The Salt Sessions

Transcript

 

This transcript was generated by AI, may contain errors.​

 

0:09

Hi, I'm Bev Salt, a warm welcome back to the Salt Sessions.

0:14
This is going to be my final episode in season 3, so I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Jo Brianti, who is a fellow founding member of the brilliant Mums in marketing community.

0:29
So Jo, please can you introduce yourself to our listeners?

0:34
Everybody, it's interesting that I've joined Mums in Marketing because I don't know a great deal about marketing.

0:41
I'm the data protection specialist and I help everybody, Mums in Marketing alongside my clients on all things data protection and AI governance.

0:51
Thank you, Jo.

0:52
Today's date is Monday the 10th of August, and Jo and I will be discussing the EU AI Act.

1:03
So Jo, shall we start right from the beginning?

1:05
What is the EU AI Act?

1:08
So the EU AI Act is the first major piece of legislation around AI across the world really, and it's been around for quite some time, dribbling through little bits.

1:23
The first stage was to identify various risk levels and now we've got an implementation timeline.

1:33
It's not all today.

1:35
You don't have to know it all and work on it all, dribble little bits out and it helps businesses to understand what they're doing with AI and the impact of that on the people who interact with them at a slower pace.

1:53
So we don't have this GDPR, 400 million emails about consent in your inbox.

2:00
It should be more gradual to help you build your confidence in understanding what the requirements are and how you're using AI as well.

2:09
And as the name suggests, EU.

2:12
So this is an EU initiative.

2:14
Does it apply to UK businesses, Jo?

2:17
Yes.

2:18
So that's the short answer, yes, but there's a caveat to that.

2:25
It is like GDPR, extraterritorial.

2:28
What that means is it is designed to protect people in the EU and the European economic.

2:35
So if you are targeting EU individuals, then you need to think about that.

2:42
If you are offering services or anything to that you're using AI where an EU resident may interact with you and become impacted by that, then yes, you do.

2:59
So one of the areas that you need to think about is a lot of people are building apps with tools like Lovable and Vibe Coding and all of those things.

3:11
If you then want to sell that for people to use, you need to think about the risk levels and are they likely to be EU residents?

3:26
It's about segmenting, managing your data and understanding your audience.

3:30
If you're capping your audience at just UK, the EU AI Act might not be

3:39
Relevant.

3:40
OK and can I just check, does the ACT apply to individuals such as say if you're an influencer or self-employed, would that act be applicable to you?

3:54
Again, it depends.

3:57
It's a lovely phrase that we use a lot.

4:00
It depends.

4:01
So if you're an influencer and you're not using AI at all, it's not going to be relevant.

4:08
If you've got chat bots, if you're using AI to process data, you know, things like CRM systems now have AI elements that you can switch on or off.

4:20
Well, if you've switched those on to generate automations and that involves personal data, again, it may be that you fall under the act.

4:31
The act doesn't care whether you are Coca-Cola, a small limited company with 50 staff, or Jo Brianti, sole trader operating out of her office at home.

4:43
It is about the audience and who's impacted by AI.

4:49
The ACT is a very topical issue at the moment.

4:54
So what actually changed on the 2nd of August 2026?

4:59
So what we needed to think about as of the 2nd of August was the latest.

5:09
I suppose part of the implementation was that we need to think about the rules around these general purpose AI models.

5:19
I've mentioned things like chat bots and those kinds of tools that we're all adopting and they're speeding up our lives.

5:29
But now we need to really think about those and what is the impact on our customer?

5:34
What is it doing with our data?

5:38
Is it touching any of our personal data?

5:40
So for example, if you've got an AI bot where you could just ask a question and it will bring back ready made default answers and it doesn't have to think, doesn't have to interact with your account, doesn't.

5:57
It just sees kind of a guest login that's different to the chat bot that then takes your name, your address, your contact information and those sorts of things.

6:09
So you need to look at what your tools are, what is it doing and how much personal data is it processing when you think about meeting that next stage, which is from the 2nd of August, OK.

6:24
So if for example, somebody used AI to assist with a logo from for a business, is that something that needs to be declared?

6:38
You should on images, you should.

6:40
And the recommendation is that when you create an image, and it doesn't matter whether it's a logo or whether it's images to go in your lead magnets or brochures or wherever you're using these images, if images are shared, you can lose the metadata behind them.

7:04
So always have a statement that is embedded, you know, in the bottom, let's say the bottom left hand corner, it doesn't really matter top, bottom, wherever that says AI generated or generated with AI assistance, something along those lines.

7:24
But make sure it is part of the text within the image.

7:29
And if you are sharing that image for somebody else to use, make sure that it's in your contractual obligations that that statement isn't removed from the image because some AI images now can be very lifelike.

7:50
And we've got to be very clear about when we're using AI, when we're not using AI, and how we're using it.

7:59
And another thing that you need to think about is when was the last time you reviewed your privacy notice or your privacy policy, which is the internal and the external?

8:11
Are you telling the external people to your organisation, your customers, your clients, your suppliers, partners that you're adopting AI?

8:22
And on the internal facing privacy policy, are you telling the staff that you're using AI possibly to calculate their salaries, possibly to automate an appraisal process, that there's, there's a lot of options out there and ways that we could be using it.

8:40
So it's a key thing, transparency.

8:43
And again, that's not something new because GDPR brought the requirement for transparency.

8:51
We're still building on that.

8:54
But now we're talking about the new kid on the block, which is AI, right?

9:00
OK.

9:01
And obviously with ACT is a phased approach.

9:04
So are there any other key dates that people need to be mindful of?

9:10
So across 2026, you've got obviously the transparency rules that we are looking at now.

9:18
The next set of considerations will be in December and there will be additional prohibited practises introduced and an amended timetable will apply.

9:31
So for now work on the transparency elements that you're doing now.

9:38
The next set of changes are going to be 2nd of December, just in time for the Christmas break.

9:45
And then you've got the next ones after that, as at today will be in late in 2027 and then again some more in 2028.

9:59
So it's a very, very slow burn and they are introducing missing in phased approaches.

10:08
That's probably a good thing.

10:09
What is the difference between an AI provider and an AI user?

10:14
Can you explain to us broadly. So an AI user could be somebody like me?

10:20
I regularly use claude and Perplexity.

10:26
Perplexity helps me with research.

10:28
Claude, for example.

10:31
I've just recently used claude to design my garden because I want to make some changes there, but I also use it for drafting, perhaps social media posts, helping me to pull together ideas.

10:44
I am a user.

10:46
A deployer would be somebody who might be building apps and then selling them on or licencing them for use by other people.

10:57
Now, I may create an app that I use for myself, but if I'm not deploying it out in the world, there's a subtle difference.

11:06
It still retains me as the user.

11:09
It's the change where you're offering it to other people to access what you've built.

11:15
Is the difference OK?

11:17
Would you say that everything when you use AI to help you needs declaring to have full transparency?

11:25
You should, yes.

11:27
You know, things like, for example, if you're putting out quotes, proposals, creating templates, you know, as marketing consultants, are you doing social media?

11:38
Are you, you know, creating images for social media with AI?

11:44
Think about the transparency and the element of AI that's used.

11:50
So if something is 100%, AII would suggest that you need to make that very, very clear.

11:58
But also what you need to think about is if AI has drafted a document for you.

12:04
So I just drafted a report this morning.

12:08
I've pulled together some scrap notes.

12:11
I've put it into Claude.

12:12
He's drafted a report for me.

12:15
I am now going to download that report.

12:18
I will read it.

12:19
I will edit it, so I will change text.

12:23
Claude has a habit of pulling in information that wasn't in notes.

12:28
That's perhaps being a little creative.

12:30
Let's say.

12:31
So always you've got to go through the documentation and you've got to review, you've got to cross check and do all of those things.

12:39
So you've got to think about being very honest about how much AI is doing for you when you're thinking about your transparency.

12:52
And I would say that you just need to say whether it's been 100% or whether it's been an input, OK, if you use Claude to help you draft some social media posts and then after as a human, you might edit it load.

13:10
So there therefore you've used Claude to assist you.

13:13
So even with that, you still need to declare it is an AI assisted post.

13:20
You could do yes, it depends on what you put out.

13:24
So for instance, if I brainstorm with Claude and say I want to talk about the EU AI Act and I'd like to create 10 social media posts on this, can you give me some ideas of the key things I might want to talk about and draft the initial sentence.

13:45
Now, if I then take that sentence or those bullets and I convert those into 200 word posts, the 10 words that Lord has given me as an aid memoir, perhaps they're lost because I've used those to prompt my thinking processes.

14:10
So I wouldn't necessarily say that's an AI involvement because all I've done is got some ideas and I could just as easily get those same ideas from a chat with you.

14:20
Bev.

14:22
Now, if Claude has written all your social media posts, then it's going to be very, very obvious.

14:33
Frequently we've all, we've all had the AI slop discussion on LinkedIn recently.

14:42
But then you it becomes obvious.

14:44
But you should be telling people I've drafted this and I've put it out there with no changes.

14:52
Yeah, thank you.

14:53
It's good advice.

14:54
And what would you say are the greatest risks for businesses then You could get fined.

15:00
But I think, and I find this very much on, on GDPR, yes, there are fines and fines are important and, and those kinds of things.

15:11
But you know, let's say you get a £50K fine.

15:15
That's a very large fine for a small business, right?

15:20
But I'll tell you what's more costly, the loss of your reputation and the loss of trust with your clients.

15:28
And I know it's not AI, but if you look back at the impact of the recent data breaches on Marks and Spencer's Jaguar cars, the Co-op, and then you looked at the lost sales that they had as a result of those due to the loss of customer confidence in them.

15:52
That hurts a lot, lot more because you've got to work doubly hard to get that trust back from that client.

16:02
And I think that is that where I would urge people to focus on.

16:09
We can all be afraid of fines, but you know, if you haven't got any customers, you haven't got a business and if you've lost the trust and you've lost the respect of your client base, then where are you going?

16:26
How are you going to sustain the business to even get a fine in the 1st place?

16:31
It's generally the marketing department that produces content.

16:35
So what does the ACT mean for marketeers?

16:41
So what I would say is that it's going to change what you do.

16:51
I know that I've been partying memes and other places to a lot of conversations about it's taking my job.

17:00
And you know, people are doing their own copywriting or they're writing their own socials with AI.

17:08
But as I mentioned earlier on, there's the whole discussion around AI slop and AI quality documentation.

17:18
Now if you're a business that's happy to put out that AI generated stuff all the time with no human oversight, what kind of customers and clients are you going to be attracting?

17:35
How does that promote your organisation?

17:41
And the simple fact is you need somebody in marketing who's got those dedicated skills, whether it's social media, whether it's strategy, whether it's blogging, whether it's the website content.

17:56
AI hasn't got that human touch.

17:59
And ultimately we have to remember people buy from people at a smaller business level, that there comes a point where, you know, Coca-Cola, IBM and those big global organisations will have different buying strategies.

18:15
But in the small business world, I come to Bev because I know and like and trust Bev

18:21
And we've chatted and I know what you can do for my business.

18:25
You know, I'm not necessarily putting out a tender process, you know, and those kinds of things.

18:32
And if I come and audit your service by going to your website and I see a website that looks a bit AI generated and doesn't show me you your personality and your skill, is that what I want to replicate in my business?

18:51
No, because I want my business to represent me and my tone of voice.

18:56
Can I do that?

18:57
Totally.

18:58
Does AI get it right all the time?

19:00
So I think there are opportunities for marketers, but it is a challenge as you're going through this cycle to kind of find them and increase your skills and all of those things.

19:16
And it, it's absolutely worrying the thought that AI is going to replace you.

19:21
But I think if you go away from that mindset and look for where are the opportunities that I can create using AI, then you put a different slant on it.

19:36
And can you find a different job title or different job description that enables you to use your humanness and your skill that AI just doesn't have?

19:50
It's about evolving.

19:51
Yes, I, I think absolutely it is.

19:55
It's an evolving position with AI.

20:00
Every day there's a new AI tool.

20:02
Every day there's a new, oh, look what AI's done for me.

20:07
And we're riding a Crest of a wave at the moment because we're all jumping onto this bandwagon in a period, in a short period that's going to settle and then businesses are going to be looking for the difference.

20:24
How am I different to those 4 competitors who are all using AI?

20:29
And that difference could be you as the marketer that has got the creativity to come up with a campaign that is very different to your competitors and AI won't.

20:39
It'll look at what's out there that it can search on the Internet already.

20:44
Absolutely.

20:45
So if I run a small business and I've done nothing about this act as of yet, which things should I put in place now?

20:54
What would you recommend businesses to prioritise?

20:59
So the first thing you need to do is you need to understand what you're using AI for.

21:05
Is it, you know, if you're using AI to create images, you just need to make sure that every image has the little statement, you know that it's an AI generated image.

21:19
If you're using AI for chat bots and you've switched on those AI services in the other tools that you're using, perhaps your accounts, your CRM, your e-mail marketing and those kinds of things, you need to know and understand that and then you need to update your privacy notice.

21:41
That's start there.

21:43
Understand what AI you're using, how it's touching data in your business.

21:48
Update your privacy notice.

21:50
If you go no further than that in the short term, that's a good start and a good understanding level.

21:59
It's easy to build on that a little bit at a time, building your AI literacy, understanding the privacy requirements around AI, and updating as you go along.

22:15
The Privacy Notice is a living, breathing document, so it's not something we wrote once in 2018 and we haven't reviewed again.

22:24
Every time you do something new and different with AI, update your Privacy Notice iteratively.

22:32
OK what about if you use AI?

22:35
Say you've worked in recruitment and you use AI for the screening process.

22:40
Would you alert potential candidates who apply.

22:44
So this is one of the key things that needs to be thought about.

22:51
GDPR requires and making people aware of automated processes.

22:59
Now automated processes are very usually algorithmic and AI focused.

23:05
So on your privacy notice under GDPR, you needed to include that too.

23:11
The Data Use and Access Act, which is the new piece of legislation that's sort of built on top of GDPR, made a few changes around that, but it didn't remove the human from this process.

23:26
So even if you're using it with recruitment and there is an element of automation, you must still have break points in the process where a human being validates the decisions that are making that are being made by AI.

23:47
And I know recently on the news there was a lady who was talking about AI being very ageist and how she felt she was having to screen all sorts of things off her CV so that she wasn't, you know, included in that.

24:07
Now, when you set up this AI process for screening CVS, it's very often based on keywords and it is actually looking for words to screen people in, rather than saying screen out somebody who is clearly born outside of this.

24:33
Or whatever.

24:34
And it looks at the moment like AI is something new in recruitment, but it isn't.

24:43
I can remember going back as a, a freelance project management contractor, putting my CV onto job boards and the algorithm not picking me up for jobs that I knew I could do, but I haven't got the right keywords at the right points in my CV.

25:03
So AI in recruitment and algorithmic automation in recruitment is not something that's new.

25:12
The requirement that is new is that we have to mandate some human oversight into this and we have to make it very, very clear on, see, I'm sorry, on our privacy notice, what we're doing, how we're doing it, and at what points are we including that human balance.

25:36
Yeah, that's great.

25:37
And from your perspective, Jo, do you think the ACT is a burden or an opportunity?

25:46
It's like a lot of regulation, right?

25:52
GDPR was huge when it came in and a lot of people felt it was a huge burden.

25:59
And it is in a way a burden right now today.

26:03
But it, it is that because it's all new.

26:06
We've got to understand what we have to do in order to ensure that we're managing our role compliantly.

26:16
What I advise people to do is to look at how we can embed these regulations into our day-to-day activities so it doesn't become this, oh God, I've got to do that job for AI Act or for GDPR.

26:33
It happens automatically.

26:36
And then doing things like the regular reviews that you should be doing under GDPR anyway, just add a little extra half an hour to include the new elements for AI and making sure that you are reviewing what you're doing with AI and you're updating all of your records.

26:57
Great, thank you, Jo.

26:59
I always ask my guests a final bonus question, so I'm going to ask you this as well.

27:05
And my question is, what's a piece of advice you come back to when things get tough?

27:12
Quite simple.

27:13
This too shall pass.

27:16
It can feel really difficult when you're in the middle of a a difficult.

27:21
Whether that's work, relationship, health or anything that's going on in your life.

27:29
It can feel like you can't see the wood for the trees and you can't get out.

27:34
But if you just keep in in the back of your mind, there's too short pass and you're on a that very hackneyed word, the journey.

27:43
But you know, today is difficult, tomorrow it might be better.

27:49
And if you just keep thinking like that, it helps you see a light at the end of the tunnel, you know, interesting because you are the second person to come up with that exact response.

28:07
Really.

28:08
Yes.

28:09
And the other person, incidentally, is also a founding Mums in Marketing member as well.

28:15
It was the lovely Alice Widger.

28:19
SO yeah, SEO consultant in Devon.

28:22
So I, I think sometimes, you know, particularly, I suppose as mums working, there's a lot that goes on in our lives and, you know, it would be so easy to just feel dragged down by and there are days, don't get me wrong, there are days when I, you know, have and do feel, gosh, I can't get through this.

28:47
But I just tried to keep at the front of my mind, ‘this too shall pass’. So true.

28:55
Great, thank you.

28:57
And Jo, if people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to contact you?

29:02
They can drop me an e-mail on jo@jobrianti.co.uk or connect with me on LinkedIn.

29:11
I'm always happy to have a chat and run through anything great.

29:15
Well, can I just say thank you so much for your time today.

29:18
Personally, I've learned a lot and lots to think about and implement as a result of them this conversation.

29:26
So thank you so much for your time.

29:28
You're welcome.

29:29
Thank you.