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The Basics of AI‑Generated Images

Images are a crucial part of every marketing strategy.

You need eye-catching visuals to promote your products and services on social media or create print mailers.

After all, visuals are part of your branding, and the images you use to tell your brand story can profoundly impact your customers.

Unfortunately, small businesses don't have large budgets for professional photoshoots to ensure they have enough images to use for all their marketing strategies. Additionally, even with your budget, you may not have the time to orchestrate the photoshoot and edit the photos for each campaign.

Thankfully, there’s a solution for this with AI-generated images.

AI-generated art can ensure you have an array of images for all of your marketing campaigns without the need to have a professional photographer or graphic designer on staff. Instead, you can simply tell an AI image generator the type of image you're looking for, and it will automatically create art for you.

You may already use AI in marketing, but what are AI-generated images, and is using them right for your business? Continue reading to learn more about AI-generated art and how it can take your marketing strategy to the next level.

AI-generated art refers to artwork that is created using artificial intelligence and machine learning

What are AI-generated images?

Businesses are already using AI content generators to help them write valuable, educational content, so why not try an AI image generator to create images to accompany your blogs, newsletters, web copy, and other marketing assets?

AI-generated art is just what it sounds like—images generated using artificial intelligence and machine learning. Typically, they're created with an AI image generator that creates images from text descriptions of what you're looking for.

AI-generated art is created by computers instead of humans. They can be different styles, such as realistic, abstract, illustrations, and just about anything else you can think of.

In addition to generating images, you can use AI image generators to edit existing photos by analyzing and improving them without human intervention. For example, your AI image generator can remove red eyes, crop images, and create new images from your existing photos.

How do AI-generated images work?

Basic text-to-image AI-generated art is created using a description. An AI image generator analyzes text input and generates corresponding images, effectively converting text to visual content.

Computers are trained by reviewing millions of images and their alt-text to generate similar images from the internet.

For example, an AI image creator might look at all the photos of dogs on the internet, so when it sees text prompts for "dog," it can generate AI art similar to one of the many dog photos it has seen.

AI image generators are trained to generate images similar to those they've seen online to create entirely new images.

For example, using multiple AI-image generators and giving them the text input "dog" will yield many different results, so you can choose one that suits your needs.

In more technical terms, generative AI goes beyond analyzing and editing existing images and can instead create an entirely new image based on the images it's been trained with, which is most often all the images on the internet.

AI-generated images are easy to create, and there are several tools available to use. Currently, apps and browser-based tools allow you to input text and get several image options.

There are some free AI image generators, but the best ones will require you to create an account and pay for the premium version. The best AI image generators will allow you to create stunning images for all your digital or offline marketing campaigns.

Pros and cons of AI-generated images

Advantages and disadvantages of AI-generated images

AI-generated art will be at the forefront of technology and art, but should you use them in your marketing strategy?

Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with using AI-generated images, but like using a human photographer and graphic designer, there are pros and cons.

Advantages

AI-generated art can make content creation easier for your business. Using AI-generated images can make a huge difference if you don't have time to create images or simply don't have enough content for your social media calendar.

A few advantages of these images include the following:

  • Increased efficiency and productivity: An AI art generator can create images faster than humans. In just a few seconds, you can have unique template images for your marketing campaigns, website, social media, and e-blasts. This can be especially beneficial for individuals who don't have editing software or the skills to create images on their own.
  • Control: AI-generated images can be edited to easily adjust the lighting, shadow, and images used to create on-brand imagery.
  • Unique: AI-generated art is unique because they're created from scratch. Unlike the same stock photos you see on every website, you can have unique images that set you apart.
  • Limitless: There's no limit to what AI generators can do to create beautiful professional images for your brand. As long as you can provide them with a description that fits what you're looking for, these programs can generate just about anything.
  • Creativity: AI can help graphic designers develop new and innovative ideas they might not have thought of otherwise. Even if they don't use AI-generated art in their designs, it might spark a new idea that can help them make more creative assets for your marketing campaigns.
  • Easy to use: The biggest benefit of using an AI image generator is its ease of use. Virtually anyone can enter a text description of the image they'd like generated and click a button to let AI do the rest. Additionally, many programs are accessible for individuals with disabilities with the option to convert spoken words to images instead of using text descriptions.

Disadvantages

AI isn't a new concept, but we're still in the early days of this technology. Because AI-generated images are still relatively new and continuously improving, they come with a few disadvantages, such as:

  • Not always realistic: AI generators are trained on images they've seen. However, that doesn't mean they always get things right. Computers can't tell us what looks good or is possible. For example, AI is known to add extra fingers to humans or make images look less realistic. Even the best AI generator can show you a human with six fingers or the wrong anatomy altogether.
  • Size limitations: There are limitations on the size and aspect ratio of the images that can be generated. For most marketing purposes, these limitations shouldn't be an issue. However, most AI models generate square images and other common aspect ratios, but they're not always perfect. You can download your images by file type, which may impact resolution. The resolution for an AI-generated image is also not as good as other options, such as photos, so print images at a larger size may not always come out professional. You can optimize images for the web, but AI-generated images will need a real person to improve the resolution enough for print materials.
  • Not original: Earlier, we told you that each image generated by AI is completely unique, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's original. AI images are imitations of images the program has seen before. They take existing images found on the internet to create new images, which means they're not exactly original.
  • Ethical issues: Ethical concerns are one of the most significant disadvantages of using AI-generated images. Many people are concerned that AI could one day replace human content creators, leading to job loss and economic impact. Additionally, there are other concerns that AI is creating images using other artists' work without giving them credit.
AI-generated images can be used to create social media content and enhance your digital marketing strategy

AI-generated images and digital marketing

AI has taken the art world by storm, but it can also be used to enhance your digital marketing strategy.

However, there are several rules for using AI-generated images in your marketing. In addition, each AI image generator has its own set of rules, which may prohibit the following:

  • The use of people in images without consent
  • Images you don't hold usage rights for
  • Creating images of public figures

For example, a footwear company can't generate an image of a famous basketball player wearing their shoes without permission.

Additionally, any photos of real people that pull in images of faces may be a copyright concern. Unfortunately, copyright law on AI images is nonexistent, but we expect to see developments in the near future.

That said, AI-generated images can improve the effectiveness of your digital marketing campaigns and the efficiency of your internal teams. Instead of hiring designers, you can rely on AI to reduce your budget and pay only for the technology required.

Additionally, AI image generators make it easy to scale your content. For instance, if you fill up your social media marketing calendar with posts every month, you need at least 30 or more images to go along with them, which can be time-consuming. Instead, you might use AI-generated images with faster turnaround times than humans.

Of course, when using AI-generated images in your digital marketing strategy, you should be aware of the limitations.

Right now, Ai-generated photos aren't consistent and won't always render perfect images, which can make them look confusing. It’s always a good idea to have the images reviewed by a human designer who can make changes that reflect your brand identity and make them look more realistic.

Streamline your marketing efforts with AI-generated images

AI-generated images can streamline your marketing efforts by helping you create new images for your marketing campaigns in a fraction of the time as a human.

However, they're not perfect and still have several limitations. Still, adding generated images to your content calendar can help scale your efforts while reducing the time it takes to create content.

Ready to use AI to streamline your marketing efforts? Try Mailchimp today. We have various AI-based tools that can instantly create beautiful designs for you.

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