13 May, 2022
Alyssa Zacharias, Lead Editor at Clash Creative
Four-minute read
It’s no secret artificial intelligence (AI) is integrated into various areas of our lives. From self-driving cars to smart homes, solutions that leverage AI surround us.
For the most part, this is excellent – AI systems cover tedious and mundane tasks while humans return to the meaningful work they love. But there’s one area where AI just isn’t there yet – copywriting.
Now, this isn’t to say that AI copy isn’t out there (a recent Forbes article appears to be an example of this…). But even to the untrained eye, AI copy sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s also much less effective than human-written copy.
Nearly every marketing agency out there has tried AI copy – including ours. Here’s why AI copy won’t be replacing human copywriters just yet:
More time, more money
Free trials only last so long, and to leverage the most valuable features of AI copy software, you’ve gotta spend some money. Sure – this price might not initially exceed what you’d pay a human copywriter.
But here’s the thing: AI copy takes much more time to edit; I found that it took nearly three times what it takes to edit a human writer’s work. This is because the AI copy lacks so much context and nuance, and the flow is nearly always off. For example:
This copy was so awkward and didn’t match the client’s brand voice, so a lot of time was spent massaging it to make it review-ready.
Not only is it difficult to get AI content to capture a brand’s voice, but any promotional content and calls to action must be added in later. So much work is done to reverse what the AI copywriter has screwed up – to get rid of all of the awkward, random information and language and include brand-specific content. For example:
In this example, it was challenging to get the content to be about organization leaders rather than about fired employees. All the content was based on the provided title – so all intros, section titles, and the final draft had to be heavily edited. In the end, I changed nearly all the content provided by the AI software. This took about as much time as it would take for a copywriter to create a first draft.
Robotic tone = less persuasive
If you choose not to thoroughly edit your AI copy and hope for the best, chances are your content will be much less effective. Your target audience has been advertised to all the time and from a very young age. This means that we’ve all got a pretty robust library of human-created content to compare AI content to. Most of us can quickly spot AI-produced content – and we don’t like it.
Remember that Forbes article? Take a minute to give it a skim. Much like grammatical errors and spelling mistakes tend to produce skepticism, noticeably AI-written content has the effect of seeming less reliable.
Everyone gets the same content
At Clash Creative, we’ve tried both AI blog content and social posts. One of the main things we’ve noticed is that we can easily find other accounts using social and blog posts with suspiciously similar content to ours (for example, we searched LinkedIn for a specific social post phrase and found several accounts posting nearly identical content).
The worry then is that the more AI-driven content everyone uses, the less your brand can stand out. This negates any efforts to create thought leadership and to cut through the mass of consumable content.
The pros
There are a few things AI content is suitable for, so we’re not writing it off completely. For one, AI content can help you get through writer’s block. It can jump-start that awkward moment when you’re stuck staring at a blank word doc and don’t know where to begin.
As well, some AI platforms like Frase provide extensive research for you to work off of. This research is often less biased than what your algorithm-affected google search might offer.
Lastly, if you’re only concerned about quantity, not quality, you’ll get the most bang for your buck by pumping out AI-written content instead of hiring a human copywriter. However, we believe that quality content is queen – this is not where you should pinch pennies.
Wondering how to make the most of your content strategy? We can help you leverage this marketing tactic to gain quality inbound leads – chat with one of our marketing experts today!
Clare Tries is the Founder and CEO of Clash Creative. She is a creative copywriter and passionate marketing professional with over a decade of experience in the IT industry. Her company provides collaborative and rewarding marketing solutions for IT industry and small business professionals.
