When did generative AI arrive for everyone?
The research is older than the excitement. Ian Goodfellow and colleagues introduced generative adversarial networks, an early way to make realistic images, in 2014, and the transformer behind today's language models came from Google researchers in 2017. The public moment was 30 November 2022, when OpenAI released ChatGPT, a few months after image generators such as DALL-E 2 and Midjourney opened up.
Since then it has moved into the tools owners already use. Google Ads can generate headlines and images for campaigns, Meta's Advantage+ creative can produce text variations and backgrounds for ads, and Canva has generation inside its editor. For most owners, generative AI now arrives as a button in software they already pay for.
What can it make, and what does each kind still need from you?
| Kind | Common small-business use | What it still needs from you |
|---|---|---|
| Text | Posts, product descriptions, emails, replies | Your facts, your voice, and a read for invented claims |
| Images | Product scenes, backgrounds, social graphics | A check that the product looks the way it does in the hand; words inside images often come out garbled |
| Audio | Voice-overs, on-hold messages | Consent from anyone whose voice is imitated |
| Video | Short clips and ad variations | A watch from start to finish, because hands, labels and logos slip |
| Code | Website snippets, spreadsheet formulas | Testing before it goes live |
Photographer or image generator: which costs a candle maker less? (example figures)
A soy candle maker in Byron Bay is launching eight new scents and needs 24 images for the website and Instagram.
| Photographer | Generative AI | |
|---|---|---|
| The shoot | Half a day at $900, plus $200 of styling | The owner photographs each candle on a plain table: 1 hour |
| The scenes | Real props and light | Backgrounds generated in an image tool on a $25-a-month plan |
| Owner's time | 2 hours on the day | 5 hours generating, choosing and fixing, at $50 an hour: $250 |
| Total | $1,100 | $275 |
| Main risk | Low | A generated scene that changes the candle's colour or size |
The saving holds up, and so does the catch. The Australian Consumer Law looks at the impression a picture gives, so an image that makes the candle look bigger, glossier or a different colour from the one that arrives is a problem whoever made it. The safe method is the one in the table: photograph the actual product and generate only what is around it.
Who owns what generative AI makes?
In Australia the law is not settled. Copyright here protects works with a human author, a principle the Full Federal Court applied in 2010 in Telstra v Phone Directories, a case about phone books long before AI, so material produced by AI with little human input may not be protected at all. The more of your own work goes into it (your photo, your edits, your arrangement), the stronger your position. Each tool's terms matter too: read what they say about who owns the output and whether you may use it commercially.
Who publishes what gets made in CoraVision?
You do, because CoraVision cannot post anything to your pages and never changes anything in your accounts. The creative side of CoraVision belongs to Dune, Cora's creative director, in the Design Studio, and whatever gets made, you decide what goes out and you publish it yourself. That keeps a person, you, between a generated image and your customers, which is where the consumer law puts the responsibility in any case.
Questions
Do I have to tell customers I used AI?
The rule that bites in Australia is the Australian Consumer Law: an image or claim must not mislead, whoever or whatever made it. The big social apps add labels of their own; Meta shows an "AI info" label on some content made or edited with AI. A doctored product photo is a problem with or without a label.
Is generative AI the same thing as ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is one generative AI app, best known for text, though it now makes images and speaks as well. Generative AI also covers image tools, music and voice generators, video makers and the generate buttons inside Canva, Google Ads and Meta.