Artificial intelligence, or AI, to generate messaging seems to be everywhere these days. And, as a savvy business owner, you’ve likely already started looking to see how it can benefit your business.
Here we look at the AI writer vs. the human writer and examine which will better help your business convert.
What Is AI Writing?
ChatGPT is an AI chatbot you’ve likely been hearing about—a lot! ChatGPT (which stands for chat generative pre-trained transformer) is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI that launched in Nov. 2022.
What does it do? Simply, it generates words for you. How? It enables users to refine and direct the bot to write a script using prompts and replies to direct the course of the conversation.
AI doesn’t really “write”—instead, it cobbles together or reassembles ideas. It’s taking a prompt and gathering information online. It culls the information out there, brings it together, and reassembles it.
At this point, we should stand up loudly and proudly and declare that at Nicki K Media we’re a team of copywriters. As professional copywriters, we think you should always hire a real live human to write your copy! (And we have trained 10,000 students on how to be professional copywriters in our Comprehensive Copywriting Academy.)
How Does AI Writing Work?
First of all, AI cannot be creative. It can reassemble things, but it cannot come up with something completely new. It also can’t come up with something outside of the prompt that you’ve given it. If you’ve given it a prompt to create messaging about X, Y, 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
Compare this to an actual copywriter who can sit with you and discuss all the details of a project with you—the call to action, the goal you want to achieve with an email—whatever it is, they can ask you information to really strategize about what you’re trying to accomplish and the best way to do it.
The deliverable is just the final end product. But how you get there is very different. A human copywriter can really help you hone the problem you’re trying to solve for your audience.
A good 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.
A copywriter is a strategist and a marketer. They’ll ask you about your company, your brand, and get you thinking about things you haven’t. A good copywriter’s expertise is invaluable. They have in-depth training with a lot of practice and a lot of specialization.
Vetting and Creating Original Content
If you use AI or ChatGPT, you still 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 throw it on your website. Content still needs humans who can vet for bad information. If you’re throwing up AI-generated copy with incorrect information, you’ll actually hurt your business!
Also, ChatGPT is always going to come up with something that’s already been done before. Messaging needs to differentiate yourself from all your competitors. You want to stand out from them. You created your business because there was a gap to fill because there was a need because you had an audience to serve that you saw wasn’t being served in the right way. And so you need to communicate how you are unique.
If ChatGPT is just regurgitating what already exists, that’s just a starting point, but a human needs to layer on top your unique spin.
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. They’re not going to be in business for long.
Strategizing and Partnering
Messaging requires some strategizing. But if a business owner is not willing to do that, not willing to do the hard and scary stuff to figure out why people actually want to buy from them and should buy from them, then they have no business being in business anyway and they 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 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 need a website with a portfolio section that includes sample work. This shows if a writer took a strategic approach or they were just an executor who got handed a project and spit out copy. You want to evaluate if they can be a good partner to you.
A good copywriter should have some depth and breadth of experience. They 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. Or you can look for a copywriter who can 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 those two different types of writing is very, very different.
Read more about the difference between copywriting and content writing here >>
ChatGPT and AI can help generate ideas if you’re just staring at a blank screen. But by no means should you outsource your copy to it. Do not rely on AI for the most important thing in your business!
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!