A lot has been said and written about the revolutionary changes (and replacements) that generative AI will bring to the content marketing industry, but only a little about what the technology won’t change. Maybe because it’s hard to predict AI's scope and impact just yet?
Well, I’m going to try anyway. Here’s my take on what AI can’t touch in the content industry – not now, and not even 10 years down the line.
Content Jobs that AI can’t replace
There are various content marketing functions where human intervention is non-negotiable, no matter how sophisticated these LLMs get. Personally, I feel the role and relevance of the following content functions are only going to grow deeper.
Strategists will be more relevant than ever
You can outsource your writing to AI, but who is going to decide what to write? How to write it? What value props to highlight? When to publish? On what platforms? And how many times a month? That’s where strategists come in.
If content is a ship, a strategist is the captain giving direction and instruction to help it set sail.
This is a role gen AI won’t be able to touch, because it does not possess the level of creativity, nuance, and lateral thinking needed to build a strategy. If anything, AI will act as a co-pilot, improving the efficiency and speed at which the strategists think and execute a content marketing plan.
Versatile writers who can market on the side will survive
Yes, generative AI can very well replace the content writer, even with its often-cited lack of creativity and originality. But let’s be honest here: What even is originality?! As Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist, puts it, “What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original.”
But do you know what type of writer’s coming out on the other side unscathed? Writers who understand the marketing function of content.
These are writers who can whip up a copy for Ads just as well as they can for an email drip campaign. Because they know how to persuade and impress the target audience without needing to handheld.
They’re jack-of-all-trades when it comes to content formats but master of only one niche; industry specialists with the necessary knowledge, skills, and experience needed to excel.
Versatile writers like these will remain relevant even in the post-ChatGPT world.
Editing jobs aren’t going anywhere
Amid the whole AI vs. human writers debate, many are also siding with a third possibility: The evolution of writers to editors. And it’s a natural evolution at that.
After all, hallucinations – a seemingly confident output by AI that can be either partially correct, miss out on important details, or biased from training on an impartial dataset – are a huge problem with tools like ChatGPT.
With a human editor at the front, however, such hallucinations can be detected and corrected early on. This is why, even if a company decides to replace writers with gen AI, they’re still going to need editors to proofread and refine the output quality – and even write prompts to begin with.
I’m already seeing a huge surge in editing jobs for AI-assisted content creation. Only yesterday, there was a posting for an “Artificial Intelligence Poetry Writer Trainer” on the popular job-searching portal, Indeed.
This just goes on to show how quickly the current job landscape is changing and how businesses are adapting to AI disruptions.
Generative AI marks a beginning, not the end
“No matter how varied the technologies have been…the source of tension has always been the same: fear.”
-- The co-created future of AI in creative content strategy, Robert Rose
As the founder of a content writing agency, I’ve been equally fascinated and apprehensive of AI since ChatGPT exploded on the scene. And why shouldn’t I be? Writers are among the first line of knowledge workers whose jobs are likely at risk. (I’ve covered more about it here!)
Here’s a small-scale survey from Neil Patel to show you what I mean. The fear, whether real or perceived, is crystal clear.
But as I’ve mentioned above, there’s still light at the end of the tunnel. Instead of getting bogged down by the onslaught of the AI threat, take this opportunity to upskill and find a true, AI-proof footing for yourself.
How are you handling the AI wave of disruptions? Let me know in the comments!