Tired of copywriting? Fed up with the tedium of producing engaging content for your website or blog? As more and more copywriters are replaced by artificial intelligence, should you be worried about a future without copywriters at all? This article will explore some of the pros and cons to this trend, as well as raise some critical questions to take into consideration.
Will AI be the end of copywriters?
Over the last few years, content you read online has become increasingly AI-generated. We may often not notice it, but vast amounts of blog articles, social media posts and comments are now generated by AI. This trend has led to copywriters being replaced by artificial intelligence, as the software can produce vast quantities more content than a human ever could. Apparently, the quality these AI writers produce has become so good that it can replace traditionally written copy without the reader noticing somethings ‘off’.
There is a lot of debate as to whether AI-created content should be viewed with skepticism or optimism. One side argues that it could be an extinction-level event for copywriters, but the other perspective offers hope in that this new technology can simply be seen as one more powerful tool in digital marketers’ arsenals.
Let us take a look at some of AI copywritings benefits compared to its downsides.
The Pros of AI copywriting
The Ease and Speed of Automated Copywriting
For many businesses, copywriters are the least cost effective way to produce engaging content. But with automation providing a consistent stream of high quality copy for your website or blog, you may find that hiring human copywriters is no longer necessary. AI copywriters can rapidly push out tons of content with minor effort, letting you allocate your precious time elsewhere.
AI copywriting can be extremely cost effective
AI copy writers do not cost as much to maintain because they do not require health benefits, vacation time, sick days, etc. Although the best AI tools out there may cost a pretty penny, they are often worth it for both the copy quality and consistency they provide. A $200 monthly subscription to an AI copywriting SaaS may sound like a lot, but when you compare it to the wages of decent (SEO) copywriters, it suddenly feels like an absolute bargain.
There are many benefits to using an automated copywriter, especially when these powerful tools are being operated by someone with a good understanding when it comes to engaging copy.
However, the rise of AI in the field of copywriting also has its downsides. AI writing tools have come a long way and are improving fast, but some growing pains still show from time to time. Let’s take a look at its main drawbacks.
The cons of AI copywriting
The inconsistent quality of AI generated copy
Copywriting is not just about quanitity – it’s also about quality. Some copy generated by AI is well written, while other copy seems to have been churned out in a hurry. You’re likely to get repetitive, sometimes even contradicting sentences when you let AI create copy for your blog post or website content. You don’t want your audience to have trouble understanding a text, or get bored reading it.
Unoriginal content & lack of creativity
AI copywriters generate texts based on the copy they were told to copy. If there’s no creativity in the content, or it is too repetitive, you can bet that AI generated copy will be just as bad. For some copy, like product descriptions in ecommerce environments, purely functional copy will be just fine. AI can follow a formulaic pattern to generate these without much trouble. When you want the AI to write an original, creative masterpiece however, the copywriter AI will struggle. Bad.
The Verdict
Our solution to these problems? Having a great editor reviewing your AI generated copy before its published. Admittedly, this makes the copy only partly AI-generated, and raises the costs of the process. In order to produce high quality content however, we believe a good chunk of human involvement is mandatory. This is exactly why copywriters should not worry about being a dying breed in a digital age. They’re not being replaced- they’re being empowered.
Writing copy can be tedious and repetitive work, so there’s no doubt that AI will play an increasing role in the future. We’re not worried about AI taking our jobs however – we’re just happy to get some robotic friends to help us create interesting content more easily.
For those of you still not convinced of the capability of AI to generate an entire article: Now might be a good time to reveal that the article you’re reading right now was in fact generated by an AI. We merely provided the topic and a few keywords, and mashed the ‘COMPOSE’-button. This was basically our AI copywriter (his name is Jarvis, he says hi) judging the capabilities of its own kind: spooky, right?