AI on Your Website: When to Use It, When to Avoid It, and the Ethics of It All

Artificial intelligence is everywhere right now, and it’s tempting to think it might be the shortcut you’ve been waiting for: quick logos, instant illustrations, endless streams of blog posts. But before you ask an AI tool to design your brand or write your content, it’s worth asking a harder question: should you? And since times are tough for small businesses, increasingly the question is: can we afford not to?

AI doesn’t come free; it consumes resources and often draws on real artists’ work without consent or compensation. That doesn’t make it off-limits, but we need to use it responsibly.

Here’s our honest breakdown of where we’d say yes, no, and maybe.

This is based on what we know in 2025 – as technologies and services keep evolving, we will keep adjusting our processes as well.

 

Logos & Branding: Never 🚫

An AI tool will generate you something that looks like a logo. It might even be something that speaks to you. But under the hood, it’s the average of every logo the AI was trained on – across every industry, and including all the bad logos. The result is something that just won’t pull its weight for you as a business asset.

There are also practical and legal risks: AI-generated logos don’t consider trademarking, cultural context, or future scalability. A human branding expert, on the other hand, builds around your actual business case, with foresight, technical knowledge, and a trained eye for pitfalls that you don’t know about. Your logo is too important to leave to chance.

 

Illustrations: Not Recommended 🚫

For illustrations (website graphics, tote bag art, stickers, etc.), the stakes aren’t as high as logos, but the ethical issues are. AI image generators scrape existing artists’ work to generate visuals that resemble them. Illustration is a high-skill craft that deserves to be treated with respect. And compared to the value you get, illustrators really don’t charge that much.

The same “average of everything” problem applies here, too.

Almostronaut Devyn has this to add:

“Something that also comes up a lot with ai generated artwork, is just HOW derivative it can be. It’s especially bad right now because of ai scraping kind of poisoning itself: you’ll notice that a lot of ai artwork is very yellow-looking as of late. It’s one of those tells that makes it obvious that someone didn’t actually draw the piece. And when it’s obvious, it really cheapens a brand. I’ve seen is turn people off of products/brands entirely.”

Custom-made illustrations, planned with intent, designed for your message, and created with marketing expertise, will always have more impact.

 

Stock Photos & Social Media Images: Not Recommended 🚫

This one is a minefield. Even if you get something passable, AI photos are prone to uncanny details (like six fingers on one hand, computer cords that go nowhere) and people are developing a gut feeling for spotting these. Beyond being a bad look, the legal status of AI-generated stock photos in commercial use is still murky.

Better options exist:

• Free stock, for example from Pexels or Unsplash

• Affordable licensed stock from pro photographers

• Or best of all: real photos of your actual team, product, or space.

Pro tip: If you’re looking for a photographer, we can connect you with great local options. We’ve worked with some amazing experts for portrait shots, product photography and real estate photography.

 

Writing Text Copy: A Mixed Bag 🤔

An industry colleague of mine recently shared that he was looking for a computer mouse and the product description (clearly written by AI and not double-checked by humans) was about the animal. We all had a good laugh. He went somewhere else to make his purchase.

AI can be useful to create text content… and also misleading. Yes, it can help draft a structure, get you past writer’s block, or point out weaknesses in your draft. But anyone who’s read enough AI writing knows the style by now. It feels formulaic and has a disingenuous aftertaste. You may feel like your own text is not perfect, but authenticity is becoming so rare that imperfections are turning into an asset.

Let AI help, but don’t let it write the final copy. Humans connect with humans.

And, same as with illustrations and photography: if you have the budget, absolutely ask a pro, such as Vicki Thomas from Good Words Work.

 

Brainstorming Ideas: Useful ✅

This is the sweet spot. AI is pretty good at rapid idea generation:

• “Here’s my concept, what am I missing?”
• “Give me 10 more angles on this thought.”
• “List common pitfalls in my approach.”

Keep in mind that something that looks like a good idea isn’t necessarily a good idea for you – AI frequently suggests things without any sense of scope or budget. It’s not always perfect, but the good outputs can save hours and open up new directions you wouldn’t have considered.

 

A Note on Resource Usage

Not all AI is equal in its environmental footprint. Generating text is relatively light compared to generating images, which is extremely resource-intensive. So if you’re casually spinning up hundreds of AI graphics, it’s worth pausing and asking: is this worth the energy?

Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

AI has its place, but it’s not a replacement for human creativity, strategy, or connection. Used wisely, it can speed things up and spark ideas. Used carelessly, it can undermine your brand, waste resources, and leave you with generic content that doesn’t deliver results.

The Almostronaut Creative crew puts humans come first – in the experts we collaborate with, and in designing every experience for your real users, not bots.