How to Make Generative AI Safe for Marketers

Generative AI has become a common tool in the daily operations of marketing departments, streamlining content creation across multiple markets and platforms. Marketers are leaning into AI to help them draft, translate, target and A/B test their content.

But many companies still lack a formal framework for how GenAI should be used, and, according to Gartner, they are scaling back investments in marketing technology. 

As a result, some marketers are using free online GenAI tools without thinking through the risks—such as unintentionally divulging sensitive company information in a public forum.

Many legacy content systems fall short of adapting to the speed at which generative AI is evolving. To ensure that marketers aren’t taking unnecessary risks, businesses must choose software that integrates AI guardrails without limiting experimentation.

The Contentful Composable Content Platform takes a forward-looking approach to content creation by integrating with GenAI tools to help marketing teams produce content, source images and build content models for new and emerging platforms. 

Managers and admin can also build governance into their content platforms, ensuring that all aspects of content—from design to articles to T&Cs—get appropriate oversight.

Contentful also simplifies the approval chain with features like workflows, which automates content monitoring and makes it easier for different stakeholders to weigh in simultaneously, avoiding bottlenecks that can delay launches. 

By making collaboration and permissions core features of its software, Contentful puts human judgment at the heart of content creation—even when GenAI has lent a helping hand. 

Dina Apostolou, Vice President of Brand Experiences at Contentful, Customer and Partner Experiences at Contentful, says prioritizing human oversight is fundamental to instill trust among customers and protect organizations from GenAI’s potential drawbacks, such as inaccuracies or unintentional copyright infringement. 

“In order to have a level of compliance and safety, content really needs to be supervised,” she says. “No one wants to be the next Sports Illustrated.”

A core component of marketing is staying up to date with emerging trends, including GenAI. Providing training for responsible AI usage—particularly around engineering prompts, and the questions to ask a GenAI model to get the results you want—is a good starting point, Apostolou says. Good outputs depend on good inputs, and if you’re not asking your GenAI models the right questions, you won’t be maximizing the tool’s efficiency. 

To maximize productivity, Apostolou recommends that organizations prioritize investment in AI-enabled tools that allow marketers to spend less time on repetitive processes, and more time coming up with campaign strategy. 

“The irony is that the more digital the marketer’s job has become, the more manual, laborious tasks have been added to the marketer’s plate,” says Apostolou. 

When organizations provide marketers with the framework to use GenAI safely, she says, they bring creativity back to the role of creatives.