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In one of my previous articles, I explained how to generate stunning images for free using diffusion models and showed how to generate Stability AI's diffusion models for text-to-image generation.

Since then, the AI domain has progressed considerably, particularly in image generation. Black Forest Labs has released Flux.1 series of state-of-the-art vision models.

In this article, you will see how to use Flux.1 models for text-to-image generation and text-to-image modification. You will import Flux models from Hugging Face and generate images using Python code.

So, let's begin without ado.

Flux models are gated on Hugging Face, meaning you have to log into your account to access Flux models. To do so from a Python application, particularly Jupyter Notebook, you need to download the huggingface_hub module. In addition, you need to download the diffusers module from Hugging Face.

The script below downloads these two modules.

!pip install huggingface_hub
!pip install git+https://github.com/huggingface/diffusers.git

Note: To run scripts in this article, you will need Nvidia GPUs. You can use Google Colab, which provides free Nvidia GPUs.

Next, let's import the required libraries into our Python application:

from huggingface_hub import notebook_login
import torch
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from diffusers import FluxPipeline
from diffusers import FluxImg2ImgPipeline
from diffusers.utils import load_image

notebook_login() # you need to log into your hugging face account using access token

Flux models have two variants: timestep-distilled (FLUX.1-schnell) and guidance-distilled (FLUX.1-dev). The timestep-distilled model requires fewer sampling steps and has a maximum sequence length of 256, while the guidance-distilled variant needs about 50 sampling steps for good-quality generation and has no limitations on max sequence length.

We will use the guidance-distilled Flux.1-dev model for text-to-image generation.

The following script creates a Hugging Face pipeline by importing the pretrained Flux.1-dev model from Hugging Face.

pipe = FluxPipeline.from_pretrained("black-forest-labs/FLUX.1-dev", torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16)
pipe.enable_model_cpu_offload()

Next, for image generation, you must pass the text prompt, the output image's height and width, the guidance scale, the number of interference steps, and the maximum sequence length for the input text.

The guidance_scale parameter influences how closely the generated image adheres to the prompt. Its value ranges between 0 and 20. The num_inference_steps determines the number of denoising steps, affecting the quality and generation time. A higher number of inference steps results in a higher-quality image but takes more time to generate.

The following script will generate an image of a girl standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, holding a sign that says, "Welcome to Paris."

prompt = "A little girl standing in front of eifel tower holding a sign that says welcome to Paris"
image = pipe(
    prompt,
    height=1024,
    width=1024,
    guidance_scale=3.5,
    num_inference_steps=50,
    max_sequence_length=512,
    generator=torch.Generator("cpu").manual_seed(0)
).images[0]
image.save("girl-in-paris.png")

Output:

From the above output, you can see that the model can generate a photo-realistic image.

Let's see another example. We will generate an image of a baby riding a line in Times Square, NY, with an elephant in the background.

prompt = "A baby riding a lion in time square new york with elephants in the background"
image = pipe(
    prompt,
    height=1024,
    width=1024,
    guidance_scale=10,
    num_inference_steps=50,
    max_sequence_length=512,
    generator=torch.Generator("cpu").manual_seed(0)
).images[0]
image.save("baby_lion_time_square.png")

Output:

The above output shows that the model could generate all the details specified in the text prompt.

Finally, I will create a simple function that generates an image given a prompt and the output image name. You can use this function to generate images in your code.

def generate_image_from_text(prompt, image_name):
  image = pipe(
    prompt,
    height=1024,
    width=1024,
    guidance_scale=3.5,
    num_inference_steps=50,
    max_sequence_length=512,
    generator=torch.Generator("cpu").manual_seed(0)
  ).images[0]
  image.save(image_name + ".png")


prompt = "A golden duck swimming in a lake with mountains and sunset view in the background"
image_name = "duck_in_lake"
generate_image_from_text(prompt, image_name)

Output:

As you can see from the above output, the Flux.1-dev model generates very high-quality images based on text prompts.

In the next section, you will see how to modify existing images based on text prompts.

We will use the timestep-distilled Flux.1-schnell model for image modification.

The following script creates a Hugging Face pipeline for the Flux.1-schnell model.

device = "cuda"
mod_pipe = FluxImg2ImgPipeline.from_pretrained("black-forest-labs/FLUX.1-schnell", torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16)
mod_pipe = mod_pipe.to(device)

We will modify the following Wikipedia image of the Pyramid of Giza by adding birds, camels, and a river.

Input Image:

Image modification is similar to image generation, except we must also pass the strength parameter to the pipeline object. The strength parameter defines the extent to which the original image will be modified.

url = "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/All_Gizah_Pyramids.jpg/1920px-All_Gizah_Pyramids.jpg"
init_image = load_image(url)

prompt = "add birds, camels, and blue river"

images = mod_pipe(
    prompt=prompt,
    image=init_image,
    num_inference_steps=50,
    strength=0.75,
    guidance_scale= 7.5,
    ).images[0]

images.save("pyramids_modified.png")

Output:

In the above image, a few birds and camels are added to the original image.

Let's increase the values of the strength and guidance_scale parameters to see how this affects the original image.

images = mod_pipe(
    prompt=prompt,
    image=init_image,
    num_inference_steps=50,
    strength=0.85,
    guidance_scale= 10.0,
    ).images[0]

images.save("pyramids_modified2.png")

Output:

The above output shows that the original image has been modified much more extensively than the previous modification.

Finally, we will define the modify_image() function, which accepts the image URL, the prompt to modify the image, and the name for the modified image and modifies the passed image.

def modify_image(image_url, prompt, image_name):

  init_image = load_image(url)
  images = mod_pipe(
    prompt=prompt,
    image=init_image,
    num_inference_steps=50,
    strength=0.85,
    guidance_scale= 10.0,
    ).images[0]

  images.save(image_name + ".png")

prompt = "cars, horses"
url = "/content/1280px-Taj_Mahal,_Agra,_India_edit3.jpg"
name = "taj_mahal_modified"

modify_image(url, prompt, name)

Here is the input image.

Input Image:

And here is the modified output. You can see some cars and horses added to the image.

Output:

Flux.1 models are the state-of-the-art image generation models. In this article, you saw how to generate and modify images with text prompts using the Flux.1 models. I encourage you to play around with strength and guidance scale parameters to generate and modify your custom images. Let me know if you like the results.

The creator of CSS has said he originally envisaged CSS as the main web technology to control behavior on web pages, with scripting as a fallback when things weren’t possible declaratively in CSS. The rationale for a CSS-first approach was that “scripting is programming and programming is hard.” Since introducing the :hover pseudo-class, CSS has been standardizing patterns developers create in JavaScript and “harvesting” them into CSS standards. When you think about it like that, it’s almost as if JavaScript is the hack and CSS is the official way.

We can, therefore, feel less dirty implementing script-like behavior with CSS, and we shouldn’t be surprised that something like the new scroll-timeline feature has appeared with pretty good browser support. Too many developers implemented clever parallax scrolling websites, which has summoned the CSS feature genie we cannot put back in its bottle. If you don’t want janky main-thread animations for your next parallax-scrolling website, you must now come to the dark side of hacking CSS. Just kidding, there is also a new JavaScript API for scroll-linked animations if imperative programming better fits your use case.

Migrating a JavaScript sample to CSS

It was satisfyingly simple to fork Chris Coyier’s pre-scroll-timeline example of a scroll-linked animation by replacing the CSS Chris was using to control the animations with just one line of CSS and completely deleting the JavaScript!

body, .progress, .cube {
  animation-timeline: scroll();
}

Using the scroll() function without parameters sets up an “anonymous scroll progress timeline” meaning the browser will base the animation on the nearest ancestor that can scroll vertically if our writing mode is English. Unfortunately, it seems we can only choose to animate based on scrolling along the x or y-axis of a particular element but not both, which would be useful. Being a function, we can pass parameters to scroll(), which provides more control over how we want scrolling to run our animation.

Experimenting with multiple dimensions

Even better is the scroll-scope property. Applying that to a container element means we can animate properties on any chosen ancestor element based on any scrollable element that has the same assigned scope. That got me thinking… Since CSS Houdini lets us register animation-friendly, inheritable properties in CSS, we can combine animations on the same element based on multiple scrollable areas on the page. That opens the door for interesting instructional design possibilities such as my experiment below.

Scrolling the horizontal narrative on the light green card rotates the 3D NES console horizontally and scrolling the vertical narrative on the dark green card rotates the NES console vertically. In my previous article, I noted that my past CSS hacks have always boiled down to hiding and showing finite possibilities using CSS. What interests me about this scroll-based experiment is the combinatorial explosion of combined vertical and horizontal rotations. Animation timelines provide an interactivity in pure CSS that hasn’t been possible in the past.

The implementation details are less important than the timeline-scope usage and the custom properties. We register two custom angle properties:

@property --my-y-angle {
  syntax: "<angle>";
  inherits: true;
  initial-value: 0deg;
}

@property --my-x-angle {
  syntax: "<angle>";
  inherits: true;
  initial-value: -35deg;
}

Then, we “borrow” the NES 3D model from the samples in Julian Garner’s amazing CSS 3D modeling app. We update the .scene class for the 3D to base the rotation on our new variables like this:

.scene {
  transform: rotateY(var(--my-y-angle)) rotateX(var(--my-x-angle));
}

Next, we give the <body> element a timeline-scope with two custom-named scopes.

body {
  timeline-scope: --myScroller,--myScroller2; 
}

I haven’t seen anything officially documented about passing in multiple scopes, but it does work in Google Chrome and Edge. If it’s not a formally supported feature, I hope it will become part of the standard because it is ridiculously handy.

Next, we define the named timelines for the two scrollable cards and the axes we want to trigger our animations.

.card:first-child {
  scroll-timeline-axis: x;
  scroll-timeline-name: --myScroller;
}

.card:nth-child(2) {
  scroll-timeline-axis: y;
  scroll-timeline-name: --myScroller2;
}

And add the animations to the scene:

.scene {
  animation: rotateHorizontal,rotateVertical;
  animation-timeline: --myScroller,--myScroller2;
}

@keyframes rotateHorizontal {
  to {
    --my-y-angle: 360deg;
  }
}

@keyframes rotateVertical {
  to {
    --my-x-angle: 360deg;
  }
}

Since the 3D model inherits the x and y angles from the document body, scrolling the cards now rotates the model in combinations of vertical and horizontal angle changes.

User-controlled animations beyond scrollbars

When you think about it, this behavior isn’t just useful for scroll-driven animations. In the above experiment, we are using the scrollable areas more like sliders that control the properties of our 3D model. After getting it working, I went for a walk and was daydreaming about how cool it would be if actual range inputs could control animation timelines. Then I found out they can! At least in Chrome. Pure CSS CMS anyone?

While we’re commandeering 3D models from Julian Garner, let’s see if we can use range inputs to control his X-wing model.

It’s mind-boggling that we can achieve this with just CSS, and we could do it with an arbitrary number of properties. It doesn’t go far enough for me. I would love to see other input controls that can manipulate animation timelines. Imagine text fields progressing animations as you fill them out, or buttons able to play or reverse animations. The latter can be somewhat achieved by combining the :active pseudo-class with the animation-play-state property. But in my experience when you try to use that to animate multiple custom properties, the browser can get confused. By contrast, animation timelines have been implemented with this use case in mind and therefore work smoothly and exactly as I expected.

I’m not the only one who has noticed the potential for hacking this emergent CSS feature. Someone has already implemented this clever Doom clone by combining scroll-timeline with checkbox hacks. The problem I have is it still doesn’t go far enough. We have enough in Chrome to implement avatar builders using scrollbars and range inputs as game controls. I am excited to experiment with unpredictable, sophisticated experiences that are unprecedented in the era before the scroll-timeline feature. After all, if you had to explain the definition of a video game to an alien, wouldn’t you say it is just a hyper-interactive animation?

Slide Through Unlimited Dimensions With CSS Scroll Timelines originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

By definition, an interface is a layer between the user and a system, serving the purpose of communication between them. Interacting with the interface usually requires users to perform certain actions.

Different actions can lead to various outcomes, some of which might be critical.

While we often need to provide additional protection in case users attempt to perform dangerous or irreversible actions, It’s good to remember that one of the ten usability heuristics called “Error Prevention” says:

“Good error messages are important, but the best designs carefully prevent problems from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.”

Surprisingly, when we talk about dangerous actions, it doesn’t necessarily mean that something is being deleted.

Here’s an example of a dangerous action from the banking application I use:

The bank approved a loan for me, and as soon as I clicked “Get Money,” it meant that I had signed the necessary documents and accepted the loan. All I have to do is tap the yellow button, and I’ll get the money.

As a result of an accidental tap, you might end up taking a loan when you didn’t intend to, which is why this action can be considered significant and dangerous.

Therefore, a dangerous action does not necessarily mean deleting something.

Some examples may include the following:

• Sending an email,
• Placing an order,
• Publishing a post,
• Making a bank transaction,
• Signing a legal document,
• Permanently blocking a user,
• Granting or revoking permissions.

There are many methods to prevent users from losing their data or taking irreversible actions unintentionally. One approach is to ask users to explicitly confirm their actions.

There are several ways to implement this, each with its own pros and cons.

Modal Dialogs

First of all, we should understand the difference between modal and non-modal dialogs. It’s better to think about modality state since dialogs, popups, alerts — all of these might be presented either in the modal state or not. I will use the term dialogs as a general reference, but the keyword here is modality.

“Modality is a design technique that presents content in a separate, dedicated mode that prevents interaction with the parent view and requires an explicit action to dismiss.”

— Apple design guides

Modal dialogs require immediate user action. In other words, you cannot continue working with an application until you respond in some way.

Non-modal dialogs, on the other hand, allow you to keep using the application without interruption. A common example of a non-modal element is a toast message that appears in the corner of the screen and does not require you to do anything to continue using the app.

When used properly, modal dialogs are an effective way to prevent accidental clicks on dangerous actions.

The main problem with them is that if they are used to confirm routine actions (such as marking a task as done), they can cause irritation and create a habit of mindlessly confirming them on autopilot.

However, this is one of the most popular methods. Besides, it can be combined with other methods, so let’s dive into it deeper.

When To Use Them

Use modal dialogs when a user action will have serious consequences, especially if the result of the action is irreversible. Typical cases include deleting a post or project, confirming a transaction, and so on.

It depends on what kind of action users want to take, but the main thing to keep in mind is how serious the consequences are and whether the action is reversible or not.

Things To Keep In Mind

1. Avoid vague language.
   If you ask users, “Are you sure?” chances are, they will not have any doubts.
2. In the title, specify what exactly will happen or which entity will be affected (e.g., project name, user name, amount of money).
3. Provide an icon that indicates that the action is dangerous.
   It both increases the chances that users will not automatically confirm it and is good for accessibility reasons (people with color blindness will notice the icon even if it appears grey to them, signaling its importance).
4. In the description, be specific and highlight the necessary information.
5. The CTA button should also contain a word that reflects the action.
   Instead of “Yes” or “Confirm,” use more descriptive options like “Delete,” “Pay $97,” “Make Transaction,” “Send Message,” and so on — including the entity name or amount of money in the button is also helpful. Compare: “Confirm” versus “Pay $97.” The latter is much more specific.

However, this might not be enough.

In some cases, you may require an extra action. A typical solution is to ask users to type something (e.g., a project name) to unblock the CTA button.

Here are a few examples:

ConvertKit asks users to type “DO IT” when removing subscribers.

Pro tip: Note that they placed the buttons on the left side! This is a nice example of applying proximity law. It seems reasonable since the submit button is closer to the form (even if it consists of only one input).

Resend asks users to type “DELETE” if they want to delete an API key, which could have very serious consequences. The API key might be used in many of your apps, and you don’t want to break anything.

This modal is one of the best examples of following the best practices:

• The title says what the action is (“Delete API Key”).
• In the text, they mentioned the name of the API Key in bold and in a different color (“Onboarding”).
• The red label that the action can not be undone makes it clearer that this is a serious action.
• Extra action is required (typing “DELETE”).
• The CTA button has both a color indicator (red usually is used for destructive actions) and a proper label — “Delete API Key”. Not a general word, e.g., “Confirm” or “Delete.”

Notice that Resend also places buttons on the left side, just as ConvertKit does.

Note: While generally disabling submit buttons is considered bad practice, this is one of the cases where it is acceptable. The dialog’s request is clear and straightforward both in ConvertKit and Resend examples.

Moreover, we can even skip the submit button altogether. This applies to cases where users are asked to input an OTP, PIN, or 2FA code. For example, the bank app I use does not even have a log in button.

On the one hand, we still ask users to perform an extra action (input the code). On the other hand, it eliminates the need for an additional click.

Accessibility Concerns

There is ongoing debate about whether or not to include a submit button when entering a simple OTP. By “simple,” I mean one that consists of 4-6 digits.

While I am not an accessibility expert, I don’t see any major downsides to omitting the submit button in straightforward cases like this.

First, the OTP step is typically an intermediate part of the user flow, meaning a form with four inputs appears during some process. The first input is automatically focused, and users can navigate through them using the Tab key.

The key point is that, due to the small amount of information required (four digits), it is generally acceptable to auto-submit the form as soon as the digits are entered, even if a mistake is made.

On the one hand, if we care about accessibility, nothing stops us from providing users control over the inputs. On the other hand, auto-submission streamlines the process in most cases, and in the rare event of an error, the user can easily re-enter the digits.

Danger Zones

For the most critical actions, you may use the so-called “Danger zone” pattern.

A common way to implement this is to either have a dedicated page or place the set of actions at the bottom of the settings/account page.

It might contain one or more actions and is usually combined with other methods, e.g., a modal dialog. The more actions you have, the more likely you’ll need a dedicated page.

When To Use Them

Use a Danger Zone to group actions that are irreversible or have a high potential for data loss or significant outcomes for users.

These actions typically include things like account deletion, data wiping, or permission changes that could affect the user’s access or data.

Things To Keep In Mind

1. Use colors like red, warning icons, or borders to visually differentiate the Danger Zone from the rest of the page.
2. Each action in the Danger Zone should have a clear description of what will happen if the user proceeds so that users understand the potential consequences.
3. Ask users for extra effort. Usually, the actions are irreversible and critical. In this case, you may ask users to repeat their password or use 2FA because if someone else gets access to the page, it will not be that easy to do the harmful action.
4. Keep only truly critical actions there. Avoid making a danger zone for the sake of having one.

Inline Guards

Recently, I discovered that some apps have started using inline confirmation. This means that when you click on a dangerous action, it changes its label and asks you to click again.

This pattern is used by apps like Zapier and Typefully. While at first it seems convenient, it has sparked a lot of discussion and questions on X and Linkedin.

I’ve seen attempts to try to fix accidental double-clicking by changing the position of the inline confirmation label that appears after the first click.

But this creates layout shifts. When users work with the app daily, it may cause more irritation than help.

As an option, we can solve this issue by adding a tiny delay, e.g., 100-200ms, to prevent double-clicking.

It also matters who your users are. Remember the good old days when we used to click a dozen times to launch Internet Explorer and ended up with dozens of open instances?

If your target audience is likely to do this, apparently, the pattern will not work.

However, for apps like Zapier or Typefully, my assumption is that the target audience might benefit from the pattern.

Two-factor Authorization Confirmation

This method involves sending a confirmation request, with or without some kind of verification code, to another place, such as:

• SMS,
• Email,
• Authenticator app on mobile,
• Push notifications (e.g., instead of sending SMS, you may choose to send push notifications),
• Messengers.

Notice: I’m not talking about authentication (namely, login process), but rather a confirmation action.

An example that I personally face a lot is an app for sending cryptocurrency. Since this is a sensitive request, apart from submitting the requisition from a website, I should also approve it via email.

When To Use It

It can be used for such operations as money transfers, ownership transfers, and account deletion (even if you have a danger zone). Most of us use this method quite often when we pay online, and our banks send us OTP (one-time password or one-time code).

It may go after the first initial protection method, e.g., a confirmation dialog.

As you can see, the methods are often combined and used together. We should not consider each of them in isolation but rather in the context of the whole business process.

Passkeys

Passkeys are a modern, password-less authentication method designed to enhance both security and user experience.

“Passkeys are a replacement for passwords. A password is something that can be remembered and typed, and a passkey is a secret stored on one’s devices, unlocked with biometrics.”

— passkeys.dev

There are a few pros of using passkeys over 2FA, both in terms of security and UX:

1. Unlike 2FA, which typically requires entering a code from another device or app (e.g., SMS or authenticator apps), passkeys streamline the confirmation process. They don’t require switching between devices or waiting for a code to arrive, providing immediate authentication.
2. While 2FA provides extra protection, it is vulnerable to phishing, SIM-swapping, or interception. Passkeys are much more resistant to such attacks because they use public-private key cryptography. This means no secret code is ever sent over the network, making it phishing-resistant and not reliant on SMS or email, which can be compromised.
3. Passkeys require less mental effort from users. There’s no need to remember a password or type a code — just authenticate with a fingerprint, facial recognition, or device-specific PIN. This way, we reduce cognitive load.
4. With passkeys, the authentication process is almost instant. Unlike 2FA, where users might have to wait for a code or switch to another device, passkeys give us the opportunity to confirm actions without switching context, e.g., opening your email inbox or copying OTP from a mobile device.

The passkeys are widely supported and more and more companies adopt it.

Second-person Confirmation

This is a mechanism when two users are involved in the process. We may call them initiator and approver.

In this case, the initiator makes a request to take some action while the approver decides whether to confirm it or not.

In both roles, a confirmation dialog or other UI patterns may be used. However, the main idea is to separate responsibilities and decrease the probability of a bad decision.

Actually, you have likely encountered this method many times before. For example, a developer submits a pull request, while a code reviewer decides whether to confirm it or decline.

When To Use It

It is best suited for situations when the seriousness of decisions requires few people involved.

There is a direct analogy from real life. Take a look at the picture below:

The Council of Physicians reminds us that in medicine, seeking a second opinion is crucial, as collaboration and diverse perspectives often result in more informed decisions and better patient care. This is a perfect example of when a second opinion or an approver is essential.

Here, you will find some apps that use this method:

• GitHub, as previously mentioned, for merging pull requests.
• Jira and other similar apps. For example, when you move issues through a certain workflow stage, it may require manager approval.
• Banking applications. When you make a high-value transaction, it could be necessary to verify it for legal issues.
• Deel, which is a global hiring and payroll. One part (e.g., employer) draws up a contract and sends it to another part (e.g., freelancer), and the freelancer accepts it.

But here is the thing: We can consider it a separate method or rather an approach for implementing business logic because even if another person confirms an action, it is still a dangerous action, with the only difference being that now it’s another person who should approve it.

So, all of the examples mentioned above are not exactly a standalone specific way to protect users from making wrong decisions from the UI point of view. It’s rather an approach that helps us to reduce the number of critical mistakes.

When you ask users to take action, you should be aware of its original purpose.

The fact that users make actions does not mean that they make them consciously.

There are many behavioral phenomena that come from psychology, to name a few:

• Cognitive inertia: The tendency of a person to stick to familiar decisions, even if they are not suitable for the current situation. For instance, the vast majority of people don’t read user agreements. They simply agree with the lengthy text because it’s necessary from the legal point of view.
• Availability Heuristic: People often make decisions based on information that is easily accessible or familiar to them rather than making a mental effort. When users see the same confirmation popups, they might automatically accept them based on their previous successful experience. Of course, sooner or later, it might not work, and the acceptance of required action can lead to bad consequences.
• Cognitive Miser: The human mind is considered to be a cognitive miser due to the tendency of humans to think and solve problems in simpler and less effortful ways rather than in more sophisticated and effortful ways, regardless of intelligence. This explains why many users just click “yes” or “agree” without carefully reading the text.
• Quite a representative example is banner blindness, even though not related to confirmation but, in fact, revolves around the same human behavior idiosyncrasies.

A reasonable question that may arise: What are the alternatives?

Even though we cannot entirely affect users’ behavior, there are a few tactics we can use.

Delaying

In some scenarios, we can artificially delay the task execution in a graceful way.

One of my favorite examples is an app called Glovo, which is a food delivery app. Let’s have a look at the three screens you will see when you order something.

The first screen is a cart with items you chose to buy (and an annoying promotion of subscription that takes ⅓ of the screen).

After you tap the “confirm order” button, you’ll see the second screen, which asks you whether everything is correct. However, the information appears gradually with fade-in animation. Also, you can see there is a progress bar, which is a fake one.

After a few seconds, you’ll see another screen that shows that the app is trying to charge your card; this time, it’s a real process. After the transaction proceeds, you’ll see the status of the order and approximate delivery time.

Pro tip: When you show the status of the order and visually highlight or animate the first step, it makes users more confident that the order will be completed. Because of the trick that is called Goal-Gradient Effect.

You’ve just paid, and “something starts happening” (at least visually), which is a sign that “Oh, they should have already started preparing my order. That’s nice!”

The purpose of the screen with a fake progress bar is to let users verify the order details and confirm them.

But this is done in a very exquisite way:

1. On the first screen, you click “confirm order”. It doesn’t invoke any modals or popups, such as “Are you sure?”.
2. On the second screen, users can see how information about their order appears right away, and the scroll bar at the bottom goes further. It seems like that app is doing something, but it’s an illusion. An illusion that makes you take another quick look at what you’ve just ordered.

In the previous version of the app, you couldn’t even skip the process; you could only cancel it. Now they added the “Continue” button, which is essentially “Yes, I’m sure” confirmation.

This means that we return back again to the drawbacks of classic confirmation modals since users can skip the process. But the approach is different: it’s a combination of a feedback loop from the app and skipping the process.

This combination makes users pay attention to the address, order, and price at least sometimes, and it gives them time to cancel the order, while in the classic approach, the confirmation is “yes or no?” which is more likely to be confirmed right away.

The Undo Option

The undo pattern allows users to reverse an action they have just performed, providing a safety net that reduces anxiety around making mistakes.

Unlike confirmation modals that interrupt the workflow to ask for user confirmation, the undo pattern provides a smoother experience by allowing actions to be completed with the option to reverse them if needed.

When To Use It

It works perfectly fine for non-destructive, reversible actions &mdashl actions that don’t have significant and immediate consequences:

• Reversing actions when editing a document (The beloved ctrl + z shortcut);
• Removing a file (if it goes to the trash bin first);
• Changing the status of a task (e.g., if you accidentally marked a task completed);
• Deleting a message in a chat;
• Applying filters to a photo.

Combined with a timer, you can extend the number of options since such tasks as sending an email or making a money transfer could be undone.

When You Cannot Use It

It’s not suitable for actions that have serious consequences, such as the following:

• Deleting an account;
• Submitting legal documents;
• Purchasing goods (refund is not the same as the undo option);
• Making requests for third-party APIs (in most cases).

How To Implement Them?

1. The most common way that most people use every day is to provide a shortcut (ctrl + z). However, it’s constrained to some cases, such as text editors, moving files between folders, and so on.
2. Toasts are probably the most common way to implement these web and mobile apps. The only thing that you should keep in mind is that it should stand out enough to be noticed. Hiding them in a corner with a tiny message and color that is not noticeable might not work — especially on wide screens.
3. A straightforward solution is simply to have a button that does the undo option. Preferably close to the button that evokes the action that you want to undo.

The undo option is tightly related to the concept called soft deleting, which is widely used in backend frameworks such as Laravel.

The concept means that when users delete something via the UI, it looks like it has been deleted, but in the database, we keep the data but mark it as deleted. The data is not lost, which is why the undo option is possible since we don’t actually delete anything but rather mark it as deleted.

This is a good technique to ensure that data is never lost. However, not every table needs this.

For example, if you delete an account and don't want users to restore it (perhaps due to legal regulations), then you should erase the data completely. But in many cases, it might be a good idea to consider soft deleting. In the worst case, you’ll be able to manually restore user data if it cannot be done via the UI for some reason.

There’s something I want everyone to keep in mind, regardless of who you are or what you do.

Every situation is unique. A certain approach might work or fail for a variety of reasons. You might sometimes wonder why a specific decision was made, but you may not realize how many times the interface was revised based on real user feedback.

User behavior is affected by many factors, including country, age, culture, education, familiarity with certain patterns, disabilities, and more.

What’s crucial is to stay in control of your data and users and be prepared to respond when something goes wrong. Following best practices is important, but you must still verify if they work in your specific case.

Just like in chess, there are many rules — and even more exceptions.

Further Reading

• Modality, Apple
• “An effective ‘Cancel’ dialog confirmation on Web,” João Bexiga
• “Confirm or undo? Which is the better option?,” Josh Wayne
• “Understanding Soft Delete and Hard Delete,” Suraj Singh Bisht
• “Confirmation Dialogs Can Prevent User Errors — If Not Overused,” Jakob Nielsen
• “Microcopy for confirmation dialogues,” Kinneret Yifrah
• What is a passkey?, passkeys.io

Miriam Suzanne’s in the middle of a redesign of her personal website. It began in August 2022. She’s made an entire series out of the work that’s worth your time, but I wanted to call out the fifth and latest installment because she presents a problem that I think we can all relate to:

But the walls got in my way. Instead of minimal renovation, I got just far enough to live with it and then started a brand new Eleventy repo.

The plan was to prototype […] and bring back well-formed solutions. To echo Dave Rupert, prototyping is useful. It’s easier to play with new ideas when you’re not carrying a decade of content and old code along with you.

But prototyping evolved into what I would call tinkering (complimentary). Maybe I mean procrastinating (also complimentary), but it’s a wandering process that also helps me better understand what I want from a website. I might not make visible progress over two years, but I start to form a point of view […]. Keeping things easy is always where things get complicated. And it brings me back to where my redesign started – a desire to clarify the information architecture. Not only for visitors, but for myself.

Don’t even tell me you’ve never been there! Jim Neilsen blogged along similar lines. You get a stroke of inspiration that’s the kernel of some idea that motivates you to start, you know, working on it. There’s no real plan, perhaps. The idea and inspiration are more than enough to get you going… that is until you hit a snag. And what I appreciate about Miriam’s post is that she’s calling out content as the snag. Well, not so much a snag as a return to the founding principle for the redesign: a refined content architecture.

• Sometimes I do events where I speak, or teach a workshop, or perform. Events happen at a time and place.
• Sometimes I create artifacts like a book or an album, a website, or specification. Artifacts often have a home URL. They might have a launch date, but they are not date-specific.
• Some of my projects are other channels with their own feeds, their own events and artifacts.
• Those channels are often maintained by an organization that I work with long-term. A band, a web agency, a performance company, etc.

These boundaries aren’t always clean. A post that remains relevant could be considered an artifact. Events can generate artifacts, and vice versa. An entire organization might exist to curate a single channel.

So, Miriam’s done poking at visual prototypes and ready to pour the filling into the pie crust. I relate with this having recently futzed with the content architecure of this site. I find it tough to start with a solidified design before I know what content is going into it. But I also find it tough to work with no shape at all. In my case, CSS-Tricks has a well-established design that’s evolved, mostly outside of me. I love the design but it’s an inherited one and I’m integrating content around it. Design is the constraint. If I had the luxury of stripping the building to the studs, I might take a different approach because then I could “paint” around it. Content would be the constraint.

It’s yet another version of the Chicken-Egg dilemma. I still think of the (capital-W) Web as a content medium at least in a UA style sense in that it’s the default. It’s more than that, of course. I’m a content designer at heart (and trade) but I’m hesitant to cry “content is king” which reminded me of something I wrote for an end-of-year series we did here answering the question: What is one thing people can do to make their website better? My answer: Read your website.

We start to see the power of content when we open up our understanding of what it is, what it does, and where it’s used. That might make content one of the most extensible problem-solving tools in your metaphorical shed—it makes sites more accessible, extracts Google-juicing superpowers, converts sales, and creates pathways for users to accomplish what they need to do.

And as far as prioritizing content or design, or…?

The two work hand-in-hand. I’d even go so far as to say that a lot of design is about enhancing what is communicated on a page. There is no upstaging one or the other. Think of content and design as supporting one another, where the sum of both creates a compelling call-to-action, long-form post, hero banner, and so on. We often think of patterns in a design system as a collection of components that are stitched together to create something new. Pairing content and design works much the same way.

I’d forgotten those words, so I appreciate Miriam giving me a reason to revisit them. We all need to be recalibrated every so often — swap out air filters, top off the fluids, and rotate the ol’ tires. And an old dog like me needs it a little more often. I spent a few more minutes in that end-of-year series and found a few other choice quotes about the content-design continuum that may serve as inspiration for you, me, or maybe even Miriam as she continues the process of aggragating her distributed self.

This sounds serious, but don’t worry — the site’s purpose is key. If you’re building a personal portfolio, go wild! However, if someone’s trying to file a tax return, whimsical loading animations aren’t likely to be well-received. On the other hand, an animated progress bar could be a nice touch while providing visual feedback on the user’s action.

Cassie Evans, “Empathetic Animation”

Remember, the web is an interactive platform — take advantage of that, where appropriate (less is more, accessibility is integral, and you need to know your audience). Whether that’s scrollytelling, captioned video, and heck, maybe for your audience, now’s the time to start looking into AR/VR! Who knows. Sometimes you just need to try stuff out and see what sticks. Just be careful. Experimentation is great, but we need to make sure we’re bringing everyone along for the ride.

Mel Choyce, “Show, Don’t Tell”

Your personal site is a statement of who you are and what you want to do. If you showcase your favorite type of work, you’ll get more requests for similar projects or jobs — feeding back into a virtuous cycle of doing more of what you love.

Amelia Wattenberger, “Exactly What You Want”

And one of my favorites:

But the prime reason to have a personal website is in the name: it is your personalhome on the web. Since its early days, the web has been about sharing information and freedom of expression. Personal websites still deliver on that promise. Nowhere else do you have that much freedom to create and share your work and to tell your personal story. It is your chance to show what you stand for, to be different, and to be specific. Your site lets you be uniquely you and it can be whatever you imagine it to be.

So if you have a personal site, make sure to put in the work and attention to make it truly yours. Make it personal. Fine-tune the typography, add a theme switcher, or incorporate other quirky little details that add personality. As Sarah Drasner writes, you can feel it if a site is done with care and excitement. Those are the sites that are a joy to visit and will be remembered.

Matthias Ott, “Make it Personal”

That last one has the added perk of reminding me how incredibly great Sarah Drasner is.

Aggregating my distributed self originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better.

A habit that has woven itself through many facets of my life, like parenthood, my health, and entrepreneurship, is a consistent check-in I like to do with how I’m growing.

I often call it a ‘life inventory’ where I scoop up everything I’m working on, learning, and feeling, and ask myself about what’s going well and what needs to shift.

Inevitably, I spend a little bit of my check-in time wandering back down memory lane to the beginning stages of starting my business. With over a decade’s worth of experience, successes, trials, and a whole lot of teachable moments, it’s normal to wonder what I might’ve done differently if I knew then what I know now.

While I could wax poetic about all the things I wish I could share with my 20-something self, the advice I would give for starting my business is rather simple.

‘Keeping it simple’ might be the best way to summarize what I’ve learned about almost everything in life. So, take a step back with me to those early days while I share what I’d do first, without overthinking, if I was starting my business over today.

Maybe you’re looking for a fresh start in your business or a little insight from a seasoned entrepreneur as you start on your own business journey. I hope this advice helps not only give you that clearer starting line you’re looking for but also combats that pressure to start perfectly.

I know you want to mitigate risk and avoid as many pitfalls as possible. But the learning curve is part of the journey. In the meantime, let these five insights guide your vision and keep that process as light, fun, and adventurous as possible!

The First Things I’d Do If Starting My Business Over

1. Start an email list.

Starting an email list has to be my first piece of advice for you because I cannot count how often I’ve guided new business owners and entrepreneurs to do this over the years.

I learned how much easier growing a business can be when you don’t have to count on platforms you don’t own and can’t control to deliver your valuable messages to the people you’re creating for.

While social media is important it can also be a space where you waste time, money, and creative energy trying to engage your audience that lives on the other side of a strict, ever-changing social media algorithm.

My advice? Start an email list as soon as possible before any of those resources are spent in places that won’t deliver tangible results. A nurtured email list means you’re showing up in the inboxes of people who want to hear from you, buy from you, and stick around for your stories and growth.

On social media, they might tap that follow button, but from there, they might not see your content for weeks, months, or even years.

And unlike your social media pages, your email list isn’t one hacking incident away from being totally erased, it’s an asset that you own. That’s a powerful difference from what any other platform can offer you online.

As you create new offers (paid or free), you’re able to see if what you’re serving up is irresistible enough for people to want to exchange their email addresses for it. As a new business owner, this is an easy, free way to start gauging what your audience wants most from you.

2. Find a mentor.

Mentorship can feel like a big move for a new business owner … with an even bigger price tag. We crave answers and guidance in the beginning, but usually with a beginner budget, we tend to keep mentorship on the back burner.

I spent a little too much time piecing together my own plan out of stubbornness and feeling like I needed to earn all my advice.

But, as someone who eventually would become a mentor to many, I realized how much mentors want to give their advice to newbies! And not all mentorship needs to be one-on-one or costly. There are mentorship opportunities all around us if we know where to look.

First, look for free learning pathways. Tune into a podcast, like Goal Digger, my business and marketing podcast, where I share not only what I’m learning in business but open up conversations with amazing thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and visionaries to pull out their insight, too.

Plus, I even drop episodes that are live mentorship and coaching sessions with all kinds of people who are at their own starting lines or turning points in business.

Learning from other leaders who inspire you can also be as easy as taking a digital course. They can teach you through their course that can come at a more accessible price point while delivering their brilliance right to your screen.

Find someone who’s gone before you and is doing something similar to what you want to do or how you want to do it. Look for people who align with the kind of business owner you want to become. If they have a course, take it. If they have a book, read it. If they host live classes or have an online community, grab a seat.

Eventually, whenever you’re ready, you might even go out on a limb and ask them to mentor you in whatever capacity they can. You might just land your dream mentor!

3. Share your focus and goals.

This can be a tough part of starting a business because the pressure to be impressive or show off our success can keep us from showing the building process.

The journey doesn’t always look ‘pretty’, and it can be tempting to hide those parts (like when we clean up our entire house before the house cleaner comes over.)

But looking back, I regret those moments when I hid my learning process, waiting for everything to be ‘perfect,’ keeping me from growth because when is anything ever perfect? Letting people in on my journey is when my business completely shifted and growth started building in huge waves.

My audience responded to these seemingly messy or incomplete glimpses into my process with a resounding “This is so real!” We related on a whole new level and more people wanted to work with me, trust me as a client, and buy into my new offers.

Beyond ‘being relatable’, here’s why sharing your process and focus is so effective: you want your offers to make sense to the people you’re making them for. The only way they’re going to get the clearest picture of your offer is to let them in long before you finally share the ‘tada!’ moment.

Surprise drives way less results than anticipation. Show your people what you’re working on and allow them to support and champion you!

4. Get clear on your brand vision.

Starting your business is already a massively pride-worthy moment.

I was so proud to finally get out of my corporate, windowless office and launch into my career as a photographer and then as a digital marketer, but what I needed to get grounded with was my brand. Early on, I genuinely didn’t know the difference between my business and my brand.

An easy way to boil it down is that your business is simply your offer. It’s the solution you give your clients, the service you sell, the products you produce! But your brand is your personality behind every offer, service, and product. Sure, Audi makes cars, but how a person sells them makes all the difference, right?

From your social media, your website, your ads, your blogs, and everywhere else you show up online, your personality should be visible. Don’t hide behind your offers or think that they speak for themselves.

In fact, you’re their best advocate. Your excitement and confidence in what you’ve created is what resonates with your audience!

Your personality can show up long before you even have something to sell. Think about how you show up on social media.

• Do you know why you’re posting or creating?
• When you take a step back, is your brand vision clear with everything you post?
• Can you see your own unique perspective, flavor, and approach woven into your captions and images?

If you’re struggling here, I’ve coined a social content approach called the JK5 that might help keep your creative flow simple.

Every time you go to create a post, choose one from your five unique content pillars that guide your content creation and show your brand personality to your followers. It could be parenthood, pets, style, interior design, poetry, or anything that shows who YOU are!

If you want to learn more about the JK5 and your brand pillars, listen to this episode of my podcast!

5. Choose your tools wisely.

I learned this analogy through my experience as a photographer, juggling a variety of lenses in my camera bag. I felt this pressure when I was just starting out to have every single lens for every possible scenario.

As my business grew, I bought new lenses but learned that there were just a few that I would reach for over and over again. I didn’t need all the shiny tools right away, and in many cases, never needed them at all.

When you’re just starting your business, you’ll probably be inundated by all the options for the best tools and platforms out there. It’ll make your head spin.

But most of them aren’t necessary for what you need on day one. You don’t have to spend your time and money merely looking like a business when that could easily distract you from being able to do the real work.

Take a few steps back and analyze what your biggest needs are. Differentiate between the ‘nice to haves’ and the ‘need to haves’ to keep your growth moving forward.

A key to helping yourself know the difference is by looking at the tasks that are already on your to-do list vs the ones that you’re looking forward to doing in the future.

For instance, you might need to invest in accounting software before the bells and whistles for your website. In fact, I’ll fully admit that I didn’t have a real branded, designer-made logo until THIS year.

You can go farther than you ever imagined with much less than you think!

Honor Your Own Journey

Overall, the biggest surprise to me is that I don’t actually want to redo any of it.

As someone who takes so much joy in the learning process itself, it’s only through the hiccups, the guesses, the mistakes, and the early days that I was able to awaken the unrelenting life-long learner and educator in me.

My learning journey is the only reason I can have hindsight enough to meet people at their starting lines or messy middles and be able to help them skip some of the confusion. I love helping smooth out the starting lines.

You’re so much more capable of amazing things than you might know, so any chance I get to help people like you get there is a joy.

So, while these are in some ways insights born out of moments of ‘regret,’ I would say I have a much greater appreciation for them as transformative experiences.

Honor your own flubs and challenges along the way! They’ve not only helped YOU become who you are and the skills you carry, but they’re also a pathway for you to help others make it through the mess as we’re all out here just trying to figure it out as we go.

Every year we see new trends emerge in the world of design. While most of these new trends fade away with time, some remain to change and influence the industry for the better.

In this post, we explore the ever-evolving world of illustration trends and designs. From the rise of AI-assisted drawings to the resurgence of retro and psychedelic art, these are the trends you can expect to see more of this year.

Let’s take a look at some of the top upcoming illustration trends and how you can apply them in your own designs and projects. Some of these trends will not only be popular but also groundbreaking by bringing in new advancements and innovations.

1. AI-Assisted Illustrations

Designers have different opinions about the advancements of AI and how it’s impacting the industry. However, AI has clearly made work much easier for us. And that’s the main goal of using AI. It should not be used to replace designers but to enhance your workflow and make you more efficient.

Adobe understood this concept better than most other AI startups. During the Adobe MAX 2023 event, Adobe showed how they have improved Adobe Illustrator to help artists and designers create art more easily.

You can now generate vectors with text prompts, find exact matches for fonts, create icons, get variations of your illustrations, copy art styles, and more. These new tools will save you a ton of time and supercharge your process of finding inspiration, coming up with different concepts, and experimenting with different ideas.

2. Representation of Diversity

One of the trends that we hope to see more of this year is illustrations that represent diversity, culture, and traditions. We saw many brands and companies use these beautiful illustrations on their marketing campaigns, websites, and social media platforms to promote inclusiveness and diverse representation.

This trend is not just about representation, it’s also about celebrating different cultures, expanding the boundaries of perspectives, and bringing people together. It’s a mission that we will always promote with an open heart.

3. Colorful Abstract

Abstract illustrations have been a powerful visual form that amplifies storytelling for many years. This year, we expect to see this art trend continue to grow.

These beautiful illustrations excel at captivating audiences with colorful visuals and communicating ideas, moods, and messages much more effectively. Whether it’s for branding design or packaging design, colorful abstract illustrations fit perfectly for many types of projects as well.

4. Retro and Psychedelic

We all have a soft spot for those classic and groovy illustrations full of vibrant colors and weird shapes. Last year, we saw many artists combine this retro style from the 70s and 80s with psychedelic-style art to create very uncommon and trippy illustrations.

We’ve been seeing these retro and psychedelic illustrations on everything from product packaging designs to website designs and even branding designs. It seems to be getting more popular with casual and lifestyle brands that target younger audiences as well.

5. Art Deco

The Art Deco design trend is commonly used in various types of packaging designs, brand identities, and graphic designs as a way of showing off elegance and sophistication. It’s a trend that’s been around for decades but over the past few years we saw this trend being used more commonly by modern brands.

This trend will likely continue to be popular in the world of design and illustrations thanks to its ability to combine vintage aesthetics with futuristic vibes. Especially when it comes to luxury and high-end illustrations, Art Deco is unmatched for creating unique nostalgic feels.

6. Comic Book Art

The illustrations done in comic book art style are another new trend that’s slowly gaining momentum in the design world. This trend helps add a playful, humorous, and exaggerated look to your illustrations to create a bold retro aesthetic for various types of designs.

Whether it’s website design, poster design, or packaging design, comic book-style art blends perfectly with many different types of mediums as well. It’s also quite effective for brand storytelling and creating designs that communicate with the audience more effectively.

7. Doodle Art

No matter how old we get, we all have childhood memories that we always long for. Doodle art is a trend that’s designed to take you back to that wonderful childhood while evoking a sense of playfulness and free spirit. It’s one of the reasons why this trend has been around for such a long time and it will continue to be as effective as ever before.

Many popular brands have been using doodle art and illustrations as a way to create a more relaxed vibe and also bring out a sense of joy in the audience at the same time. The quirkiness and the imperfections of this art style allow any business or brand to strip away the formalities and create a close connection with its target audience.

8. Surrealism

The unreal, bizarre, and nightmare-ish surrealism illustration trend continues to surprise us every year by maintaining its popularity across many different industries. When it comes to creating designs that spark curiosity and imagination, nothing comes close to surrealist illustrations.

The distorted human figures, weird manipulations, and the weird elements used in surrealist illustrations often have hidden meanings and tell a story that explores controversial topics. And it opens up new doors for artists, media, and brands to share their narratives in mesmerizing ways.

9. Textured Illustrations

We went through several different illustration trends over the years from flat design to minimal artwork and the latest to join this lineup is the textured illustrations trend. This new trend sees illustrations getting a much-needed texture upgrade that adds more depth to the overall look and feel.

Textured illustrations will be one of the most popular illustration trends this year for two main reasons. First, they add an authentic and hand-crafted look to digital illustrations. Second, they create a more rugged and tactile vibe for the illustrations, replacing the overly smooth, artificial look of ordinary digital art.

10. Line Art

The great thing about line art illustrations is their versatility. Line art drawings can be as simple as a few lines or complex artwork but they will always maintain an overall simple and minimal look. This gives line art illustrations a classic yet timeless look.

Especially when designing illustrations for digital platforms, minimalist line art is an obvious choice as it reduces file sizes and helps improve performance. They are also quite effective in conveying ideas and creating adaptable art across different platforms and mediums.

11. Realistic 3D Art

3D art generation tools like Blender and Unreal Engine received significant updates last year that expanded their capabilities beyond our imagination. Designers have been using these tools to generate ultra-realistic 3D art and illustrations and the results were mind-blowing.

We will surely see more of these realistic 3D art and illustrations this year as well. Especially since the demand for this art is increasing as more industries seem to be embracing this new trend.

12. Nostalgia

When it comes to creating art and illustrations that connect with the audience on a personal level, nostalgic art is the perfect way to go. These illustrations excel at evoking emotions and good memories from the past and go a long way to establishing a strong connection with the audience.

Many brands have been using this trend to create emotional connections with their customers while also celebrating the history and good times from the past.

13. Geometric Art

There were many interesting art and design trends over the years that were inspired by the geometric style of art, including the popular Bauhaus style. And now, they are slowly influencing illustrations as well.

Illustrations inspired by geometric art styles have their own unique styles and we love how artists keep reinventing this trend while putting their own unique spins to create cool artworks.

14. Cartoon and Comic

Caroon and comic-themed illustrations do two things perfectly: They are great at adding a sense of whimsy to your creations and also conveying emotions more effectively.

When it comes to educational projects, casual and fun designs, and even creating mascots, and characters that represent brands, cartoon-style illustrations have been the ideal choice for decades.

Even though it’s not a new trend, we will surely see more cartoon and comic-style illustrations this year. Because it simply works wonders!

15. Outline Drawings

This is an illustration trend that will never go out of style. Because it’s the perfect style for creating art and illustrations that exude elegance and simplicity.

Outline drawings and illustrations have a particular way of creating a minimalist vibe for any other project. It helps create that subtle, fine art-style look that you can’t achieve with any other illustration style. And that’s why it will always be a trend you can rely on.

16. Brave and Bold

Recently, designers have been creating some radical and bold creations, much more than they used to. Mainly because modern brands and businesses now seek to create more open and authentic identities. And these brave and bold illustrations help achieve that goal.

This is a trend we would love to see more of this year. We are particularly curious how designers and artists will handle this experimental illustration style.

Conclusion

There will also be many other new trends this year, possibly ones we couldn’t even imagine. So be sure to keep an eye out for those. You can always check out our Trends category to stay on top of your game.

Happy fall, MiM-ers! Grab your pumpkin-spiced latte, settle in with Noah Kahan's Stick Season, and get ready to hear from a paid marketer who’s all-in on influencers, storytelling, and AI-targeted ads.

(I'm sorry I can’t offer up a more recent fall-inspired album. To be fair, I'm still obsessed with my "Summer 2019" mix.)

Keep reading to learn why Zapier's head of paid ads thinks the golden age of paid ads is over. 

1. Fully embrace the influencer buzz. 

James de Feu says the golden age of paid advertising is over. And he's okay with it. 

He's also the manager of paid ads at Zapier. 

(I'm currently imagining Mad Men's Don Draper rolling over in his TV grave.)

De Feu is so confident about influencer marketing that he negotiated to bring it under his paid ads team. He succeeded because, moving forward, "we see that as our brand motion." 

In fact, when I asked how he'd spend a hypothetical $1k, de Feu tells me he'd put a hefty 40% into influencers. 

But don't delete your Google Ads account just yet. De Feu says he'd still give 50% of that hypothetical budget to paid ads. (The other 10% would go to SEO, if you got stuck trying to add this up to 100.) 

As he acknowledges, "Paid ads will always be on, and we'll still spend a ton of money there. But paid ads live and die in that spending month. It's not getting us the reach it once did."

That's why de Feu isn’t putting all his eggs in one basket. Paid is still a good egg (err-basket?), but he's excited to seek out influencers who thrive on the same platforms where Zapier's customers hang out. 

"I smirked when you mentioned influencers, because that's the name of the game — even for those of us in the B2B space,” he tells me. “It's no longer just about glossy teenage products anymore."

2. Storytelling is the bread and butter of marketing.

"In the world of paid ads, we get fixated on one single, siloed experience, and we just keep trying to optimize it until it's perfect," de Feu says. "But one thing we've learned is that storytelling is huge." 

"Storytelling is huge" is exactly the same pitch I gave my parents when I was trying to convince them that majoring in creative writing was a sound financial decision — but de Feu isn't wrong. If there's one truth that remains consistent in the world of marketing, it's that humans have always, and will always, love a good story.  

"Stretching something out, building a story, creating use cases, highlighting testimonials — I let go of that over the past couple of years, and I'm just grateful now that we've reset ourselves. Storytelling has always been, and will continue to be, our superpower as marketers." 

So if you're unsure of where to start in the world of paid ads, try this: Talk to your customers, learn their pain points, and then communicate your solutions through a good ole-fashioned tale. 

3. Get used to cha-cha-changes. 

David Bowie preached it: You've got to keep up with all the changes happening in the advertising industry or risk throwing precious cash down the drain. (Those are the lyrics, right?)

For de Feu, that means doing tons of tests to learn how to use AI to personalize Zapier's ads — not just in creating assets, but in audience targeting, too. 

"You have to be really on top of all these recent changes or you'll end up wasting money," he says. 

An example could be an athletic brand that uses AI to target yoga apparel ads to their vinyasa-loving consumers while ensuring their golf apparel is sent to every guy on Wall Street. 

In other words: The future of ads will look a lot more like high-intent, targeted content, and less like the generic, all-purpose ads we've come to know and hate. 

Hello Gang! I'm grateful once again for the advice to use MySQL over Postgres. It's been a pretty smooth experience so far. Unfortunately I had to migrate to a different host and have been getting an undefined variable error.

Mysql is Running. I used the package manager to get python-mysql.connector installed. And yet I keep getting an undefined variable error.

Here is the output:

Exception creating initial db connection
Error:  module 'ssl' has no attribute 'wrap_socket'
Error type:  <class 'AttributeError'>

Here is some test code if you need to replicate it:

import base64
import mysql.connector as mysql
try:
    connection=mysql.connect( host="localhost", database="iheartdaniweb", user="funuser", password="supersekritpass") 
except Exception as error:
    print("Exception creating initial db connection")
    print("Error: ", error)
    print("Error type: ", type(error))
connection.autocommit=True

Thanks in advance gang! Unfortunately the interwebs were no help with this one or I wouldn't bother you guys! Thanks again!! !!

Many of you — perhaps most of you — have been sitting on the sidelines while WordPress and WP Engine trade legal attacks on one another. It’s been widely covered as we watch it unfold in the open; ironically, in a sense.

These things can take twists and turns and it doesn’t help that this just so happens to be an emotionally charged topic in certain circles. WordPress is still the leading CMS after all these years and by a long shot. Many developers make their living in the WordPress ecosystem. All of those developers need hosting. WP Engine is still the leading WordPress-flavored host after many years. Many developers host their agencies there and use it to administrate their clients’ sites.

And I haven’t even gotten to the drama. That’s not really the point. The point is that there’s a bunch of heated words flying around and it can be difficult to know where they’re coming from, who they are aimed at, and most importantly, why they’re being said in the first place. So, I’m going to round up a few key voices contributing to the discussion for the sake of context and to help catch up.

Editor’s Note: Even though CSS-Tricks has no involvement with either company, I think it’s mentioning that Automattic was a looooooong time sponsor. This site was also once hosted by Flywheel, a company acquired by WP Engine before we moved to Cloudways following the DigitalOcean acquisition. Me? My personal site runs on WP Engine, but I’m not precious about it having only been there one year.

Prelude to a tweet

We had fair warning that something was coming up when WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg sent this out over X:

I know private equity and investors can be brutal (read the book Barbarians at the Gate). Please let me know if any employee faces firing or retaliation for speaking up about their company's participation (or lack thereof) in WordPress. We'll make sure it's a big public deal and…

— Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) September 19, 2024

There’s the ammo: Don’t let private equity bully you into speaking up against the company you work for when its contributions to WordPress are on the slim side of things.

Private equity. Lack of participation in the WordPress community. Making a big public deal of it. Remember these things because this is one day before…

WordCamp US 2024

Matt spoke at WordCamp US (WCUS) 2024 in Portland, OR, last week. September 20 to be exact. Making big, bold statements at WCUS isn’t a new thing for Matt, as many of us still have “Learn JavaScript deeply” tattooed on the brain from 2016.

Matt’s statements this year were less inspirational (instructional?) as they took direct aim at WP Engine as part of a presentation on the merits of open-source collaboration. You can watch and listen to where the first jab was thrown roughly around the 10:05 marker of the recording.

Let’s break down the deal. Matt begins by comparing the open-source contributions to WordPress from his company, Automattic, to those of WP Engine. These things are tracked on WordPress.org as part of a campaign called “Five for the Future” that’s designed to give organizations an influential seat at the table to form the future of WordPress in exchange for open-source contributions back to the WordPress project. Automattic has a page totaling its contributions. So does WP Engine.

Before Matt reveals the numbers, he goes out of his way to call out the fact that both Automattic and WP Engine are large players in the neighborhood of $500 million dollars. That’s the setup for Matt to demonstrate how relatively little WP Engine contributes to WordPress against Matt’s own company. Granted, I have absolutely no clue what factors into contributions, nor how the pages are administrated or updated. But here’s what they show…

Quite the discrepancy! I’d imagine Automattic dwarfs every other company that’s pledged to the campaign. Maybe it would be better to compare the contributions of another non-Automattic pledge that has a fairly strong reputation for participating in WordPress community. 10up is one of the companies that comes straight to my mind and they are showing up for 191 hours per week, or roughly five times WP Engine’s reported time. I get conflicting info on 10up’s revenue, valuation, and size, so maybe the comparison isn’t fair. Or maybe it is fair because 10up is certainly smaller than WP Engine, and no estimate I saw was even close to the $500 million mark.

Whatever the case, bottom line: Matt calls out WP Engine for its lack of effort on a very public stage — maybe the largest — in WordPress Land. He doesn’t stop there, going on to namecheck Silver Lake, a ginormous private equity firm bankrolling the company. The insinuation is clear: there’s plenty of money and resources, so pony up.

That’s bad enough for attendees to raise eyebrows, but it doesn’t end there. Matt encourages users and developers alike to vote with money by not purchasing hosting from WP Engine (11:31) and seems to suggest (23:05) that he’ll provide financial support to any WP Engine employees who lose their jobs from speaking up against their employer.

I think I can get behind the general idea that some companies need a little prodding to pull their weight to something like the Five for the Future campaign. Encouraging developers to pull their projects from a company and employees to jeopardize their careers? Eek.

“WP Engine is not WordPress”

This is when I believe things got noisy. It’s one thing to strong-arm a company (or its investors) into doing more for the community. But in a post on his personal blog the day after WCUS, Matt ups the ante alleging that “WP Engine isn’t WordPress.” You’d think this is part of the tough-guy stance he had from the stage, but his argument is much different in this post. Notice it’s about how WP Engine uses WordPress in its business rather than how much the company invests in it:

WordPress is a content management system, and the content is sacred. Every change you make to every page, every post, is tracked in a revision system, just like the Wikipedia. This means if you make a mistake, you can always undo it. It also means if you’re trying to figure out why something is on a page, you can see precisely the history and edits that led to it. These revisions are stored in our database. This is very important, it’s at the core of the user promise of protecting your data, and it’s why WordPress is architected and designed to never lose anything.

WP Engine turns this off. They disable revisions because it costs them more money to store the history of the changes in the database, and they don’t want to spend that to protect your content. It strikes to the very heart of what WordPress does, and they shatter it, the integrity of your content.

OK, gloves off. This is more personal. It’s no longer about community contributions but community trust and how WP Engine erodes trust by preventing WordPress users from accessing core WordPress features for their own profit.

Required reading

That’s where I’d like to end this, at least for now. Several days have elapsed since Matt’s blog post and there are many, many more words flying around from him, community members, other companies, and maybe even your Great Aunt. But if you’re looking for more signal than noise, I’ve rounded up a few choice selections that I feel contribute to the (heated) discussion.

Reddit: Matt Mullenweg needs to step down from WordPress.org leadership ASAP

Matt responds to the requisite calls for him to step down, starting with:

To be very clear, I was 100% cordial and polite to everyone at the booth, my message was:

* I know this isn’t about them, it’s happening several levels above, it’s even above their CEO, it’s coming from their owner, Silver Lake and particularly their board member Lee Wittlinger.

* Several people inside WP Engine have been anonymously leaking information to me about their bad behavior, and I wanted to let them know if they were caught or faced retaliation that I would support them in every way possible, including covering their salaries until they found a new job.

* That *if* we had to take down the WP Engine booth and ban WP Engine that evening, my colleague Chloé could print them all new personal badges if they still wanted to attend the conference personally, as they are community members, not just their company.

This was delivered calmly, and they said thank you, and their head of comms, Lauren Cox, who was there asked that they have time to regroup and discuss.

Automattic’s Actionable Misconduct Directed to WP Engine

WP Engine issues a cease and desist letter designed to stop Matt from disparaging them publicly. But hold up, because there’s another juicy claim in there:

In the days leading up to Mr. Mullenweg’s September 20th keynote address at the WordCamp US Convention, Automattic suddenly began demanding that WP Engine pay Automattic large sums of money, and if it didn’t, Automattic would wage a war against WP Engine.

And yes, they did issue it from their own site’s /wp-content directory. That’s easy to lose, so I’ve downloaded it to link it for posterity.

Open Source, Trademarks, and WP Engine

Just today, Matt published a cease and desist letter to the Auttomatic blog where he alleges that WP Engine’s commercial modifications to WordPress Core violate the WordPress trademark. Again, this has become about licensing, not contributions:

WP Engine’s business model is based on extensive and unauthorized use of these trademarks in ways that mislead consumers into believing that WP Engine is synonymous with WordPress. It’s not.

This is trademark abuse, not fair competition.

This is no longer WordPress vs. WP Engine. It’s more like Automattic vs. WP Engine. But with Matt’s name quite literally in the name Automattic, let’s be real and call this Matt Mullenweg vs. WP Engine.

WP Tavern coverage

WP Tavern is still the closest thing we have to an official WordPress news outlet. Nevermind that it’s funded and hired by Automattic (among others). I respect it, though I honestly have been less attentive to it since the team turned over earlier this year. It’s still a great spot to catch up on the post-event coverage:

• Highlights from Matt Mullenweg’s Spiciest Word Camp Presentation at WordCamp US 2024 (Sep. 24)
• Automattic Responds to WP Engine’s Cease and Desist with Legal Action (Sep. 24)

There’s another more recent WP Tavern article I want to call out because it’s a huge development in this saga…

WP Engine Banned from Using WordPress.org Resources

Dang. This is the point of no return. It not only affects WP Engine proper, but the Flywheel hosting it also owns.

WordPress.org has blocked WP Engine customers from updating and installing plugins and themes via WP Admin. 

I was able to update plugins on my site as recently as yesterday, but let’s see as of this morning.

Maybe I can still see details about my installed plugins…

This is a bad, bad situation. I have thoughts about it and neither side looks good. Using real people with no dog in the fight to make a point is never gonna be a good look. Then again, both sides have valid points and I can see where they’re coming from. I just hate to see it come to a head like this.

Update (Oct. 3, 2024)

The story continues, of course — and it ain’t slowing down. WP Tavern is on the ball and publishing regular updates, although remember: it’s an Automattic publication at the end of the day. Matt’s been the most vocal player so far, so it stands to reason that WP Tavern might want to amplify things.

In any case…

• WP Engine Banned Again, Reports Deploying a Solution
  WP Tavern reported that WP Engine deployed a workaround for its banned status on WordPress.org, but it was short-lived because whatever loophole they found was plugged up. Notice the screenshots showing strides that WP Engine has taken to distinguish itself from WordPress (the brand) on its site in several places.
• Automattic Publishes WP Engine Term Sheet Amidst Controversy
  Today, I learned that (1) this fight has been going on for “years” (in Matt’s words), (2) the royalty rate offered to WP Engine appears to rise with each passing month (it was 7%, then 8%), but (3) but that’s now off the table.
• Mullenweg threatens corporate takeover of WP Engine
  Oh, my dear! This would be a sad conclusion. That said, I have no bones to pick at Matt’s informal poll asking whether WP Engine’s Advanced Custom Fields Pro should be baked into WordPress Core. I’ve never understood why WordPress has never built a UI for custom fields, perhaps other than the spirit of open source and allowing plugin developers to thrive. Custom fields ought to be a core feature of any CMS as they are needed to, you know, manage content throughout a site by making it more pliable.

Catching Up on the WordPress 🚫 WP Engine Sitch originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

A new tool from Eric Meyer, Brian Kardell, and Stephanie Stimac backed with Igalia’s support. Brian announced it on his blog, as did Eric, describing it like this:

What BCD Watch does is, it grabs releases of the Browser Compatibility Data (BCD) repository that underpins the support tables on MDN and services like caniuse.com.  It then analyzes what’s changed since the previous release.

Every Monday, BCD Watch produces two reports. The Weekly Changes Report lists all the changes to BCD that happened in the previous week — what’s been added, removed, or renamed in the whole of BCD.  It also tells you which of the Big Three browsers newly support (or dropped support for) each listed feature, along with a progress bar showing how close the feature is to attaining Baseline status.

Browser support data is at MDN. There’s also plenty at Caniuse.com. The two share data, in fact, though not all of it. We now have Baseline, which is also cited in MDN and Caniuse alike. It’s nice to see an effort at cracking a central spot for all this — organized by date, no less.

Oh, and hey, there’s a feed. Even better.

You can also poke at its repo. Thanks a bunch, Eric, Brian, Stephanie, and Igalia! This is super helpful and already part of my toolkit.

BCD Watch originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

As someone who has experimented with different AI marketing tools, I can confidently say that embracing AI can benefit marketing teams looking to become more efficient in reaching their goals.

While it can automate tasks, save time and costs, and boost productivity, there are some AI challenges marketers should be aware of.

Our 2024 AI Trends report found that 74% of marketers predict most people will use AI in the workplace by 2030. So, I figured I should explore the challenges marketers could face when working with AI, so they're prepared as it becomes a bigger part of their workflow.

I’ll also highlight expert insight from industry leaders so you can learn how to tackle these challenges and harness the power of AI in marketing.

• The 10 Biggest Challenges When Implementing AI
• 12 Tips for Implementing AI

The 10 Biggest Challenges When Implementing AI

Along with the benefits of using AI in marketing outlined in the image below, the challenges of implementing AI in marketing are vast.

Image Source

This includes challenges related to the AI systems, processes, team buy-in, and more. We‘re working through the most significant challenges and the data that justifies these day-to-day challenges. You’re not the only one feeling the struggle.

Here are 10 common challenges when it comes to AI in marketing.

1. Hampering Creativity

As brands like Coca-Cola and mega-celebrities like Nicki Minaj use generative AI in their marketing campaigns, many marketers worry that AI could stifle creativity.

Our marketing and AI survey found that 43% of marketers who use AI do so to create content.

With such a huge chunk of marketers using AI to create, it's understandable to have concerns that the marketing landscape could become oversaturated with AI and lose its creative spark.

However, there are several ways marketers can avoid this pitfall.

One key to overcoming the challenge is for marketers to use AI as an assistive tool that streamlines their process or gets the creative juices flowing.

2. Undermining Competency

If you‘re concerned that AI could undermine your competency as a marketer, you’re not alone.

According to our survey, 57% of marketers feel pressured to learn AI or risk becoming irrelevant. This translates to sentiments that AI could undermine a marketer's effort and competency at work.

Though AI is becoming increasingly ingrained in marketing, that doesn‘t mean marketers can’t remain competitive and shine in the workplace.

Marketers can overcome this challenge by learning more about AI's functionality, how different AI tools work, and finding ways AI can boost productivity or troubleshoot roadblocks.

3. Extra Time Commitments

If you want a sound output from AI, you need excellent input. That means you need to know what to ask for based on your goals.

Prompting AI for marketing is another thing to add to your swelling to-do list.

Like any new skill, prompting AI needs to be learned and practiced. The good news is that the time taken to prompt and use AI may be a case of short-term pain for long-term gain.

Based on our research, if you can prompt AI to deliver generative content that you're happy to publish, you could save as much as three hours and ten minutes when working on a single piece of marketing content from start to finish. Not bad.

In fact, our survey found that 75% of marketers use AI to reduce the time they spend on manual tasks.

4. Creating Working Processes

A contributing factor to the challenge of time constraints when implementing AI is creating processes. However, navigating the challenges of AI will be easier with a working process.

If you use AI, you want all team members to work with it similarly. An AI process is required to help eliminate bias and ensure everything is fact-checked, and it naturally provides best practice tips to use AI tools efficiently.

Image Source

5. Inaccurate Information

In our state of AI in marketing research, we found that one of the top challenges for marketers implementing AI is pushback regarding inaccurate information.

It's unsurprising, considering almost half of the marketers surveyed have received incorrect information from generative AI.

Producing inaccurate information is undoubtedly a valid concern for conscientious marketers, and it could damage brand reputation and brand/consumer relations.

6. Poor Quality Content

Similar to the challenge above, poor-quality content concerns conscientious marketers. But there's an argument that this does not need to be a challenge.

As I mentioned earlier, 43% of marketers in our survey use AI to create content.

With so many marketers leveraging AI in their creative processes, it‘s important to remember that AI isn’t always going to generate accurate results.

So, remember to fact-check AI outputs always.

7. Privacy and Data Analysis

There are broad concerns about privacy and data analysis regarding using AI.

When it comes to data analysis, marketers use AI to analyze customer data and understand user behavior. However, it has its own set of challenges. When implementing AI into your workflow or customer interactions, do the following:

• Consult with your supervisor and/or IT department before inputting sensitive data into AI.
• Be cautious of free trials, as they may retain your data after your trial is up.
• Choose trusted AI software with a proven track record of reliability and security.

8. Job Replacement

The worry about job replacement has been around for a while, and it’s understandable.

In 2017, a McKinsey report studied considerations around the workplace in 2030 and how AI might impact it.

The report estimated that “between 400 million and 800 million individuals could be displaced by automation and need to find new jobs by 2030.”

The good news is the findings are yet to come to fruition. In fact, our report finds the opposite to be true. According to our AI Trends Report, 68% of marketers surveyed say has helped grow their career.

But the fear is still there. You might find some pushback when implementing AI with your team if they’re worried about job security.

Now, the subject of job replacement and AI is much more positive. Mike Maynard, the CEO at Napier, published an article titled Will AI Lead To The End Of Marketing Jobs? in Forbes.

Maynard said, “AI will inevitably replace certain aspects of traditional marketing, but by and large, it will probably be the tedious, mundane tasks, like analytics, that most of us aren’t enthusiastic about anyway."

He explained, “The truth is that although AI can potentially automate certain tasks and improve efficiency, it is unlikely to replace marketing teams for the foreseeable future completely.”

There are reasons to believe that AI is here to solve tasks and will never replace human teams in marketing. Naturally, marketing leaders must convince teams that their jobs are safe.

9. AI Bias

AI bias is a challenge that most marketers should be aware of.

Ultimately, AI will always be biased because humans are biased. Marketing leaders need a plan to meet the challenge of teams inputting bias into a system.

Bias is a serious consideration and challenge for businesses, and its impact can be serious. DataRobot’s 2022 survey found that the impact of data bias can result in as much as 62% lost revenue.

Image Source

10. Keeping Up with New Trends and Technologies

The field of AI is constantly evolving, and it’s growing fast. Marketers can feel overwhelmed keeping up with the latest trends and technologies.

It’s hard to know what to try, prioritize, and invest your time into. This challenge is particularly overwhelming if you have business heads pushing your team for more.

12 Tips for Implementing AI

Okay, now we know what some of the biggest challenges are, let's find out how to overcome them in a way that helps you reach your marketing objectives while you reap all the AI benefits you’ve heard so much about.

Here are 12 tips to help you do just that.

1. Enforce AI policies.

Dan Robinson, Head of Marketing and e-Commerce at instantprint, recommends that businesses implement and enforce AI policies to aid smooth AI implementation.

The solutions he‘s integrated into instantprint’s AI implementations include:

“Employees must adhere to the guidelines we‘ve set out. We nurture an environment of trust but also provide our team with the rules and regulations they need to be aware of to use these tools effectively and safely. Our ‘AI Code of Conduct’ is set out by each platform we use, with do’s and don't for each tool.

“We want to make our AI policy a collaborative space. Those using AI and other models will get to know the platforms in great detail. Making policies a shared effort means that we're more likely to have rules that will work for our team, developed by our team, with the exception of legal and ethical frameworks as a standard.”

What we like: Robinson doesn‘t deny the importance of AI policies that are legal and ethical but doesn’t stop the team from adding their thoughts. With a collaborative effort to develop policies, you’re more likely to get buy-in from team members.

2. Start with low-risk AI implementations.

Rosella Dello Ioio, Head of Content at Enate, says, “Businesses should be clearly defining the data they can and can't share with public and private AI models. Consider hiring a Chief AI Officer to take the lead on security and governance within the business.

“Once the rules around these challenges have been clearly established, begin rolling out GenAI in your marketing department by identifying all the people whose job involves creating (writing, designing, and building) and let them find the best AI co-pilot for their tasks.

Creative roles such as Copywriting and Graphic Design are relatively low-risk in terms of sensitive data as opposed to a CRM Manager who wants to use GenAI to analyze customer feedback and complaints.

Test and procure low-risk tools to support these creative individuals in boosting productivity and slashing the time spent on mundane tasks while ensuring governance protocols are adhered to."

What we like: It's justified for marketers to be concerned about data and analysis by AI tools, but Dello Ioio has found a solution that allows marketing leaders to start implementing AI in a way that feels manageable and safe.

Sometimes, the first step is the most challenging, and once leaders get rolling with AI, they may be inspired to try more.

Look at HubSpot’s AI content assistant for low-risk AI experimentation. It’s free to demo, and you can write content, create emails, landing pages, and more.

3. Leverage AI alongside your existing tech stack.

Cassey Bowden, Director of Marketing at Promet Source, recommends that marketing leaders consider new AI tools with existing tech and your talented team.

She says, “When used effectively in combination with other tools and skills of our respective teams, the door is wide open for possibilities. I would encourage folks to look at AI as an assistive tool in their digital toolbox.

Those who will see the best results and realize the most benefits of AI, in my opinion, will be those who view this tech through a Venn diagram lens.

Leveraging this tech along with your existing tech stack in addition to your skilled team, where these overlap, is where we will find success."

What we like: Bowden’s tip could help marketing leaders close the gap on challenges that hamper creativity. If AI is used in addition to your skilled team, then there's everything to gain through collaboration.

Consider taking the best of AI and the best of that all-important human touch and find the areas where they can best support each other.

4. Talk to your team.

Communication is, of course, everything! When it comes to AI, marketing leaders can eliminate a lot of AI challenges with team buy-in and communication.

Jessica Packard, Content Strategy Manager at ClockShark, found that some reassurance allowed her team to see AI for what it is; a marketing tool that can aid their workflow.

Packard says, “Initially, my team of copywriters was apprehensive about how AI could potentially replace their work in the organization."

She continues, "The fear was understandable, but it was important to reassure them that the AI tools are still underdeveloped and they cannot create copy that successfully engages readers on an emotional level as humans do.

It’s also important to show them how leveraging AI can be beneficial to their work, from brainstorming content ideas to help writing creative titles and meta descriptions."

Montse Cano, International SEO & Digital Marketing Consultant at Montserrat Cano, shared similar tips for overcoming AI challenges. She follows a set of questions and uses AI in a way that helps teams.

She shares her process, “We identify what needs we have in our team that we could meet by using AI. Is it code generation, text content ideas, or images? Then, assess current resources to test and validate outputs, i.e., do we need any training, hire someone else.”

Johannes Larsson, Founder and CEO at Johannes Larsson, adds to the importance of communication with an onus on regular comms and empowerment.

Larsson says, “We regularly communicate with our team about the benefits of AI and how it can empower them rather than threaten them. We also aim to provide training and resources to help them develop new skills and expand their knowledge in areas where AI is involved.”

What we like: It might seem simple to suggest communication, but it’s easily forgotten when you’re all busy at work. Cano, Packard, and Larsson have recognized the why behind team challenges and recommended how you can solve this challenge through communication, reassurance, and future training.

5. Test AI with your team.

In line with the importance of talking to your team, Kevin Miller, co-founder and CEO of GRO, encourages marketers to improve their workflow efficiency with AI.

He started with a solid goal, improving his team’s efficiency by 400%, and worked with his team to document AI success.

Miller shares his story, “We experimented with ChatGPT earlier this year to improve writing efficiency for long- and short-form content creation.

For our clients, we want to produce the highest-quality work possible to help them grow their domain authority and online traffic, so automation was a natural strategy to pursue that goal. That being said, it's not a one-stop-shop tool."

He continues, “Aiming to improve workflow efficiency by 400% by leveraging AI tools, we asked writers to adapt their workflows and give feedback on how well ChatGPT helped improve their writing and deliverability.

Although we did not hit those marks because of many natural obstacles and limitations of the software, we increased workflow efficiency by 200% through content templates and research assistance.

ChatGPT is fantastic for content generation and assessment, but can‘t do the work alone. It is still a part of many of our writers’ workflows to use as they see fit, and I am confident that it will continue to grow in capacity and use."

What we like: Miller and his team have experimented with ChatGPT and actively found that AI can improve team efficiency. We especially like the level of involvement Miller’s team had in AI experimentation.

With his team reporting back on their AI feedback, we feel Miller was more likely to get buy-in from team members.

6. Get your processes locked down.

Adam Smith, founder of The Content Machine, has mastered AI prompts. His test website was just 30 days old and boasted over 36,000 clicks and over 1 million impressions. All of his content was created using AI.

Image Source

Smith says, "I’m using totally un-edited AI content, straight from ChatGPT. There's a big misconception that AI content is rubbish or garbage.

However you can create helpful content if you get your ChatGPT processes locked down! You aren't going to be creating high-quality content with ‘write me a 1,500 word article on x topic’ type prompts."

According to Smith, there’s more you can do to improve the quality of content, he advises you, “Add unique images, add internal links to other contextually relevant blog posts, add as much schema as possible, and embed related YouTube videos.”

What we like: With a well-thought-out prompting process, Adam Smith has proved that AI content can be helpful, and it can rank. (And it’s even better when the data backs up the claims.)

7. Find the areas where AI is most effective.

Using AI doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing scenario. You can find the opportunities or tasks that AI is most capable of solving; then you can do the rest.

Sara Cooper, Director of Web Strategy at SimPRO, found that her team found AI most beneficial at generating headlines or sections of copy.

Copper says, "One of the biggest challenges has been feeding AI the right directives to get the output we are looking for and learning to not ask for too much from AI upfront.

For example, as the team has started to leverage AI to generate more content across our website, it‘s clear that it’s most effective when supporting the personalization of headlines or sections of copy rather than generating whole landing pages from scratch."

Jessica Ruane, Senior Content Manager at Beekeeper, echoes Cooper. Ruane says, “A big challenge that surrounds AI is effectively utilizing it in Content Marketing. Companies are definitely using AI to varying degrees during the content creation process.

Some may be fully writing content with the use of AI, while others are utilizing it for research and inspiration. The best way to implement AI in content is — slowly. Focus on the ‘voice’ that you’d like to use, and experiment with rewriting phrases to get started.”

What we like: Ruane and Cooper agree that there’s a place for AI in content writing. Equally, they’re both seeing the role of AI vary based on what marketers find more useful. Consider using AI for different tasks and find what works for you and your team. AI doesn’t have to write everything.

8. Experiment carefully.

Sofia Inga Tyson, SEO Content Editor at Juro, resolves the AI challenge of quality and brand with careful experimentation and full disclosure to key stakeholders.

Tyson says, “There are certainly concerns about the use of AI in content strategies diluting the quality and overall authority of the website.

Businesses are often keen to experiment with AI to scale their content production but content writers are naturally fearful that AI-generated content at scale will have a detrimental impact on the performance of existing, expertly crafted content.

I think it’s really important to manage stakeholder expectations in this regard and ensure that these risks are disclosed to other decision-makers in the business that might be encouraging this approach for aggressive growth.

I also think it’s important to be cautious about AI-generated content because the true impact won’t be felt immediately. It could be months or even years before the content is evaluated negatively based on the quality or use of AI.

Any experiments should be just that - careful, closely monitored and kept at a scale that means it can be reversed if needed. I think this approach will bring a lot of content writers comfort as it demonstrates that you’re approaching the use of AI with caution, not carelessly jeopardizing the online presence you have already."

What we like: Tyson’s holistic approach to AI covers brand reputation, the team, and stakeholders. She considers the desire to leverage AI with the needs of the team who use it. We love the reassurance for all involved when experimentation is monitored carefully.

9. Monitor quality and accuracy.

Once you’re set up and using AI, you don’t want to neglect the all-important quality check.

Annika Haataja, Head of SEO at Seeker, says, “As you expand your use of AI, don‘t forget to monitor quality and accuracy. We all know that AI can sometimes make mistakes, which may hurt adoption if teams don’t trust the results.

Have people review a sample of AI output to catch errors, and empower them to have faith in their own expertise in the process.”

What we like: Diligence around AI output could decline as teams become comfortable with AI usage. Haataja reminds us to stay mindful of quality and accuracy as AI adoption scales, an important reminder for all of us.

10. Refine your data sources.

Simon Brisk, Director at Click Intelligence Ltd., found AI bias a challenge. Interestingly, they found better data once his team refined the data sources.

He says, “One significant challenge we‘ve faced at Click Intelligence when integrating AI is ensuring data integrity. AI models are only as good as the data they’re trained on. Inaccurate or biased data can lead to misguided marketing decisions.

“For instance, while analyzing user behavior for an e-commerce client, skewed data initially suggested a preference for a specific product line. Only after refining data sources did we realize a more holistic preference trend, thereby recalibrating our marketing strategy.”

What we like: Brisk’s experience with AI bias shows the potential impact and the solution. By recalibrating data sources, Click Intelligence could recalibrate its marketing strategy based on reliable data.

11. Stay competitive.

The world of AI is developing fast. Chris Stott, Director at Seven Marketing, recommends staying ahead of AI developments.

He says, “Staying ahead of the competition is paramount. It's essential for us to consistently deliver exceptional value. This means rigorously testing all AI software to keep us on the cutting edge and guarantee that we provide top-tier results to our clients.”

What we like: Incorporating AI into your systems can be exciting and empowering. Testing AI from a place of experimentation is a great way to explore AI capabilities with your team. You’ll soon get a feel for what supports you and what you can live without.

12. Overcome data integrity and change management.

Jessica Shee, Senior Tech Editor and Marketing Content Manager at iBoysoft, shares the importance of overcoming data integrity and change management.

She says, “Change management and data integrity are two significant obstacles to implementing AI in marketing. For accurate AI-driven insights and decision-making, it is essential to ensure high-quality, pure data.

Misaligned data can cause inaccurate forecasts and ineffective marketing campaigns. Invest in data cleansing, validation, and data integration tools to address this issue.

Change management is an additional obstacle. Integrating AI can disrupt existing workflows and require team members to acquire new skills. Transparent communication about the benefits of AI and training team members to cultivate acceptance and proficiency are necessary for a smooth implementation.

Working with AI experts, integrating teams in decision-making, and starting with trial projects can help integrate AI while resolving difficulties. A systematic strategy, continual training, and clear communication ensure a smoother transition and optimize AI marketing benefits."

What we like: Shee recognizes that you don’t have to do everything alone. You can bring in experts and start with trial projects to help support your team through AI implementation challenges.

What's stopping you from implementing AI?

There's no harm in experimenting with AI automation so long as you follow the guidelines I laid out in this post.

In the worst case, you‘ve run an experiment (and isn’t that what marketing is all about?), and in the best case, you've got the data to support the success of your AI endeavors. Getting buy-in from your team or stakeholders will be easier when they know AI drives marketing objectives.

Plus, with the top tips from marketing leaders, you’ll start with the best possible insights to make AI and marketing an absolute success.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in November 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.