Early into my AI experiment, I decided I was gonna play around with some of the AI generative image creation tools. I was seeing a lot of people sharing AI-generated photos that looked real. They looked like they were coming out of a photo shoot, but I wasn't really sure. I felt like something was still not 100%.

So I took this AI meme tool and uploaded a few real photos of myself from a real photo shoot I had had for my business. I gave it a summary, a 2,000 character summary that Claude had generated. Claude went and reviewed my sales page, six transcripts of podcast episodes, the CEO Capacity audit, and then it gave me the summary to plug into this meme generator.

And of course, the meme generator gave me back some images I thought were hilarious, and I shared them on my Facebook page because I thought, these are kind of funny, and of course, they're obviously not real. In my head, they were kind of cartoonish.

So as I went back and found them this week for today's episode, it hit me that actually there's a lot about these images that do look very real. It looks very realistic. If you didn't know me in real life, you might have thought these came from the same photo shoot as the original photos that I uploaded for the meme generator to use. It looks like my office. It looks like the same chair I already have. It looks like the same plants that are in the background of the other photos I had uploaded.

It was just some of the little subtle details that made it look ridiculous to me. And to me, I knew it was fake. I knew it was fake, and because I was using a meme generator, it was kind of funny.

What the Comments Told Me

But the thing I wanna talk about is this is where AI is quietly breaking trust in so many relationship-based businesses. And the comments after I posted these images told me how much they break trust, because a lot of people laughed at how silly and funny these memes were, and some of them were like, oh, this is kind of creepy. This isn't you, right?

And that is all I needed to know. That I wanted to make sure I was never causing any sort of confusion, that people would always know anytime there is a photo of me, or what you think is a photo of me, that it's actually me.

[PRODUCTION NOTE: the raw export breaks here. Two takes were spliced and words were dropped. See the transcript audit, item 1. Either re-record this pickup or cut straight to the next paragraph.]

So it was all clearly very fake to me, and that's not the same thing as other people knowing that it's not real. And that's where I wanna talk about where AI can be quietly breaking trust in a relationship-based business.

And I'm gonna start with myself as the example, as the experimenter, because the thing I want you to take out of this is not that people are being careless or trying to dupe you.

Where I Stand and Why I Wrote an AI Statement

Are you ready to grow from solopreneur to CEO? You're in the right place. I'm your host, Racheal Cook, and I've spent the last decade helping women entrepreneurs start and scale service-based businesses. If you're serious about building a sustainable business, it's time to put the strategy, systems, and support in place to make it happen. Join me each week for candid conversations about stepping into your role as CEO, the hard lessons learned along the way, and practical, profitable strategies to grow a sustainable business without the hustle and burnout.

Hey there, CEO. Racheal Cook here, founder of The CEO Collective® and host of the Promote Yourself to CEO® podcast. And we are back for the second installment of the Human-First AI for High-Trust Business series. Today, I want to talk about where AI is quietly breaking trust.

I think this is such an important conversation for us to have because there's a gap between what you see when you're using AI and what everyone else sees.

Last week, I shared with you an episode about where I stand and how I came to my take on how I will and will not be using AI. I shared how I updated and created a whole AI statement for my values page, and I even created a full-on AI statement that lives on my website right where my privacy policy lives, where my terms and conditions live, because I wanted to lead by example here. And I think transparency is incredibly important as a trust-based business.

So today, I wanna talk about the mistakes I'm seeing, and the mistakes I'm seeing are the ones that are costing people who are using AI and not taking the time to really sit with it, and to really make sure that their use of AI is in alignment with their values and with the relationships that they are building in their business.

The Gap Between What You Make and What They See

Like I shared at the top of this episode with these AI images, I used a meme builder, so of course they were funny. I was playing with it. I was laughing about it. I knew it was fake, and the people who really knew me also knew it was fake.

But there's actually a lot of people who didn't realize that, and that's the challenge with AI. When you're creating something with it, you know what has been purely generated. You know the room. You know what parts you would never say. You know what your facial expressions look like. You know all of those little details.

But your audience doesn't know any of that. Unless they know you incredibly well in real life, in person, there's a lot of people who only see the results that you are sharing externally. And when it comes to AI-generated content, AI-generated imagery, AI-generated videos now, AI-generated audios, they're only seeing the output, and there is so much that AI is doing to make it more realistic.

But we all have to remember that so much of human relationship and human communication is below the surface. It's non-verbal, and that's why sometimes you can see something that you know looks really real but is just a little off.

We're a little bit past the stage of, remember when the AI-generated images used to come out, and it'd be like, oh, you have an extra finger, that's not real, or things would be very obviously off about it? Well, now the tools are getting better, so it's gonna become harder and harder to distinguish between what is real and what is not.

And even if it gets more and more and more realistic, there's still a judgment call, a snap judgment call that's happening in the blink of an eye when someone is looking at that, that reads if it's real or if it's not real. And every judgment that you're making, or someone else is making about you, can be made with information that no one else can really see. There might be some small little piece that no one else sees, because it might not be obvious to everybody. It might just seem a little off.

The Trust Break That Never Shows Up in Analytics

So this becomes a little invisible. It's a little invisible break of trust. None of this shows up in your analytics. Nobody unsubscribes and then hits reply and says, your photo looked a little off.

They just start to get a little less certain, like they just know something's not quite right. That's not the you they came to know, and you really don't ever find out.

Transactional Volume Versus High-Trust Relationships

Now, if you're running a high-volume transactional business, this might not cost you a ton. It might cost you a small percentage of conversion rates, but that's why transactional businesses can just pump out so much content, and they are going to use AI to pump out so much content.

For a hugely transactional business, not a big deal. There's not a huge trust requirement for that.

But for a high-trust relational business, a service-based business where people are probably paying you a significant amount of money to work with you, it's really important to protect the trust and protect the relationship at all costs.

People hire you because they get to know, like, and trust you, and they know, like, and trust you because you are creating a brand for yourself and your business. That brand is how they start to recognize you. They recognize what you look like. They recognize how you sound. They recognize your voice. They recognize the little subtleties in the way you talk, or the way you laugh, or the type of language you use.

Anything that interrupts that recognition is diminishing your brand. And as far as high-trust businesses, this is a no-go. This is how we slowly chip away the trust without realizing it.

The 2016 Photo Shoot and the Retoucher

So I wanna be clear, this has been happening since way before AI. Way before AI. This has been happening since Photoshop and editing and photo retouching became a big thing.

So let me share my own experience with this, because this really set my perspective before AI was even a topic of conversation.

In 2016, I was doing the biggest rebrand of my business. I was having a two-day photo shoot at the Quirk Hotel and at my home. We were going all in. And I wanna say all in, this entire rebrand, by the time the website was done and everything was finished, this was like $35,000, $40,000.

I had a stylist who was helping me put together all the clothing. I had a hair and makeup team. I had a creative director on set for two days. I had a photographer on set for two days. I had clients in the room because I wanted to create basically photos of a mock workshop, which was kind of my intuitive hit that the CEO Retreat was gonna be coming at some point.

So this was a huge deal. I had invested a lot of time and money, months and months of preparation, to completely overhaul my brand.

And I remember after that photo shoot, we sent the photos that we chose to use on the website and on our new assets to the retoucher for a final pass. And the first couple photos he sent back to me, I was like, this isn't me. It did not look like me. The photo I got back was thinner than I've been since before I had children, and I have had three kids.

And I remember looking at it thinking, he gave me a boob job. I have had three children. I have nursed three children. My boobs have not looked like that image since probably I was 25 years old.

And I remember just looking at it and going, what the hell is this? I look great, but that's not me. That's not what I look like at all.

Where I Drew the Line on Retouching

And I think this is where maybe some people would say, yes, I wish I looked like this, and they put that kind of aspirational version of themselves out there. And I understand, as women, we have a ton of pressure to look a certain way, and I have seen this over and over and over again. I have seen women that go out to get photo and video and all of this done for their business, but then it's retouched and nipped and tucked in Photoshop until it just doesn't look like you.

And for me, this photo was going on my website. It was going on social media. This was the representation of me that is the first impression a lot of people were gonna get. And I didn't want someone who booked a call to get on Zoom with me and go, who are you? You don't look the same.

And even more, at this point, because I'd seen this happen with so many women out there, I knew what it felt like to see somebody who looked a very specific, highly curated, highly Photoshopped way in all of their online presence, but then you meet them in real life, and it's like, oh, who was the person on the website? It instantly breaks the trust.

So when I pushed back, apparently that was unusual, because a lot of women were going all in on the retouching. They were going all in on the Photoshopping everything because of their own insecurities. And what happened is there was a disconnect between the brand they are presenting out into the world and the actual human behind the brand.

So at this point, I had to get really, really clear about what my line was on retouching. I had to actually sit down and give very, very specific feedback about exactly what was okay and what was not okay.

I was okay with the retoucher smoothing out a wrinkle in the dress if it made the photo look off, or made it look a little distracting. I was okay with removing hairs that had fallen over my forehead, and they could quickly eliminate those.

But what I wasn't okay with was changing the shape of my body. What I wasn't okay with was presenting myself as if I'm completely different.

I literally remember, and again, I looked this up, the feedback I sent was: I wanna look like I have on two pairs of Spanx and everything is just smoothly draping over my body, not like the actual size of my body is being dramatically changed. I just want the dress to be smoothed out.

And so I answered that in 2016, and each time I've worked with a photographer, each time I have worked with a videographer, I have been very clear about my stance on retouching. I've been very clear on my stance on filters now that filters have become a huge thing all over social media. I don't mind using a filter. A filter can be fun, especially when you don't wanna put makeup on. But I don't want to not look like me.

So everyone's asking the same thing right now. It's just different. The tools have changed, but the issue is still there. The challenge is still there. It's still there because we all want to project a version of ourselves out into the world that is, on some level, the perfect version of ourselves. But when we are doing that artificially, I think it's breaking trust for a lot of us.

If the brand you're putting out into the world is not congruent with you in real life, then we've got a problem.

What I Will and Will Not Do With AI

So again, I wanna be clear. There's a lot of nuance in this conversation. I am not saying I will never use AI to create images or graphics for my business. I have been using AI to create images and graphics for my business.

I actually just created an image to go on the top of one of my podcast series pages because I wanted to have a mockup of a woman holding an iPhone with a mockup of my podcast on it, and AI was able to generate that for me. I'm fine with that because I am not trying to show an AI-generated version of myself.

I'm okay with AI helping me and editing my images, and editing my video, and editing my audio. In fact, I'm using Descript right now to record my podcast, and it helps me edit my audio and video. I'm okay with using filters. I love that even when I get on Zoom, I can select a little blur feature, and it just makes me look a little nicer, especially if I'm not having a great skin day.

But I will not have some sort of AI clone representing me. I will actually be there. The me, the human that everybody gets to know in real life, in person, I will always be there, and I think that is really, really important.

That's why in my AI statement, I made sure I was explicitly clear. If you are seeing me, if you are hearing me, if you are watching me, it is me. I might have a little filter on, just like I probably have some makeup on, but I am not going to put an artificial version of me out there. If it is going to be something that is an illustration, maybe I'll use that, but my kid would probably kill me because they're an artist.

So I find that this approach is basically the same rule I wrote for myself in 2016 with the Photoshop. It's just different technology, and I think this distinction is important. And I want everyone to be attuned to it, because if you're building a relationship-based business, people need to know that the person they're following online, they're listening to, they're watching, that that is actually you.

Content That Doesn't Sound Like You

So where else does this come into the world? I see this a lot too right now with content that doesn't sound like you.

I don't think everybody's going out there and putting AI-generated images and AI-generated videos out there. I think right now it's a little creepy, and everybody still feels like, eh, it's a little bit off. But it will get better and better and better, I guarantee it. But what I'm seeing right now is content that doesn't sound like you.

We are starting to see so many people who are jumping into AI to generate content, and we're seeing it because suddenly everyone starts to sound the same.

I was at lunch with my friend Cindy Bennett, who's a realtor here in Richmond, Virginia. So she's in a completely different industry. She has completely different clients. She is on different things for her real estate business, and she's someone who's an amazing marketer for her real estate business. She's all over social media. She has a fantastic newsletter that really highlights why you should move to Richmond, Virginia. Highly recommend if you're interested in coming here.

But we were sitting there at lunch talking about how everyone in her real estate world has jumped on the AI content generation bandwagon, and she says now all the newsletters look the same. They all sound the same. All the social media captions look and sound the same, and she can't really tell anyone apart anymore.

And as she was saying that, I literally was like, yeah, me too, in my industry.

I'm watching everyone start to become exact carbon copies of each other. Websites are looking the same. Same color palette, same layout, same design. I'm seeing everybody has the same hairstyle. Their outfits look the same. If they are creating content, even their backdrops look the same.

It's like they hired the same stylist, the same interior designer, and it's making everyone just look beige. Like everybody went to the same house and put on the same clothes and got the same hairstyle and the same makeup so that they could say the same thing for their social media content, and it just is lacking personality.

So why is this happening? I think it's happening because AI is only gonna synthesize what already exists, and if you don't give it anything to work with, if you don't train it, if you don't give it the context about your business, then guess what? You go in there and say, hey, can you go ahead and write me five captions for Facebook? It's gonna give you captions that sound exactly like what everybody else in your industry does.

Prompt Collecting Is Not a Strategy

And this has been happening for a long, long time. This has been happening way before AI came into the picture. Everybody wants the easy button. Everybody wants the template. Everybody wants the swipe file. Everybody wants the copy-paste, just run my system.

When everybody's running the exact same play, then everything sounds the same. And I know you've seen this since before AI hit the scene, that people have social media that looks and sounds exactly alike, that people were selling, here's 20 different Instagram posts, you just have to fill in your details, as if it's Mad Libs.

AI has just accelerated that. AI is just accelerating that.

And to make it even more interesting, I'm seeing a lot of people who are promoting AI and talking about AI, almost the ones who talk about it the most right now, who are flooding my feed, are flooding my feed with free or extremely inexpensive AI prompts.

And so what I'm seeing is the same thing that used to happen before. People are collecting prompts. They learned one prompt from this person over here, one prompt from this person's newsletter, one prompt from this Facebook group, one prompt that they bought for $7 off of an Instagram ad. And so they're collecting all of these little prompts with big promises, they're plugging them into AI, and then they're getting out kind of generic-sounding content that then they're just publishing without pushing back on it, without significant edits, and it all starts to sound the same.

When there's nothing underneath any of it, it's going to make you blend in faster than anything else. And if you are running a personal brand, the goal is not to blend in. The goal is not to sound like everybody else. The goal is to stand out.

And to layer on top of it even more, I've called out Frankenstein marketing in the past many, many times, where this is the same problem I've seen over and over and over again in the small business space. It's learning from so many different sources, but never having a full cohesive process, a full cohesive strategy.

If you learned funnels from one person, and sales calls from another, and then ads from a third, and email from another person, and social media from over here, and none of it was built to work together, guess what? Your marketing is never going to work the way that it should.

And it's the same problem with prompt collecting right now. Getting a bunch of prompts, that's not a system. Getting a bunch of skills is not a system. So just collecting tactics and running through them, trying to figure out if there's one magical prompt or one magical skill that's gonna unlock everything for your business, that is not a strategy.

You first have to do some underlying foundational work, and that's what we're gonna cover over the next few episodes here. We're gonna talk about how do you actually build the foundational infrastructure for AI to really work for you, and to ensure that you aren't diminishing the trust in your relationships.

Front of House Versus the Plumbing

I wanna be really clear about what I'm not saying, because it'd be easy to hear this as, don't use AI, because AI is going to break trust. That's not the argument.

I'm not saying don't create graphics with AI. I'm not saying don't create images with AI. I'm not saying don't use AI as a tool in editing your videos or your podcasts or your reels or whatever. I'm saying there is a line.

I told you last week where I stand, and I'm not walking that back. That's not what this is. I'm telling you there is a line, and you have to get clear on where your line is.

That's why I shared my AI statement, because I wanted to make it crystal clear, both for myself and my team so that we're all on the same page about how we're using AI, but also for everyone else out there in the world who wants to know how my company uses AI in all of its different use cases.

I think this is where, if you don't take the time to decide where that line is for you, it's real easy for that line to get crossed over and over again.

So the line isn't whether AI touched the work. It's whether what other people experience as you actually came from you. It's actually your face, your voice, your point of view, the story only you can tell.

AI did not generate any of the stories I just told. I actually did go to lunch with Cindy. I actually did that photo shoot in 2016. I actually generated those meme posts. AI can't come up with stories for you. I mean, it probably could fabricate something. But come on, what makes you stand out and be unique and different, which makes people connect with you, is your point of view and your stories and your taste. And we wanna make sure anytime someone encounters you online, you in your marketing, that it's actually you.

Behind that line, use what makes sense for you. I don't think anyone thinks a bookkeeper is cheating for using software. Nobody's ever asked me what the CRM is that I'm using behind the scenes. Your systems behind the scenes are plumbing. They're the infrastructure behind the scenes that are holding up your business, and you don't need to disclose every single system.

But the front of the house, that's different. That is your brand. How people feel, how they experience you is your brand, and that's where I think a lot of people, in their effort to get things out, in their effort to do more marketing, in their effort to, I don't know, win at all of this somehow, there's just a lot of not taking the time to really think with nuance, with discernment: how is this impacting my brand? How is this impacting the relationships I am building, the community I'm building, and how they feel and experience me?

I can tell you that your audience can tell. They probably can't articulate it, so they don't tell you, but their spidey senses are on. They get a little less certain, and then a little less, and then one day you're wondering why people aren't responding, why the engagement is dropping, why the open rates are dropping, why the traffic is dropping. It's because you've lost some of that sparkle, and you've lost the sparkle because AI has erased all of the magic that you already have inside of you.

What's Coming in the Rest of This Series

And if you're sitting there thinking you'd never do that, I want you to remember that a few months ago I sat down and made three photorealistic pictures of myself in a room that I used to work in, put my logo on them, posted them, and in my head they were cartoons, because to me, I thought, these are so silly and ridiculous, until a couple days ago I went looking and I remembered, oh, these actually look real.

You can't read the label from inside the bottle. That's the whole reason this is worth talking about now. This is us sharpening our discernment and getting more explicit in what's okay and what's not okay within all of our individual businesses.

So over the next couple of episodes, I'm gonna get even more practical. Today was kind of the how it's breaking trust. Now I'm gonna talk about how to build trust, that's the next side of this, and I have a couple of exercises that are going to help you make these calls for yourself and for your business, and then how you can start building some of this infrastructure so that when you are using AI, it's coming from you, it's coming from your brain, it's coming from your context.

All right. I will see you in the next episode.