Use AI to run your business faster behind the scenes, and be very careful about putting AI-generated images in front of your customers. A growing chunk of the public does not like AI pictures, they can spot them instantly, and when they see one on your menu or your flyer they read it as you not caring about what you sell.
I talked about this on Businessing with Pat Miller, and I want to walk you through where the line is.
What happened with the restaurant and the AI menu?
A restaurant replaced the photos on its menu with AI-generated images. One of them was supposed to be shrimp. It looked like a donut. I’m not a chef, but I’m pretty sure shrimp doesn’t look like a donut. They put one of these pictures in the front window, and people got angry enough to graffiti it. The story made the news this week because the backlash was that strong.
The lesson has nothing to do with shrimp. If that’s the image you’re willing to put in front of the world, how much do you care about what the shrimp tastes like? That’s the question the customer is asking, whether they say it out loud or not. A bad image is a signal about the whole product, and people are reading the signal.
Why do people react so strongly to AI images?
Part of it is that it all looks the same. As Alex put it in the chat this morning, AI flyers look “a little samey and visually busy.” You’ve seen it. You can look at a graphic and say “yep, that’s a ChatGPT flyer” without being a designer. When your marketing looks like everyone else’s marketing, it stops representing you.
The other part is trust. One influencer posted a pledge not to use AI images in flyers or photos, and that post had a huge pile of likes when I checked. There’s a real portion of the world that does not want to see anything that smells like it came from a machine. You don’t have to agree with them. You do have to sell to them.
Does this mean I should stop using AI in my business?
No. This is where I’m a little different from other people who talk about AI. I teach it and I use it because I’m a business owner with a lot of stuff to do, and AI helps me get the back office work done and move faster. Would I stop using Excel because it’s a computer program? Of course not. AI is the same. It makes me more effective, so I’m going to keep using it even on days it’s unpopular.
The difference is where it shows up. Drafting, research, planning, bookkeeping prep, sorting your inbox, building the first version of something you’ll finish yourself: all of that is fair game, because the public never sees it. What they see is the flyer, the menu, the social post, the video. That’s the layer where you need real work by a real person.
How do I use AI for design without it looking like AI?
Use it for the rough draft, then make it yours. Kat, who watches the show, asked AI for slide ideas for one of her workshops, took the suggestions, and built her own slides. That’s exactly right. Teresa, a graphic designer in our community, says clients now bring her AI concepts and ask her to recreate them, and most of the time the concept is so off that she can only keep the general idea. Let the machine brainstorm. Let a human make it look like you.
And when in doubt, hire the designer. The environment we’re doing business in right now is not friendly to AI slop, and the trust you lose is a lot more expensive than the design fee.
Questions owners ask
Is it okay to use AI images for social media posts?
Be careful. If it looks obviously generated, a portion of your audience will hold it against you. Use AI for the concept and finish it with real photos or a designer.
Can customers really tell the difference?
Yes. The style is recognizable even to people who aren’t designers, and that recognition is what triggers the distrust.
Where is AI safe to use in a small business?
Anywhere the customer doesn’t see it: drafting, research, admin, planning, and first drafts of content you’ll rewrite yourself.
What’s the cheapest way to avoid AI slop?
A real photo from your phone beats a perfect-looking fake every time.
Here’s the homework. Look at everything customer-facing you’ve published in the last month. If anything looks like it came straight out of a generator, replace it with a real photo, a real design, or something a person finished by hand. Keep using AI everywhere else. The full segment, including the shrimp, is in the episode. Watch the full episode and you’ll see what I mean.