CEO at Bazaarvoice, the leading provider of product reviews and user-generated content (UGC) solutions.
By now, you’ve likely heard about generative AI, thanks to ChatGPT—in fact, just two months after launching, ChatGPT reached 100 million users. Generative AI has the capability to be pervasive in pretty much every aspect of our lives, including retail. And as we’ve seen in the news, it’s recently been used to write fake product reviews.
For the most part, fake reviews and other types of fraudulent user-generated content (UGC) are created by nefarious actors in order to increase the number of reviews for a product to try to get more people to buy it. Conversely, they can also be generated to inundate a competitor’s site with negative reviews to hurt their sales.
Regardless of their intent, fake reviews cause consumers to base their purchase decision on inauthentic information, which can leave them disappointed when they receive their product. While AI-generated reviews may be attractive to brands and retailers to temporarily boost sales, in the long term, they’ll erode customer trust and, in turn, retention.
But, generative AI isn’t a blanketly bad thing for online UGC—it can be helpful as well.
AI isn’t new to UGC.
AI has been around for a long time, helping with things as common as grammar-checking while writing a review. And while AI systems can be employed to generate fake reviews in bulk, similar systems can also be applied to detect them.
In fact, at my company, we’ve been using AI in our products for over a decade. Currently, it powers many things, such as moderation capabilities. These machine learning systems can be trained to detect patterns that indicate a website contains fake reviews. These systems scour more data than any human could in several lifetimes to detect those patterns. And once they’re detected, fake reviews can be eradicated.
In the wrong hands, generative AI can be harmful.
However, as helpful as AI can be to help detect reviews, any tool in the hands of unscrupulous characters can be harmful. And unfortunately, this tool can very quickly and easily help bad actors create fake UGC at scale. If this is left unchecked, shoppers won’t be able to trust whether UGC is authentic, which could have serious implications for the future of online shopping.
A principled approach to the use of AI tools and the continuous development of authentication processes is critical to maintaining consumers’ trust in UGC. For example, at my company, we’ve helped write several standards on authenticity and moderation in partnership with regulatory bodies, and we’re continuous in our commitment to align our approach with those of major international regulators.
Generative AI can also be helpful to shoppers.
More recent developments in generative AI can help consumers beyond detecting fake UGC. Utilizing this technology, brands can assist their customers in writing and creating more useful and valuable UGC by prompting them with tips and stimulating questions that will inspire them to create content about aspects of the product they may not have considered otherwise.
For instance, when writing a review about something as simple as mayonnaise, generative AI could remind the consumer to consider writing about not only the taste but also the texture, quality, packaging and price. These helpful, unbiased prompts employ AI models trained with high volumes of authentic and accurate UGC data.
Overall, I see AI technology as having the ability to make the online experience more relevant to the consumer and the content creation process even easier.
It’s important for brands and governing bodies to enforce standards around generative AI.
As generative AI continues to rapidly transform and improve, I believe there will be increasing scrutiny of UGC in all of its forms, from reviews to social media posts, and ultimately legislation surrounding it. I support and encourage appropriate guidance being enforced, as it will protect both brands and their customers.
Take a responsible approach to using AI when it comes to UGC.
When implementing AI in your UGC programs there are three golden rules you should follow:
1. Authenticity is everything. Never, ever use AI to write reviews on behalf of consumers. It’s important that reviews come from actual shoppers who had real, unbiased experiences with the products.
2. Respect your consumers’ privacy and security and never share any of their personally identifiable information (PII) with AI providers.
3. Acknowledge and account for your mistakes and errors. While generative AI has been around for a while, we’re all still learning from mistakes and need to use those learnings to continuously improve.
Authentic, accurate UGC not only helps consumers make well-informed purchasing decisions and spend their money how they please, but it also helps promote brands selling products that shoppers want and provides them with invaluable feedback on how to improve their products. Responsible use and standards around UGC and generative AI can be a win for everyone.
Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
Read the full article here
