Artificial intelligence, or AI, seems to be all anyone has been talking about since ChatGPT first hit the scene back in November 2022. And, as a savvy business owner, you’ve likely already started looking to see how it can benefit your business.
With everyone shouting from the rooftops about how great ChatGPT is, how it can write entire sales pages, and even “personality-driven” emails…you might still be feeling a little confused about whether this is actually a sensible choice for your bottom line.
Here, we’re taking a look at the AI writer vs. the human writer and examining which one will help your business convert better.
What Is AI Writing?
ChatGPT (which stands for chat generative pre-trained transformer) is an AI chatbot that you’ve likely been hearing a LOT about!
But what does it actually do? To put it simply, it generates words for you. How? It allows users to refine and direct the bot to write a script using prompts and replies to direct the course of the conversation.
What AI does cannot really be called “writing”—in reality, it cobbles together or reassembles ideas that already exist. It takes a prompt, gathers information online, and regurgitates the content, including other content produced by AI…
At this point, we should stand up loudly and proudly and declare that at Nicki K Media we’re a team of copywriters (and we have trained 10,000 students on how to be professional copywriters in our Comprehensive Copywriting Academy.)
As professional copywriters, we think you should always hire a real human to write your copy—we’re not saying that because we’re biased, we’re saying that because as long as it’s HUMANS on the receiving side of our marketing, empathy, integrity and trust will still matter most when we’re trying to convince people to take action or give us their hard earned money.
Limitations of AI Writing
First of all, AI cannot be creative. It can reassemble things, but it cannot come up with something completely new on its own. It also can’t come up with something outside of the prompt that you’ve given it. If you’ve given AI a prompt to create messaging about X, Y, or Z, it’s not going to be able to come back and say, “Actually, I know you wanted this, but I thought if we approached it from this other angle, that would be so much better.”
AI takes building blocks and it builds—but it can’t create new blocks and it can’t create something other than what you tell it to build you. That’s a fundamental limitation, especially when it comes to your messaging.
The Benefits of a Human Writer
Connecting on an Emotional Level
When you compare this to an actual copywriter who has training, you get so much more than just an end product. They can sit down with you and discuss all the details of a project with you, including the goals you want to achieve, and can then ask you information to strategize about what you’re trying to accomplish and the best way to go about it. Their skills go beyond that of just writing.
A good copywriter is a strategist and a marketer. They’ll ask you about your company, your brand, and make you question things you haven’t even thought of. Their expertise is invaluable, and they have in-depth training with a lot of practice and specialization. A human copywriter can really help you hone the problem you’re trying to solve for your audience.
A top copywriter is a partner. It’s a living, breathing human with emotions. And what’s the goal of copywriting? To get the audience to connect on some level with your business—and that means being emotionally connected to it.
Vetting and Creating Original Content
If you use AI or ChatGPT, you’re still going to need someone to look it through and make sure it’s usable. It’s not like you can just put it in into the machine chuck it straight onto your website—throwing up AI-generated copy with incorrect information is a sure fire way to damage your business!
When it comes to messaging, the whole point is that it needs to differentiate your business from all of your competitors. You want to stand out from them. You created your business because there was a gap to fill, and because you saw an audience that was not being served in the right way. But ChatGPT is always going to come up with something that’s already been done before and will never be able to communicate how you are unique.
Sure, it can pump out an email in no time, give you hundreds of blog posts topics on command, and summarize content in a snap, but it doesn’t mean the copy is good, the ideas are original, or the result is even accurate and relevant to your target customer.
ChatGPT is just regurgitating what already exists, and by all means use it as a starting point, but you will still need a human to layer your unique spin on top.
If a business is using ChatGPT and seems to be moving faster than their competitors, they’re not going to have a long-lasting leg up and they’re not going to be in business for long.
Strategizing and Partnering
The hard truth is: Messaging requires some strategizing. But if a business owner is not willing to do the hard and scary stuff to figure out why people actually want (and should!) buy from them, then they frankly shouldn’t be in business anyway (and they certainly won’t be in business for very long). It requires that little bit of discomfort to be unique in your messaging and to not say what everyone else is saying.
Sometimes we have to do the hard and scary things. That’s part of being a business—and part of growing as a human.
How Do You Find a Good Copywriter?
- Look at a copywriter’s bio. They should have a website with a portfolio section that includes sample work. This shows if a writer took a strategic approach or if they were just an executor who got handed a project and spat out copy. You want to evaluate if they can be a good partner to you.
- Look at their depth and breadth of experience. A good copywriter should be able to write in different kinds of brand voices so they can step into your brand and make your messaging sound like you had written it. Don’t forget you can also look for a copywriter to partner with you to help you create your brand voice.
- When you’re reviewing portfolios, make sure you’re looking at copywriting and not content writing. Content writing is writing that’s designed to educate, entertain, or inspire. Copywriting is designed to get people to take an action, to persuade them to do something—like make a purchase. The strategy required for these two different types of writing is very, very different. Read more about the difference between copywriting and content writing here >>
ChatGPT and AI can absolutely help you break through writer’s block on those painful first drafts—aka the copywriter’s equivalent to peeling yourself off the couch to get up and do a workout! But let us tell you, AI is faaaar from perfect.
The internet is becoming overwhelmed with irrelevant and unreliable “robocopy” being churned out by AI at the moment but that’s great news if you decide to use a human writer. Because the human creativity, empathy and originality will help your brand stand out from the yawn fest that is everyone else’s mediocre AI content.
So whatever you do, do not rely on AI for the most important thing in your business! While it can be used as a shortcut for a lot of things, it is NOT a shortcut for building a brand that people love and trust.
Watch More
In this episode of the Energize Your Online Business podcast, Nicki and Kate discuss ChatGPT and why isn’t not the best fit for your marketing and messaging. They give the real-deal perspective on why outsourcing your messaging to AI (the way so many business owners are trying to!) is actually the exact *wrong* way to use the software. (In sum, Humans: 1, Artificial Intelligence: 0) Check it out now!
Your Turn!
Have you experimented with using AI writing? What have been your pros and cons? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!