How artificial intelligence is reshaping accountability in an industry built on passing the buck?
The marketing world has perfected the art of the blame game. When Jaguar’s rebrand spectacularly misfired, fingers pointed at the agency. When Coca-Cola’s Dr Pepper Facebook mishap went viral, cooperation with Lean Mean Fighting Machine was swiftly “suspended”. WWF distanced itself from DDB Brasil after a controversial campaign, insisting it wasn’t their vision. In marketing crises, responsibility flows like water—always seeking the lowest level, the weakest link in the decision-making chain.
But what happens when that weakest link is an algorithm? As artificial intelligence increasingly drives marketing decisions—from content creation to campaign optimization—we’re witnessing a fascinating shift in how responsibility is attributed. Recent research published in the Journal of Business Ethics by our team members Dr. Piotr Gaczek and Dr. Grzegorz Leszczyński reveals something counterintuitive: when AI is involved in ethically questionable marketing decisions, managers don’t try to shift blame onto the machine. Instead, they feel more responsible.
The study examined how attribution of responsibility unfolds when managers collaborate with AI versus human teams. The results challenge conventional wisdom about AI absolving human accountability. Managers who relied directly on AI recommendations were blamed more heavily for negative outcomes than those who relied on recommendations from human teams using AI tools. More significantly, these AI-collaborating managers exhibited a heightened sense of personal responsibility—and consequently became less willing to engage in ethically questionable decisions.
Why might this occur? The research suggests several mechanisms at play. First, the novelty and visibility of AI decisions make managers acutely aware of their role as the human “approver” of algorithmic recommendations. Unlike traditional team dynamics where responsibility can be genuinely shared, the human-AI collaboration creates a clear hierarchy of accountability—the human always retains ultimate responsibility for accepting or rejecting AI suggestions.
Second, the current cultural discourse around AI ethics creates what behavioral economists might recognize as a heightened “moral salience” effect. When working with AI, managers are primed to think about ethical implications in ways they might not be when working with purely human teams. The very presence of AI serves as a constant reminder of the need for ethical vigilance.
These findings point toward what we’re calling the “bright side” of AI participation in marketing decisions. Rather than creating ethical blind spots, AI collaboration may actually illuminate them. The enhanced sense of responsibility that comes with AI usage could serve as a natural check against unethical marketing practices.
Consider the implications for marketing practice. In an industry where creative and strategic decisions often involve ethical gray areas—from data usage to persuasive techniques—the presence of AI might serve as an inadvertent ethics amplifier. Managers working with AI tools report feeling more accountable for outcomes, more conscious of potential negative consequences, and more hesitant to pursue questionable tactics.
This doesn’t mean AI is inherently ethical, of course. The algorithms themselves are only as ethical as their training data and programming allow. But the relationship between humans and AI in marketing contexts appears to foster greater ethical reflection than purely human decision-making processes.
As AI becomes increasingly sophisticated and autonomous in marketing applications, several questions emerge. Will this “responsibility reflex” persist as AI tools become more commonplace and less novel? How might different types of AI systems—from simple automation to advanced generative models—affect responsibility attribution differently?
Perhaps most intriguingly: if AI makes marketing more ethical by making marketers more conscious of their ethical responsibilities, shouldn’t we be actively leveraging this effect? Rather than viewing AI as a potential threat to marketing ethics, we might consider it an unexpected ally in promoting more responsible business practices.
The traditional blame game in marketing assumes responsibility is something to be avoided or shifted. But our research suggests that AI collaboration might be creating a new game entirely—one where responsibility is not just accepted but enhanced. In a field that has long struggled with ethical challenges, that might be artificial intelligence’s most valuable contribution of all.
The research “Attribution of Responsibility in Human-AI Collaborative Marketing Decisions: An Experimental Investigation” is available in the Journal of Business Ethics: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-025-06083-w
This post is part of the project “People and Algorithms in Organisations: Competences to Work in the Digital Environment” (DIGIT_People and algorithms), funded by the NAWA – Narodowa Agencja Wymiany Akademickiej (Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange).
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