AI is Impacting the Writing Industry and Coming for My Business

Here’s what I’m doing about it.

“With ChatGPT, everyone is a content creator”

I recently read a discomforting article by The Washington Post profiling a couple of copywriters and content creators who had lost their jobs to ChatGPT. This is the very dystopian world I was writing about a few weeks back, and to see it happening in real-time has been nothing short of a nightmare come true.

As the founder of a content writing agency, the news is concerning. Not because I’m convinced AI is going to replace all content writers. No.

It’s because of how AI is changing the perception around content creation and consumption. With ChatGPT and other AI tools becoming more and more sophisticated at content creation, it seems like everyone is now a “content creator” because they know how to enter a prompt. And this is bad for businesses of all kinds – not just mine.

How Perception Around Content Creation is Changing

Writing in the Post-ChatGPT era

Sharing the same article on LinkedIn, Ann Handley, one of the pioneers in the content marketing industry, wrote:

I agree! For me, the biggest takeaway from the article was this:

“Because chatbots work by predicting the most statistically likely word in a sentence, they churn out average content by design. That provides companies with a tough decision, she said: quality vs cost.”

Source

Today, given the pressures of the recession, plenty of budget-constrained companies have laid off their content creators, and many have adopted AI instead – even media giants like Buzzfeed!

Being able to produce persuasive marketing content in a short time is no longer a coveted skill. (An AI tool can apparently do both.) It also doesn’t need a wage or health insurance. So, of course, it’s cost over quality for now.

This is a trend I’m seeing specifically among early-stage startups that are generally working with limited resources, and it makes sense. But many established companies have also started using AI tools, albeit with far more caution. They’re using the tool only to its strengths – for listicles, content summaries, and brainstorming. Many are also hiring editors to clean their pieces up and/or assist the tool with the right ChatGPT prompts.

But it’s visibly clear that for people who don’t understand content marketing, ChatGPT seems like a better alternative in terms of time and money spent. And unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of people like that.

This shift is changing the perception around content marketing, its ability to bring revenue, and most of all, the expectations businesses have from us content creators. This is why I’m changing the way we create and think about content at Ukti.

Internet is Choking on Average Content

Writers create, while AI predicts. It’s not the same.

Amid all the noise and hoopla by tech enthusiasts, many have overlooked one simple fact. There’s a fundamental flaw to this ChatGPT mania, and it’s a big one.

With companies (and netizens around the globe) hitting publish on ChatGPT-produced content faster than they can think, we’re soon going to enter a sea of content sameness. The Internet is going to be filled with content lacking depth, original insights, and thought-leading content. Not to mention the impact it’s going to have on your SEO performance!

Surprisingly, many companies are aware of this and increasingly recognize this as a problem. In our own case, a new client we onboarded recently – a B2B SaaS company offering lead generation solutions – had the following to say during the induction rounds.

“My current pain point: I’m looking for writers who can tell a story and not write like ChatGPT.”

Average content has always been a problem but with AI tools, even more so. You may think you’re saving time and money, but you’re going to pay with low-quality engagement and fatigue from poorly thought-out content. Besides, tools like ChatGPT are useless in niches like Healthcare, Fintech, MarTech, SaaS, etc., where a higher degree of thinking and expertise is needed to create persuasive content.

How I’m Making My Business AI-Proof

AI will not replace writers. But someone who knows how to use AI will.

As a team of content creators and editors, we’re not against AI. We’ve made peace with the fact that AI is going to grow more sophisticated, and when it does, we want to be able to use it just as well as our technical counterparts.

So, both as individuals and as a team, we’re experimenting and talking about the best ways to use AI to improve our efficiency.

This is mostly at the level of content operations, proofreading, brainstorming, and repurposing existing content for social media. Plus, we’re adding more skills to our roster through continued learning via our Grow@Ukti program.

That said, the content we write for our clients is 100% human-crafted. As extensions of their marketing team, we’ve always strived to bring the highest quality to the table. But to stand out in the sea of sameness, as I mentioned above, companies need to double down on unique, personable content backed with first-hand expertise.

This is why, at Ukti, we’re doing the following:

• Adding more personality and personal narratives to branded content
• Incorporating subject matter expertise
• Focusing on what’s topical and hot instead of rehashing old concepts
• Creating actionable, audience-centric content
• And lastly, keeping two-way communication about AI with our clients

Just Like Two AI Tools, No Two Content Writers are the Same

Since the start of the year, the “will AI replace writers” debates have been doing dozens of rounds. And it’s disheartening to see how human writers are being thumbed down under the shadow of a machine.

But just like two AI tools, no two content writers are the same. They have their own skill sets, some better than others. And so, it’s unfair to pigeonhole writers as “replaceable by a machine.”

Good writing will always be reader-first, and that’s one thing only a human writer can do – whether it’s in the role of an editor refining the “first draft” or in the capacity of a strategist feeding instructions to the bot.

It’s always going to be a human behind the scenes.

Also published here.