AI Laws and SEO: What Are Potential AI Regulation Implications for SEO

Although at first, it seemed that the introduction of AI could simplify a copywriter’s work-life balance, allowing them to complete tasks faster and better without the need to stay until late at night, the reality struck like a bolt from the blue. With time, Artificial Intelligence regulations appeared as earnest attempts to regulate AI use worldwide. The regulations portray compliance challenges that the SEO community has to navigate through. The major ones are Biden’s AI Order and the EU AI Act.

Biden’s AI Order and the EU AI Act Explained

Both laws are a new secret code and a game-changer, demanding SEO to dance alongside Large Language Models (LLMs) in a sophisticated way. According to the Order and Act wording, SEO agencies need to work on a new level of strategy if they want to set up a camp in the EU or the USA.

For instance, the EU AI Act aims at protecting users and streamlining their collaboration with digital spaces and content that are environmentally conscious, unbiased, secure, and transparent. But do the new laws give any definitions of what an AI system is? No, and this is a huge challenge. Categorization of whether a new setup is qualified as AI software or not is far from being clear and straightforward. It now lacks any corporate infrastructure. 

Today, large enterprises and small businesses have to work with their legal teams to establish parameters for their companies to serve their end-users. With this in mind, Stanford Research published a paper highlighting AI compliance indicators. According to the graphic, the core pointers for Large Language Model compliance are:

• Data governance
• Data source
• Compute and energy power
• Copied information
• Mitigations and risks
• Limitations and capabilities
• Testing
• Content generated by AI
• Downstream documents
• Member states

For a company to survive under the new law-based pressure, it’s critical to highlight the significance of AI and data processing transparency within its operations.

Considerations under AI Regulations

• IP and Copyright

This is one of the major concerns when AI is used in SEO. It is very typical of AI-based systems to scrape large sets of data and analyze them. This is why 2024 is marked by plenty of lawsuits against OpenAI in terms of privacy and copyright violations. What should be done to eliminate legal issues and claims or avoid them completely? Data should be obtained legally, or an agency should have rights to reuse it. Agencies must conduct audits of AI models and data regularly to ensure they comply with laws and usage rights.

• Data privacy

It’s no secret that Artificial Intelligence and data are co-dependent. Collecting data, storing it, and processing it should comply with privacy laws like GDPR and the EU AI Act. SEO agencies that work with AI and data must favor privacy when it comes to data collection. They also have to receive end-user consent and guarantee security measures for data protection: data encryption and anonymization, access control, regular updates, and audits.

• Bias

Bias in AI negatively affects marketing data and even (at times) appears to be discriminative when it comes to specific groups or individuals. It’s SEO agencies’ responsibility to actively prevent the possibilities of algorithmic bias that can unfairly impact human behavior. What should be done for risk mitigation? It is crucial to make sure that varied perspectives and data are considered when designing AI models. Plus, agencies have to monitor results for discrimination or bias constantly.

• Misleading content

Synthetic content generated by AI tools is frequently fake, misleading, or imprecise. For instance, such tools easily generate fake news or promote inappropriate products, places, and services. To avoid this and the damage it causes, SEO agencies need to use AI content detection tools, review the sources and fact-check the content, cross-reference sources, separate facts from opinions and myths, and assess content for suitability.

• Liability

Why does the liability question even appear? Artificial Intelligence systems become rather complex. If a company utilizes AI tools, it must prepare for the following consequences: discrimination and bias, power abuse, and privacy loss. New laws take new positions on hazardous AI software that has a major effect on end-user rights, showcasing why SEO companies need to comply with laws, terms, and policies when they’re using Artificial Intelligence.

Summing Up

Biden’s AI Order and the EU AI Act are only some of the laws that started appearing together with the advancements AI brings and the risks it poses. Surely, soon laws will become stricter and more sophisticated, showing the lines that should never be crossed. So far, SEO agencies with AI in their processes are swimming in dangerous waters and need legal consultations not to swim with seals.