Artificial intelligence has changed how many agencies operate, making them more agile, efficient and powerful than ever before. Of course, with great power comes great responsibility. Agency leaders in the age of AI have a duty to their employees, clients and consumers to ensure these tools are used ethically.
Here, 15 members of Forbes Agency Council share real-world examples of ethical AI in action in an agency context, from increasing transparency and safeguarding privacy to preserving creativity and embedding human oversight. The approaches outlined below show how agencies can embrace game-changing AI technology while staying true to their values and their ethical responsibilities to stakeholders.
1. Clarifying AI’s Role For Clients
Ethical AI in an agency means ensuring transparency about AI’s role in operations and content creation. For example, the agency should clearly inform clients how their information is used, whether AI-generated insights influence the strategy or content, and if open- or closed-source AI tools are involved. This builds trust, ensures accountability and allows clients to make informed decisions about their data. – Valerie Chan, Plat4orm PR
2. Giving Teams Space For Creativity
We use AI to take the load off the team and provide more space for creativity. AI selects influencers, and the team monitors trends and generates ideas for creating outstanding creative. This allows us to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of marketing campaigns, but at the same time, stay fresh and authentic thanks to a human approach. – Michael Kuzminov, HypeFactory
3. Moderating Biased Or Misleading Content
Using AI-powered content moderation can prevent biased or misleading ads from running. Artificial intelligence tools could be used to scan ad copy and visuals for compliance with ethical guidelines. – David Ispiryan, Effeect
4. Focusing On Quality, Not Just Efficiency
In agencies, ethical AI means “better,” whereas unethical AI is about pumping profits by reducing costs at the expense of quality. When AI is deployed to create a better product, you’ll inevitably wrap the project in guardrails that ensure AI is used in a way that benefits both the agency and the client. When AI is seen as a business tool to simply increase efficiency, corners will be cut. – Mike Maynard, Napier Partnership Limited
5. Personalizing Content Without Compromising Privacy
The business world has been warned about third-party cookies going away for some time—and smart agencies have been developing an alternative. Using AI to analyze on-site behavior, for example, can allow a client’s website to suggest relevant content without storing personal data. This helps ensure compliance with privacy regulations while still enhancing the user experience. – Mary Ann O’Brien, OBI Creative
6. Using Chatbots That Prioritize Empathy And Privacy
Agencies can use chatbots that prioritize empathy and privacy. They can be programmed to only provide empathetic responses, collect only essential data, disclose their AI nature and offer a human agent option. This approach gives you all the benefits that AI has to offer while also building trust and making the customer experience that much better. – Jason Hall, FiveChannels Marketing
7. Integrating Deep Research To Ensure Accurate Insights
A great example of utilizing ethical AI in a PR agency setting is by integrating deep research to ensure accurate, bias-free insights. Instead of relying on surface-level sentiment analysis, AI-driven deep research analyzes the context and background details, to drive responsible compelling storytelling. This approach respects public data while prioritizing fairness and accuracy in media outreach. – Ayelet Noff, SlicedBrand
8. Creating An Internal AI Ethics And Usage Council
Whether an agency is using AI to augment or enhance images, aggregate research data, improve content or something else, we recommend forming an in-house AI ethics and usage council. The council should be tasked with creating AI usage guidelines that, above all, ensure integrity and transparency while also focusing on driving greater efficiency, results and overall business success. – Paula Chiocchi, Outward Media, Inc.
9. Monitoring Ad Bidding Tools For Fairness
In an agency context, ethical AI could mean using AI-driven ad bidding while ensuring fairness and transparency. For example, an HVAC marketing agency can use AI to optimize Google Ads, but actively monitor for biases that could exclude certain zip codes or demographics. They ensure AI-driven decisions align with ethical guidelines, providing fair lead distribution while maximizing ROI. – Michael Fox, Corberry Digital
10. Enhancing Efficiency Without Replacing Human Value
Ethical AI in an agency means enhancing efficiency without replacing human value. On the back end, AI that streamlines tasks—like automating reports or optimizing ad performance—empowers employees to focus on strategy. On the front end, AI-generated graphics (as long as they don’t depict real people) are ethical because the creator’s identity doesn’t impact the outcome. – Austin Irabor, NETFLY
11. Escalating Complex Issues From Bots To Humans
An example of ethical AI in an agency context is using AI tools to enhance customer service through chatbots while ensuring they are programmed to escalate complex issues to human agents. This allows for efficiency without compromising the quality of customer experience. It’s important to keep AI transparent, accountable and focused on serving both clients and consumers ethically. – Robert Nikic, Why Unified
12. Combating Click Fraud And Ad Waste
Click fraud can undermine agency reputation. AI can be used to prescreen websites to identify bad actors or low-traffic properties and ensure ad validation. AI that flags sites with high bot traffic, domain spoofing or made-for-advertising sites, as well as inappropriate or poor quality content and sites with excessive pop-ups or high bounce rates, helps protect campaign performance. – Jeff Kaplan, TARA Media.
13. Running Compliance Checks On Messaging
In healthcare, we work with a wide array of clients, each with strict regulatory processes. Ethical AI helps by training bots to check messaging for compliance before legal review, reducing back-and-forth. It can also simplify complex medical jargon into clear, patient-friendly language. Ethical AI should check creativity, not create it—ensuring accuracy while keeping human insight at the core. – Christy Saia-Owenby, MOXY Company
14. Using Predictive Analytics Transparently
Agencies can leverage AI for predictive analytics to refine campaign strategies while maintaining ethical transparency. By analyzing engagement patterns, AI forecasts trends and enables proactive adjustments without compromising data privacy. Ethical AI ensures insights remain unbiased, empowering brands with strategic foresight while keeping human expertise central to decision-making. – Vaibhav Kakkar, Digital Web Solutions
15. Implementing Human Oversight Of AI Outputs
AI should always be reviewed by humans to ensure accuracy and prevent misinformation, as it can sometimes generate false or misleading content. Implementing human oversight helps maintain ethical standards and reliability in both written and visual outputs. – Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, Hawthorne Advertising
Referring URL: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesagencycouncil/2025/04/28/what-ethical-ai-really-looks-like-in-agency-work/
