Integra Graphics Synergy AI Policy and Uses

There’s no denying the impact AI has been having on just about every industry by now. Some people love it, some hate it, some fear it, many are neutral. You might be wondering to yourself how you should be feeling about AI, or how it might be integrated into your own business or those with which you work.

Some variation of the question “What does AI mean for my business” is on most professional minds right now. That’s why we want to be clear and direct about our use of artificial intelligence, and the way we integrate it into the work our team — fully human (with the occasional office dog, of course) — does every day.

Here at Integra, we believe it’s our responsibility to cautiously engage with any and all new technology that could help inform, educate or serve our customers. As a result, we’ve come to embrace certain elements of machine learning and language generation technology in a similar fashion to how we try new print equipment and technology that hits the market. To stay on the cutting edge — and keep our clients there with us — we’ve chosen to wade into this brave new world from the outset.

We’re committed to staying aware of these new technologies, taking advantage of those that help us offer the best information and print deliverables. But here’s our caveat: We follow a strict list of rules embraced company-wide to keep our business, employees, vendors and customers — longstanding, brand new and prospective — safe.

Our AI policy includes both “always” and “never” edicts, which we present below for anyone involved with Integra to explore and learn at their leisure. We review this list of regulations as a team every three months and make updates as necessary to ensure a comprehensive and accurate policy.

Once you’ve read through our always and never AI regulations, you should have a crystal clear idea of our principles and practices as they relate to artificial intelligence and machine learning programs, tools and websites. If you still have questions and would like to learn more about any of the following rules or our AI use in general, do not hesitate to ask an Integra team member.

5 Things You’ll Always See Integra Do With Any Use of Artificial Intelligence

No matter what tools we use and how often, we'll always make sure the following requirements are met.

1. Always Include a Human Element

When AI works alone, it’s often a subpar tool that can’t quite handle the nuances of human communication and certainly can’t relate to the history and goals of a company. Even as various tools and platforms improve, in our view, the human element is what makes a company what it is at its core. We’re selling to humans, not robots, and until that changes, we’ll make sure anything written, spoken or generated in any way by AI gets the Homo sapiens stamp of approval prior to showing up in our materials or on our website.

2. Always Validate the Accuracy of AI-Provided Information

The quest to maintain accuracy goes hand in hand with making sure our flesh and blood teammates stay involved with each and every proposal, picture, video and piece of content before it goes live. We never want to spread false or misleading information to anyone visiting our site or working with our company.

We know AI doesn’t always get it right. Afterall, it’s fairly new to the scene, and the kinks haven’t been fully worked out just yet. So why use it at all? As far as we’re concerned, AI is a great tool to increase the efficiency of our work as well as the capacity of our output. It takes care of the more menial tasks that otherwise eat up valuable time we could be using on innovating and advancing our customers’ projects.

In other words, AI works alongside us, not instead of us. We won’t be putting you on the phone with a robot, and we won’t be sending you direct information from an AI program without verifying each and every part of it for total accuracy.

3. Always Be Ready to Disclose Our AI Use

That’s the purpose of this policy in the first place. We may mix artificial intelligence into our day-to-day operations one day and not use it at all the next. Each of our teammates uses AI in a different way and at different intervals.

We’d have to update our policy every day to encompass every AI functionality and tool we sample week to week, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find out. Each member of our team, no matter what role they play in Integra’s operations, is ready to answer your questions and provide whatever information you request about how we use AI and what tools are at play. If they don't know, they'll put you in touch with somebody who does.

Bottom line? To the best of our abilities, we’ll remain an open book on the topic, ready to disclose the input and output of our operations as they relate to artificial intelligence.

4. Always Perform a Quarterly Review to Keep Our AI Policy Updated

As previously stated, this won’t mean we immediately list a tool we’re trying out for the first time. But if anything we use changes this policy or requires us to add a clause, we’ll be sure to discuss and evaluate those changes at our next quarterly review. Everything you see here in our AI policy will be read, reviewed and, when necessary, revised within three months.

The quarterly review involves our full team, but it is by no means our only process of review. On an individual basis, those of us who use AI heavily or experiment with it within our workflows will habitually check back with the policy and reflect critically on each tool’s viability.

5. Always Monitor the Reputation of AI Tools (and Their Developers) in Use at Integra

As a non-negotiable internal process at Integra Graphics Synergy, our team meets on a quarterly basis to discuss the AI-based tools we’ve been using in our individual workflows. We ensure each one allows us to maintain the requirements set forth in this policy, and we remove any that do not fit within its parameters.

At this meeting and throughout the weeks between, we also review the reputation of our in-use AI tools. What are their policies for keeping input safe and output accurate? If any have chosen to take a path that doesn’t work in tandem with our focus on transparency, value and responsibility, we nix them from our list of usable tools.

4 Things You’ll Never See Our Company Do With Artificial Intelligence

Now that you know what we’ll always do to ensure safe use of artificial intelligence, read about our "nevers" below.

1. Never Share Client Data or Other Sensitive Information With AI Tools

We take every rule on this list seriously, but none more than protecting the data of both customers and vendors. Any personal or professional data you share with us that can tie back to you or your company will stay in human hands only. Machine learning and artificial intelligence are new to the scene, and while we want to get in on the ground floor with these technologies, we’re keeping our eyes open and maintaining an untouchable degree of separation between our clients and use of any tool that we do not have precise and total control over.

2. Never Intentionally Hide AI Use From Clients, Shareholders or Employees

While it’s not always possible for us to report on every detail of our content generation, we’re open books. You can always ask your connection at Integra what AI tools and programs are in use and how they’re used. Additionally, this policy is available on our site at all times and regularly reviewed internally.

At Integra, we strive for full transparency in all things, and AI use is no exception. From images to videos to written articles and blog posts, we may use AI across a number of our operations, but we do so responsibly and as a means to offer greater value to our customers. And with that intention and those practices as our driving force, we feel we have absolutely nothing to hide!

3. Never Use AI for Malicious Purposes out of Line With Integra Ethics

To be clear, we wouldn’t use any tool to try to manipulate our customers or print partners. We’re all about transparency, and a dollar earned through manipulative or dishonest practice is not a dollar we’d want in our coffers.

We mention this rule of ours in relation to AI because many companies will discover easy ways to cheat customers and shareholders by leaning on AI for information and operations, which may mean that many companies’ morals shift, bend or crack under the temptation.

You can rest assured that at Integra, we’re steadfast in our morals. Afterall, we run a business that succeeds when our clients succeed, preferably over and over again. Our business model simply wouldn’t survive if we gained by exploiting.

4. Never Copy/Paste Information Directly From a Language Generation AI

If we were to directly copy and paste information from a language generation AI, in our eyes, we would be, in a sense, disregarding the trust our customers put in us. Given that our entire business model hinges on that trust and our ability to help you find the right solutions for your print, signage and promotional needs, we’d be remiss if we didn’t carefully review any content generated by AI and tailor it to our audience and your needs.

After decades in the print industry, we’re confident that we can spot and eliminate inaccuracies to deliver the most valuable and helpful information and service to you and your business.

Learn More About Working With Integra Graphics Synergy

If you spend any time on the internet — which, hi there, seems like you do! — you’ve probably seen more and more mentions of AI cropping up over the past few months or even years. It’s only natural to wonder how companies are using it.

You probably want to know when you’re talking to or reading information written by a real, live human, and when something is 100% generated by a machine. That’s only natural, and it’s why we found it so important to put together an official AI policy as soon as we started integrating any version of it into our workflow.

Now that you’ve read through our policy, we hope you understand just how important transparency is to us. We will always strive to be as responsible as possible with AI and any other technological advancement that makes its way to the market with the potential to make our customers’ lives, businesses or print work better.

We strive to make the experience of working with Integra just as transparent and valuable, because the trust our customers place at our door means more to us than everything else combined.