Use AI tools with Talon.One: Risks and best practices
AI tools, such as assistants, large language models, and autonomous agents, can help you learn how Applications and campaigns are set up in Talon.One. However, creating campaigns with AI tools comes with risks.
We're working on write access for the Talon.One MCP server to mitigate these risks. Until then, learn about these risks and follow these best practices to keep your campaigns fast, compliant, and manageable.
Risks
Creating campaigns with AI tools introduces the following risks:
- Broken governance: AI tools cannot parse Talang, Talon.One's custom programming language, so they cannot understand or check the rules they write. As a result, they create rules that you cannot see or edit in the Campaign Manager, and campaigns that you cannot view, edit, or disable there. This makes troubleshooting more difficult and maintenance less efficient.
- Personal data misuse: We observe that AI tools use more of your customers' personal data than campaigns require by pulling it into customer profiles. This creates compliance issues in regions with strict data protection regulations, such as GDPR in the European Union.
- API bloat: The custom attributes that AI tools create bloat Integration API payloads, which slows down response times. AI tools also send large numbers of requests to the Management API and reach its rate limits.
- Lower margins: AI tools can create campaigns that cause financial losses, for example, through uncontrolled discount stacking or by enabling return-based fraud.
Best practices
Now: Use AI-generated campaigns for internal testing only
Until the Talon.One MCP server supports write access, use AI-generated campaigns for internal testing only.
Create AI-generated campaigns only in sandbox Applications that are connected to a non-production environment on your end, for example, to try out campaign ideas.
Soon: Use the Talon.One MCP server
For AI-generated campaigns, we recommend using only the Talon.One MCP server when it supports write access. We're working on governed write access tools for it that keep the efficiency of AI while mitigating the risks of AI-generated campaigns.
We developed the Talon.One MCP server specifically to connect AI tools to your Talon.One environment, so that they understand your Talon.One data better. It currently gives AI tools secure, read-only access to your campaigns, customers, coupons, and loyalty programs, and we govern and test its tools thoroughly before each release.
Use it now to check and learn more about your Talon.One data. For example, ask your AI tool about campaign performance or investigate why a customer session doesn't trigger a discount. With the upcoming write access tools, you can also create and edit campaigns, rules, coupons, and attributes.
Keep humans in the loop
Don't rely only on AI. AI tools make mistakes and lack the best-practice expertise to create campaigns that perform.
Follow the guidance of your Customer Success Manager and Technical Account Manager to keep your campaigns fast, auditable, and manageable for both technical and marketing teams.
Troubleshoot AI-generated campaigns
If you have already created campaigns using AI tools, don't try to fix them in the Campaign Manager. AI tools can create campaigns and rules that you cannot see or edit there, so you cannot find and fix every error manually. The only way to fix these campaigns is to replace them with a new Application and new campaigns.
Contact our support team or your Customer Success Manager.
Your Customer Success Manager and Technical Account Manager can help you do the following:
- Organize your incentives into types and determine which custom attributes to use.
- Create the custom attributes and a campaign template for each incentive type, and integrate the attribute data with your systems.
- Script the creation of campaigns using templates and the Management API.
- Delete the Application that contains the AI-generated campaigns and delete the AI-generated custom attributes.