Where AI Tools Fit in a Photographer's Office Work

An AI writing tool is good at wording and poor at facts. Keep that in mind and most office jobs sort themselves into two piles: "let it draft" and "do it myself".

Chat assistants run on what are called large language models. Wikipedia says these can typically "generate, summarize, translate, and analyze text".¹ Notice what's missing there. Nothing in that list says the tool knows your prices or your diary.

Jobs a tool can help draft

Each of these is a writing job. You supply the facts.

• Answers to new enquiries, covered in replying to photography enquiries.
• Wording for your packages, built from your own price list, in explaining packages and prices.
• Confirmations and shoot-day reminders, in booking messages.
• Questionnaire wording and tidy shot-list notes, in questionnaires and shot lists.
• Gallery delivery and follow-up messages, in gallery delivery.
• First drafts of captions and alt text, in captions and alt text. Alt text is the short description of a picture that helps people who can't see it.

Jobs to keep for yourself

Other jobs stay with you, even at first-draft stage.

• Setting prices. Your costs and your local market are invisible to the tool. Settle the figures first, then ask for wording.
• Dates, times and places. Type them in yourself and read them back. A gap tends to get filled with a guess.
• Anything about money owed, refunds or contracts. Your terms are yours. For law and tax, read the official pages in your country, or ask a lawyer or accountant.
• Replies to upset or worried clients. You should choose the tone yourself, after reading their message properly.
• Picking which photos go to the client. That's your eye and your name.

Why every draft needs a read

Sometimes a tool states things that aren't true. Wikipedia says chatbots like these may include "plausible-sounding random falsehoods".² A neat draft can still claim you're free on a date you aren't.

Australia's privacy regulator agrees. Its guidance says generative AI is known to give inaccurate or false results, a risk it calls especially high.³ Read every draft as a suggestion from a confident helper who has never met your client.

A check before you send

• Match every date, time, address and fee to your own records.
• Spell the client's name the way they do.
• Say the tone out loud. If you wouldn't speak it, change it.
• Cut any claim you can't back up, such as a promised delivery speed.

What to keep out of the chat window

Names, numbers, addresses and photos of clients count as personal information. In Australia, the OAIC gives a best-practice view: organisations should avoid typing personal information into public generative AI tools.³

That's guidance for Australia. Rules differ by country, so a British or American studio should read what the ICO or the FTC publish.

One habit helps. Type "the client" and "the venue" in the prompt. Put the real names in once the draft is in your own email.

Questions to ask before paying for a tool

• What does the maker's privacy page say about the text you type in?
• Could you trial it with invented clients first?
• Can you delete your chat history?