As AI Shapes Consumer Choices, Ethical Marketing Comes Into Question

The time has come for one to seriously study the impact of AI on consumer behaviour in all its entirety. This is something which has been happening since much earlier than the much publicized launch and promotion of generative AI and has been exercising the minds of social scientists, marketers and indeed common people for a few years now.

The fact that we receive suggestions to buy goods and services in our social media feeds, as if somebody is cued into our thought process has caused anxiety amongst many for a few years now, as it seems to subvert free will itself.

Everything from e-commerce companies and social media platforms to streaming services deploys AI powered algorithms to get a handle on consumers’ buying and browsing behaviour. This makes it possible for them to come up with bespoke product and service offerings, in the process leading to supposedly optimal  shopping experiences resulting in enhanced consumer loyalty.

The concern with AI powered product and service recommendations is centered around the fact that these may lead to a subversion of the traditional way of arriving at consumption decisions. Instead of subliminally guiding consumers to decisions that best suit their interests, these may instead lead them to believe that the interests of businesses selling them products and services align with theirs.

With AI expected to become fully autonomous in the not so distant future, are we paying any attention to what kind of products and services it might decide to promote to unsuspecting and gullible consumers? Is there any guarantee that these will be in the best human interest? What if autonomous AI decides that serving the best human interests is not in its own best interest? Maybe that won't happen, but shouldn't we be guarding against such a possibility?

On the other hand businesses marketing their products and services have access to a surfeit of critical information collected by cutting-edge tools that not only provide vital insights about their interests and needs, but also their vulnerabilities. Might they not exploit these and emotionally manipulate their consumers into making purchase decisions that are not in their best interests?

It is nobody’s case that AI be not used as an immensely enabling technology to further a business’s marketing prospects. What is instead required is to ensure that ethical AI be made non-negotiable for any entity seeking to use it to more efficiently market its offerings.

Businesses have to be made to mandatorily adhere to a code of ethics that ensures that they never indulge in any kind of unfair practices, including discrimination, disrespect for consumer rights, or any form of deception. The bottom line is that legal and moral standards are adhered to at any cost. There can be no scope for bias, breach of trust of a compromise of confidential consumer information.

It is contingent upon marketers to use AI tools of companies that adhere to the highest ethical standards. Building an ethical ecosystem for the deployment of AI in digital marketing has to be absolutely sacrosanct.

:::info Feature image by Antoni Shkraba Studio

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