The way I see it, AI supports our work, but humans always make the final call.
– Brian Cain, founder and CEO of Crawl Entertainment Group
AI rules the headlines — from reports of chatbots issuing inappropriate responses to fallout from customer service disasters and even news of an AI-generated actress courting talent agencies, there are plenty of reasons for the workforce to fear this now ubiquitous technology. Job loss continues to be a major concern for creatives and entry-level workers while data breaches and trepidation around integration keep many business owners from adopting the tech in their operations.
While some small businesses and artists hesitate to wade into the waters of AI, others are diving in completely and finding that they’re gaining a competitive edge. Only time will tell who the winners and losers will ultimately be, but everyone agrees there’s no putting the cat back in the bag. So what do business owners, artists, and freelancers need to know about AI?
“For many businesses, it should improve efficiency when used properly,” said IP attorney Fabian Nehrbass. He said anyone using computers in their day-to-day operations can benefit from AI as an assistant and means for reducing costs and improving efficiency if employed for tackling repetitive or mundane tasks. It’s a helpful tool for actions like drafting letters and analyzing and synthesizing information.
“However, it can be harmful to those who create artistic works such as graphic designers and musicians, as there are many platforms that people can utilize which are often less expensive and faster than hiring someone on a project basis,” he said.
This raises another question yet to be answered — how will consumers respond to the flood of artificially generated content? IP attorney Suzette Toledano works closely with the entertainment and arts industries — industries that rely on originality — which she said are being disrupted by AI. According to Toledano, human authors of original creative works (songwriters, visual artists, writers and filmmakers) are most affected. She also adds software developers to the list of endangered jobs.
“On the other hand, businesses that cater to less discerning customers, those who do not appreciate originality, where music and art are simply placeholders, will benefit,” she said. For example, Spotify is flooded with AI-generated music, and “sofa art” is abundant in the marketplace. Toledano believes consumers who place a high value on authenticity and originality are affected as it becomes more difficult to find human artistry. She anticipates that as AI becomes more sophisticated AI artistry will be a reality.
For artists, Toledano said it’s important to document your creative process and maintain detailed creation records using human authorship whenever possible.
“The fundamentals of intellectual property (IP) protection still apply,” she said. “To be copyrightable, original work must be created by a human. But what if AI assists the creation; what if AI is used as a tool? The copyright office has published a guide for registering works that are assisted in their creation by AI.”
Both Toledano and Nehrbass recommend business owners, freelancers and artists protect themselves and their intellectual property as soon as possible. Generally speaking, copyrights are registered to protect the expression of an idea, patents are filed for inventions, and trademarks are registered to protect brands. Additional protection can also be sought through licensing contracts that establish obligations of the parties involved. Monitoring and addressing infringement is a must, they say.
Protection from risks associated with AI has proven important to some regional small businesses, including photographer Ivy B. French of Ivy B Photography, Crawl New Orleans walking tours and Shadowtrack Technologies, Inc., a software and hardware solutions company serving the corrections industry. For all three companies, researching legal issues around AI has been crucial to both their use of AI and protection from risk.
For French, AI tools have helped with post-processing and reducing time spent on certain mundane tasks. Conversely, AI tools have opened up the possibility for clients to steal her work by removing her company’s embedded logo from photos. While it’s rare for clients to steal, she has had to threaten legal action on a couple of occasions. But she finds that educating her clients up front through written contracts, verbal reviews of the contracts and clear language on her website largely prevents any misuse of AI by clients.
“I’ve done a ton of research on how to protect myself and my clients from stealing and the verbiage we need to use so that clients can fully understand copyright laws and what’s considered ‘stealing’ today,” she said. “I’m working on educating others in my field as well so that we can all help protect each other and our clients.”
The biggest concerns around AI for Brian Cain, founder and CEO of Crawl Entertainment Group, are customer data privacy, intellectual property and liability if an AI tool gives out incorrect information.
“I’m very cautious about the language we use in guest-facing materials,” said Cain. “I haven’t sought legal help just for AI, but I pay close attention to contracts and compliance. The way I see it, AI supports our work, but humans always make the final call.”
As a tech company, Shadowtrack is particularly mindful of protecting intellectual property and ensuring their proprietary product knowledge and training data are not exposed or misused. According to President and CEO Robert Magaletta, compliance and privacy are also critical since they must keep enrollee and officer data secure under strict legal standards. The company closely tracks developments in AI and focuses on best practices such as limiting data exposure and encrypting communications.
There are a variety of AI platforms available, and while most people are familiar with ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and others, there’s a sea of platforms specializing in different tasks and offering free and paid versions. Nehrbass emphasizes that users should be aware of the licensing terms of the version they are using.
“For example, an inventor really needs to be careful that if they utilize AI, the platform they are using is not harvesting their information,” he said. Additionally, he warns that while AI can be incredibly helpful as an assistant tool, it is not without error. Toledano agrees and recommends AI be treated as an assistant, not a replacement.
“Be aware that if AI does not know something, it will hallucinate and make up information,” she said. “AI can embarrass you.” Users should fact-check output from AI and maintain both oversight and final edits. Toledano adds that some platforms are transparent about their training data, while others are opaque, resulting in higher risk. She said the best AI is AI that gets to know your business.
“For example, inputting your policies, style guides, product images and content is safer from an IP standpoint than drawing from unauthorized third-party material,” she said. That comes with the caveat, though, that you should not upload trade secrets, and you should be aware of what rights are granted when material is uploaded.
Despite the risks associated with AI, Ivy B Photography, Crawl New Orleans and Shadowtrack have all embraced the technology for the benefit of their business and operations.
“AI has been an amplifier for us,” said Crawl New Orleans’s Brian Cain. “It hasn’t changed what we offer, but it has changed how we operate behind the scenes. We handle a high volume of guest questions and bookings, and AI helps us respond faster, keep communications consistent, and streamline our marketing. That frees our team to focus on what matters most, which is delivering great experiences to our guests,” he said.
Cain has tried several AI platforms but relies most on ChatGPT and Claude for strategy, copywriting and brainstorming and on GoHighLevel for automation. He finds these platforms give him speed and adaptability – critical components of a small business.
“The risk isn’t that AI will replace you; it’s that someone else in your industry will adopt it faster and get ahead,” he said.
As a photographer and owner of a studio rental business, French has used AI to improve output, free up time for additional projects/revenue, and reduce after-hours work. She has tried several platforms — including ChatGPT, Imagen and Evoto — but regularly takes advantage of the AI tools within Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom. She said that what used to take four to eight hours in post-processing work now takes less than half the time. French also utilizes AI to keep the company’s social media posts and marketing current and consistent.
“It’s all my editing and words used in both processing images and scheduling posts, but AI has learned our voice and branding style so that we don’t have to take as long to turn things around to clients or with our marketing,” said French.
At Shadowtrack, Magaletta’s team has built an AI-powered support assistant that helps users navigate the company’s knowledge base and receive real-time guidance on products and services.
“Instead of waiting for traditional support, customers and officers on our platform can now get quick, clear answers,” said Magaletta. “AI also enables us to fully automate workflows and processes, thereby reducing manual workload and enhancing accuracy.”
Shadowtrack has worked with a variety of AI platforms. The company has utilized Amazon Bedrock for scalable deployment and managing embeddings and vector stores. For conversational AI and preprocessing tasks, Shadowtrack has used Anthropic and OpenAI models.
“So far, AI has had positive impacts on our business, though we did face challenges early on when responses were sometimes off-topic or inaccurate,” said Magaletta. “We addressed this by refining prompts, adding strict role instructions, and ensuring answers remain tied only to our knowledge base.”
Additionally, the company carefully controls what is indexed into vector stores and prevents external AIs from learning beyond its curated data set to further protect its proprietary data. According to Magaletta, it’s critical to guard data since AI is only as strong as the knowledge you feed it. Protecting intellectual property ensures you remain in control, he said.
“My advice to other small business owners is to start small and specific by choosing one clear business pain point and automating it,” he said. “AI should always be used to support your business rather than replace the personal touch, because customers value clarity and empathy that AI can enhance but never fully replicate.”
Be prepared to experiment, he said, and monitor results closely — success with AI often comes through trial, error and continuous refinement.
At Crawl New Orleans, Cain has seen customers be more open to AI-driven answers than ever before, even expecting quick, automated responses as the baseline. The real skill, he said, is knowing when a personal touch is needed.
“AI can handle the straightforward stuff, but when empathy, judgment or local insight is needed, our team steps in,” he said. “That balance is what keeps the experience authentic.”
Based on her experience, Ivy French recommends small business owners and artists embrace AI with the understanding that it has a long way to go and cannot replace human connection.
For these business owners, the benefits of using AI have outweighed the risks, but for each of them, research into AI’s risks is key to using the technology well. They each found a way to balance realism with optimism, and once they learned the unique risks their businesses faced, they also learned the real risk could be waiting too long to integrate AI into their work.
AI should always be used to support your business rather than replace the personal touch, because customers value clarity and empathy that AI can enhance but never fully replicate.
– Robert Magaletta, Shadowtrack President and CEO
