Artificial intelligence has existed for years, but with each turn of the calendar the capabilities and innovation advance — and is quickly becoming more and more accessible for use by all parties. As a marketing agency, we are increasingly becoming more predisposed to artificial intelligence in the form of content creation.
From our internal discussions of how these developments can or should be used, to answering the volley of questions clients have regarding these new tools — AI writing software has become an evolving topic in recent times.
In terms of writing, content generation, and other creative outcomes, artificial intelligence sparks a list of pros and cons for those using the software tools — including freelancers, marketers, students, and other groups who depend on the pen.
It is no secret that AI development isn’t going anywhere, in fact, a proliferation of tools should be expected over the next several years. So how are we, as a leading digital marketing agency, working alongside these new tools? And how can YOU leverage these different AI writing software for your own gain?
ChatGPT & Its Impact on AI Writing Software
ChatGPT is a topic of conversation for just about anyone today. The free, revolutionary tool is piquing the interest of all industries and individuals, who are vetting the software for its ability and performance.
Released in November of 2022, the artificial intelligence tool developed by OpenAI has caught fire, quickly surpassing over 100 million users within two months of its release — making it the fastest-growing consumer application ever created.
ChatGPT is a member of the “generative pre-trained transformer” family of language models and is constructed to mirror human conversation. If you’ve ever played around with this AI writing software, you are well aware of the diverse possibilities the tool can spit out and produce. From writing blog posts to developing unique computing code in just a few seconds, the platform continues to impress.
While ChatGPT is an impressive tool, it does hold limitations. It is possible of producing inaccurate and unclear answers for some prompts, as well as its knowledge base of post-2021 being very small.
All that being said, ChatGPT is opening new doors for organizations and individuals in all facets and is in the process of rewriting how work and creativity happen.
Are Humans Going to Lose Their Jobs?
The short answer is, no.
Since the launch of AI writing software over the past decade, and more recently ChatGPT, some creatives like content writers fear their days of employment are numbered. AI and automation will continue to improve, and its current skill set is totally capable of replacing the role of some lower-level task needs that go into the writing process.
So will tools like this potentially eliminate some jobs? Yes.
However, more than anything, AI writing software will reduce job duties and expedite the content creation process. The overwhelming majority of creatives who make a living on brainstorming, drafting, and delivering content have nothing to worry about, as these tools are more of a sidekick, rather than a superhero.
This is due to the box that an AI writer lives within, while the human brain can explore outside these boundaries. Those who understand the value of these new tools will be able to exploit their capabilities for their own gain. AI writing tools like ChatGPT can become an enhancement tool to improve the efficiency, satisfaction, and revenue content writers can generate.
What Are The Limitations of AI Writing Software & Tools?
Despite advances in artificial intelligence and natural language processing (NLP), AI writing software and tools still have several limitations. Some of the limitations of AI writing software and tools are:
- Lack of Creativity: AI writing tools may struggle with creative writing tasks such as writing fiction, poetry, or scripts. These tasks require creativity and an understanding of cultural nuances that are difficult for AI to replicate.
- Lack of Emotional Intelligence: AI writing tools may not be able to understand or convey emotions effectively, which can make them unsuitable for writing tasks that require emotional nuance.
- Limited Contextual Understanding: AI writing tools may not be able to understand the context of a piece of writing, leading to inaccuracies, confusion, or misunderstandings.
- Limited Knowledge Base: AI writing tools may not have access to the same knowledge base as humans do, which can lead to gaps in knowledge and understanding.
- Inability to Write in Different Styles: AI writing tools may not be able to write in different styles, which can limit their usefulness in certain contexts.
- Dependence on Training Data: AI writing tools require large amounts of training data to work effectively, which can limit their effectiveness in niche areas with limited data.
- Potential for Bias: AI writing tools can potentially perpetuate bias and discrimination if the training data used to create them is biased.
- Limited Creativity: While AI can generate content in a relatively short amount of time, the content produced may lack the depth of creativity that is present in human writing.
What is AI Writing Software Good At?
AI writing software is going to grow in depth of skill as algorithms become more intelligent and code improves, however, in its current state, it excels at a handful of specific tasks. Those include:
- Generating Routine Content: An AI writing tool can generate routine content, like a product description, news article, and blog post. These tasks involve generating factual information in a clear and concise manner, which is well-suited to AI’s strengths.
- Proofreading and Editing: AI writing software can help with proofreading and editing by detecting grammar and spelling errors, suggesting corrections, and improving the overall readability of a piece of writing.
- Generating Summaries: AI writing software can generate summaries of longer texts, such as research papers or news articles. These summaries can be useful for quickly understanding the key points of a text.
- Language Translation: AI writing software can also be used for language translation, allowing people to communicate more easily across linguistic barriers.
- Personalization: AI writing software can help personalize content, such as email marketing campaigns or social media posts, by analyzing data on user behavior and preferences and generating tailored content.
- Generating Reports: AI writing software can also generate reports and other business documents based on data inputs. This can be useful for automating routine reporting tasks and freeing up employees to focus on more strategic work.
Summing up, AI writing software is best geared for tasks that involve generating factual information, analyzing data, and optimizing content for readability and engagement. While it may not be able to replicate the full range of human creativity and cultural understanding, it can still be a useful tool for improving writing efficiency and effectiveness — saving time and cutting out painful repetitive tasks/research.
What Capabilities Do Human Writers Have That Can’t Be Replicated?
There is something that AI can’t replicate, and that is being a living, breathing, human — and what comes with that is some mental capability that can’t be matched piece to piece. While, artificial intelligence is powerful and fast, and certainly can outperform the human mind in some areas, the overall skill base of a talented human reigns superior — especially when it comes to writing.
What human writers can do, that can’t be done or done better by AI generated content include:
- Writing to a deeper degree of detail and context
- Maintaining up-to-date knowledge of community and world happenings
- Matching and developing brand tone and voice
- Understanding and making more accurate edits/alterations
- Writing in a manner that feels organic, natural, and real
It doesn’t take a trained eye to be able to notice the difference between AI-written work, versus human-created content. Here are two examples, which one is written by AI and which by a human?
The prompt given to both the AI and human writer: “Write two sentences about walking in the woods.”
Ex. 1: “Walking in the woods can be a peaceful and rejuvenating experience, as the sights and sounds of nature can help to soothe the mind and reduce stress. The changing scenery, fresh air, and exercise can also provide a much-needed break from the hustle and bustle of daily life.”
Ex. 2: “When you take a walk through the woods, from the ground up, you begin to connect with the Earth on a different level. Your senses are exposed to the sights of grasshoppers jumping, the smell of flowers blooming, the sound of birds singing, the feel of a soft breeze blowing, and the taste of new beginnings arising.”
If you chose example two as the human response then you’d be correct. The giveaways that you’re reading AI writing include it sounding choppy, surface-level, generic, and lacking unique detail.
How to Benefit From AI Writing Software (As a Writer Yourself)
An AI writing assistant can help with idea generation, content organization, and overall productivity, ultimately leading to better engagement and higher conversion rates.
Save Time
AI content writing tools can save you time by automating the content creation process. These tools can quickly generate high-quality content for various purposes, such as creating articles, making social media updates, developing email newsletters, and more. These tools use natural language processing algorithms to analyze and understand human language, enabling them to generate text that is readable, coherent, and engaging.
AI copywriting tools can also help you with editing existing content, as they can scan through massive amounts of information and extract relevant fixes for your content. This streamlines the content creation process, allowing you to produce multiple articles in a short time.
Expedite Outlining
Outlining with AI provides you with insights and suggestions for structuring your content. AI-powered tools can analyze your topic and suggest a comprehensive outline that covers all the essential points. You can also input your ideas and let the AI tool organize them into a logical structure.
This way, you can create an outline faster and with less effort, without worrying about missing critical points or wasting time on mundane outlines. Powerful AI writing tools can also help you identify gaps in your outline and suggest relevant information to fill them.
Generate Ideas
One way you can use AI writing software to your benefit as a writer is to have it help with generating content ideas. When you feel you are at a dead end or are experiencing writer’s block, you can use AI (even an AI writing app) to your advantage. AI writing software like ChatGPT, can quickly come up with a list of ideas for nearly any topic you choose. It is a valuable tool for brainstorming content ideas, titles, headers, etc. As a content writer, sometimes all you need is an initial idea to create something great.
Increase Overall Productivity
Writing alongside AI writing software can increase overall productivity and scalability of content for your business. It can cause a ripple effect in the sense that it speeds up the outlining and writing process which means you can produce more content for your site which then helps users find your business online. This is a huge step in the scalability of content creation for both small and large businesses. AI writing software can be used to generate a few pieces of content for a specific campaign or help writers produce hundreds of articles a year, depending on the needs of the business.
Next Steps With AI Writing Software
AI writing software isn’t complacent, and neither are the engineers behind it. This technology will only continue to get more capable and dynamic as the decade continues. Humans will need to stay current with these developments in order to know how to best use these tools for benefit — and avoid becoming efficient and outdated themselves.
As a leading marketing agency, we see AI writing software as a positive tool that compliments our talented writers, and into the future will only help us continue to produce better original, SEO-focused, and user-geared content.
Here is what to expect from AI writing software as it continues its metamorphosis:
- Improving Natural Language Understanding: AI writing software needs to improve its understanding of natural language to generate more sophisticated and nuanced content. This involves developing advanced models that can understand complex sentence structures, idioms, and metaphors.
- Enhancing Creativity: AI writing software needs to enhance its creativity to generate content that is more imaginative and unique. This involves developing models that can simulate human creativity by generating original ideas and concepts.
- Developing Personalized Content: AI writing software needs to develop personalized content by analyzing data on user behavior and preferences. This involves developing models that can tailor content to individual users, creating a more engaging and relevant experience.
- Addressing Bias and Ethical Concerns: AI writing software needs to address bias and ethical concerns by ensuring that the models used are free from bias and do not perpetuate discrimination. This involves developing models that are transparent and explainable, allowing users to understand how decisions are being made.
- Integrating with Other Technologies: AI writing software needs to integrate with other technologies, such as voice assistants, chatbots, and virtual reality, to provide a more seamless and immersive user experience. This involves developing models that can work across different platforms and devices, providing a consistent and cohesive experience.
A Merger of the Two Talents
It is irresponsible and shortsighted to ignore these new developments. AI writing software is here to stay, but it is not a panacea for organizations looking to cut corners or replace human talent.
The best approach is a merger between tech and human ability.
As a leading digital marketing agency, we are remaining at the forefront of how to best utilize and marry artificial intelligence and real brain power.
Here is how we view AI writing software and tools are best used:
- They are supplementary pieces to human writers
- AI is great for generating alternative ideas
- Beneficial for creating outlines
- Helpful for developing introductions and conclusions
- Excellent at writing on non-niche, more surface-level topics that have straightforward answers (ex. How to ride a bike)
- Good for “listicle” type content writing
AI writing software is the new, exciting kid on the block. As businesses, freelancers, and all other parties continue to explore and play with these new tools, productivity, and content quality should increase. But make no mistake, using ChatGPT or other AI tools as your sole content production source, you will run into issues like:
- Possible inaccurate info
- Mediocre SEO performance
- Lackluster creativity
- Missing contextual updates/news
Whoever can best balance the talents of AI and human skill sets, will quickly reap the benefits and see their content efforts grow in success. Looking for more tips or how to best use AI writing software? Let’s talk content.