“Hey, ChatGPT, give me a good title for a blog about the impact of AI on the marketing industry?” The title above this article won’t come out right away, but with a little questioning you’ll certainly come close.
Since the launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI (founded by Elon Musk, among others, and with investment from Microsoft), Artificial Intelligence has been the talk of the town. Among marketers, journalists and especially marketing communications agencies. Not surprising, because AI can be seen as a threat to many professions and companies. What do we need a copywriter for, if AI can easily generate copy? Or a programmer, when a website can be built and designed entirely by AI? Or a non GamStop casino player can generate a playing strategy for slots or roulette?
While in the past technological developments in particular affected ‘practical’ professions, we now see for the first time that so-called ‘theoretical’ professions are also affected. And that feels exciting. Professions that until recently were thought to be never replaceable appear to be subject to change.
What Can AI Bring Us?
Personally, as a follower of the Stoic philosophy, I believe that you should welcome and embrace these developments. You have to use it to your advantage, without getting ahead of yourself of course. The quote from Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius is very appropriate if you look at AI from a positive point of view:
“What stands in the way, becomes the way.”
What may seem like a threat or threshold is actually the new path you are taking.
But, also in the Stoic tradition, I am also an advocate of living in the present, not the future. In short, let’s take a close look at what AI can offer us at this moment, in the coming (near) period. In that perspective, with support from my team and of course a healthy dose of AI, I will publish 4 articles in the coming weeks in which we consider the impact of AI on our work. In the present. We will touch on the following themes:
- Copywriting
- Design
- Digital advertising
- Development
Today we zoom in on the impact that AI can already have on written content today. I consciously choose to discuss copy first, since the application of AI already offers numerous possibilities.
Available AI Technology for Copy
Of course we all know ChatGPT. The instigator of the current landslide and unrest in the market. But, there is so much more. The more generic tools are just the beginning. Where it will really get interesting is with further developed systems that specialize. And there are more of them than you can probably imagine. The most well-known AI tools for copywriting are:
Copy.ai
An AI-powered platform that helps users create ad copy, product descriptions and social media posts in seconds.
Writesonic
A platform that uses AI to generate content ideas and write copy for emails, ads, product descriptions, blogs and more.
Conversion.ai
A platform that uses AI to generate content for blogs, ads, social media posts, emails and more.
Wordsmith
A platform that uses AI to automatically generate personalized stories, reports, articles and more.
Applicability Now & in the Future
Copy is of course a very broad concept. So first of all, the definition. AI in copywriting refers to the use of natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning algorithms to generate written content. What are we talking about then? To keep this article as clear as possible, we will specifically discuss its applicability to the following types of written content.
- Social media posts
- Websites
- Articles/blogs
- Ads
Because technology responds to the questions you ask and learns from them, asking the right questions is the main challenge when using AI in your copy. AI can process much more information than you think. There are already numerous examples where entire databases with historical data are linked to AI technology. For example, you can use your social media posts from the past as feed for the system, which can then perfectly sense the desired tone of voice.
A simple assignment already provides excellent content. For example, see below the application of Copy.ai to generate a LinkedIn post about a case on our Positive website.
Ask copy.ai for Content Writing
Great text, nothing wrong with it. All elements are included, including hashtags. A bit (too) long just for social media. So, why not shorter? No problem.
Prompts AI to Make a Text Shorter
Suppose you want a little more humor or emotion. Also possible. Just ask and it will be fine. By ultimately directing the copy yourself and ensuring the right nutrition and context, you can save a lot of time without sacrificing quality. In fact, it can even improve the quality, especially for more complex texts.
Save Time or Improve Quality
Saving time and lead time may seem the most obvious at first glance. But, one of the most important applications of AI is not even in saving time, but in improving quality. AI can process much more data than you as a person. So you can feed the system endlessly with information. For example, with texts that you have used in the past that you know have the right tone of voice and content. Texts that have already been approved by your ‘brand police’, for example.
One of the most important applications of AI is not even in saving time, but in improving quality.
The web has been responsive for years, but copy is static. With AI it becomes possible to tailor the text to the user. Wrote a complex text? Immediately create a B1 text variation on it. Multilingual? Why not all languages. Always have a summary for the scanning reader? It was also generated that way. It is not difficult to imagine that copy will be generative in the future: each user will have their own copy. And that adds a huge quality boost.
Commitment to Marketing
AI can analyze large amounts of data, recognize patterns and therefore create content that resonates perfectly with your audience. The level of personalization therefore increases significantly. And, which is especially interesting for advertising, your freedom of choice also increases. A/B testing is very important within digital advertising. You then place multiple copy and image variants next to each other to see what performs best. We are often held back by a lack of time or lack of inspiration. No more. In addition to asking AI to write ad copy for you, you can also ask it to generate copy that should be specifically conversion-oriented, or written on the emotional axis.