetic – in the worst way possible.
Using AI generated materials means your business ends up looking just like everyone else – no consistency, no branding, nada. It removes everything that makes your business unique.
The concept of branding exists for a reason: it works. When your marketing looks the same as hundreds of other businesses using the exact same AI tools, your brand becomes forgettable and dismissible.
It might feel like a nice sugar hit to get that flyer created for free in a few minutes, but what's the long-term cost to your business?
And don't even get me started on restaurants using AI images for their own food – the real thing is literally right there in the kitchen!
They're turning your intended audience off, instead of on
Maybe you feel a little laissez faire when it comes to the previous two, but how about your bottom line?
The biggest issue with AI generated assets is that they're turning your intended audience off instead of on.
More and more consumers are gaining the ability to spot AI generated content, and while some won’t care, there's a growing portion of your audience who is going to straight up refuse to engage with your business when they see you marketing with AI.
At surface level, AI generated marketing feels cheap and impersonal, and makes your audience question your authenticity. On a deeper level, it raises even bigger concerns around your ethics as a business.
Whatever the turn-off might be, it’s breaking the trust between you and your audience.
If your visuals suggest you've cut corners on your own brand, how do your customers know you’re not cutting corners somewhere else?
And hey, believe me, I get running a business is expensive, but if you can't even invest time or money into it – how on earth can you expect anyone else to do the same?
The output is redundant in more ways than one
Aside from all the ethical dilemmas that come with designing with AI, there’s also some pretty big practical limitations.
When you ask AI to generate content for you, what it gives you is an image. That’s it.
If all you want to do is post that image on social media (and you have no qualms about everything we’ve already discussed?!), then you won’t have any problems.
But where you’ll start wanting to tear your hair out is when you try to use that image for pretty much anything else.
Want to use it to print something in real life larger than an A5 piece of paper? It’s not a vector, so not possible.
Want to use any of the elements in the image on another asset? It has no layers, so not possible.
Want to use the font for your brand? It doesn’t exist, so not possible.
AI generated content doesn’t give you scalable logo files, is doesn’t create accessible colour palettes, it doesn’t develop strategic brand guidelines, it doesn’t follow design principles, consider legibility, hierarchy, reproduction across different mediums, or how your identity will evolve over time. It only gives you an image.
The kicker? As designers, ‘fixing’ your AI generated logo or content is not possible. Because of the way it is created, we have to start again. So it’s probably going to end up costing you more time and money than if you had have just come to us from the beginning.
What you can do instead
Use CanvaThere are so many free design platforms out there – like Canva or Adobe Express that you can use to create your own content.
They have reusable templates and assets that you can add your own brand colours and fonts to – so you don’t even have to start from scratch or have detailed design knowledge or skills.
All it will cost you is your time.
Hire a designer (like me!) If you can make a small investment (probably not as much as you think), you can hire a designer like me to take it off your hands.
You'd be supporting another small business, saving yourself the headache of all the ethical and practical limitations that come with AI, and it's also highly likely a tax deduction for you too!
At the end of the day, the choice to use AI to design things for your business is completely up to you.
Am I going to publicly shame you for it? No. But it will make me and a lot of other people quietly think a little differently of your business (and not for the better).
I honestly think we’re in the midst of a huge ‘AI trend era’, and this period of time is going to be something we look back on and cringe. But until then, I hope this breakdown of the downfalls of AI generated content has given you some food for thought.
Your brand, business and customers deserve more than a prompt.
If you’d like to chat more about how I could help you take the design and photography needs of your business off your hands, my contact form is always open.
You can book in a free consultation here.
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AI is definitely a contentious topic right now, and your girl has got some opinions – namely, why I think you should avoid using it to design things for your business.