What about AI?
Many a copywriter are losing contract jobs to AI.
Whether it’s the economy or the shrinking size of end-of-year marketing budgets, many companies are choosing to experiment with artificial intelligence apps, like ChatGPT or OpenAI, instead of hiring a copywriter.
And who can blame them? It’s cheaper, less drama, quicker response time, and generally more cooperative than dealing with a real-life person. How many times have you had to wait on a contract employee because they get too busy or something comes up unexpectedly in their personal life. All too often, I’m sure.
But guess what. AI doesn’t have a personal life. That computer, that app, is always sitting there ready to work and tackle its next assignment.
Plus, it’s kind of fun to play around with AI. Ask it a few questions and see what it generates. I have one friend who uses it to design practices plans for the youth football team he coaches. Someone else I know had it list all the movies he should watch to be a certified movie buff. A neighbor had it create a list of all the family-friendly activities to do with her kids as the weather changes.
If you offer the right prompt questions and general guidelines, your returns are actually pretty decent. Impressive even.
And if tech prognosticators are correct, AI’s capabilities and output will only get better.
But still.
It’s still better to just hire a copywriter.
Because yes, AI tools can craft an email. Or landing page. Or whatever you want it to.
But copywriting itself is still an art and a craft. And it requires a certain level of creativity and strategy that most tools haven’t yet been able to replicate.
Here are a handful of reasons why AI can’t quite replace a good copywriter.
It has zero emotional intelligence
Lesson number one in just about any copywriting course is to understand the reader’s emotions. Not just understand the emotions, but to fully empathize with the reader’s perspective. What problems are they experiencing? What further issues does this cause? How would the audience’s lives be better with the use of the given product or service? If the copy doesn’t reflect a true understanding of the client’s issues and emotions, which requires self-awareness, societal awareness, and relationships, it’s going to fall flat. Most copywriters have an unofficial degree in psychology; they understand how to persuade people to act and evoke the right responses.
It can’t foster creativity
Sometimes a good piece of copy is so unique and brilliant that only a one-of-a-kind human could have come up with it. Like witty sarcasm, nuanced allegory, or playful banter between two actors—with clever, contemporary slang that AI isn’t familiar with. Something written from the perspective of the family pet. Or an inanimate object. And if it’s not written just so, it sounds silly or ridiculous. It’s a major turn-off.
It can’t further your brand voice
You know the voice and the character with which you want to reach your clients and customers. Can AI match it? Maybe not. But an accomplished copywriter who’s familiar with your company, your mission, and your values can. In fact, if you’ve used the same copywriter or marketing agency for most of your emails, website copy, blogs, and social media, and then you suddenly downgrade to AI, a savvy reader will be able to tell. In fact, most human readers will be able to distinguish the difference.
It can’t execute your marketing strategy
Your marketing strategy has evolved over the years. It’s grown with you, and it changes depending on your company’s unique set of circumstances, the season, or even current events. It takes a human to craft the right sales copy from the perspective of your marketing strategy. AI can generate words and sentences, but a human brain has to be aware of intent—how to frame the message so you can capture the attention of your customers.
It can’t adapt to context and choice of media
It doesn’t understand culture, values, or current events. I write blogs differently than I write white papers, which I write differently than I write social media posts and newsletters and website copy. My tone changes. Sometimes I’m writing to established, loyal customers and other times, like in ad copy, I’m calling out to anyone and everyone within earshot. Does AI know how to make those subtle shifts in tone, familiarity, and attitude? I submit that it does not.
It can’t edit for perfection
Even the best writers get writer’s block sometimes. And in those instances, why not try AI? It might help to get a skeleton framework on the page. Get the ideas down. Communicate the main message. And then, a good copywriter can polish it to perfection. They might have to do a little more research, add in some citations or good quotes, check the facts, select the perfect word and more. Remember that the aim of good copy is to persuade. So even if AI helps generate the bare bones of your copy, it takes that intangible human skill and experience to twist it and form it into something really meaningful and useful.
It can’t reinforce with that human touch
Even if you really want to use the tools, it takes a human to know just what to ask the bot. Just how to phrase the prompt questions and instruct the right guidelines. Ask for the right tone and emotions and context and brand voice. Since AI is new technology and we’re all relative novices at it, it might take a few attempts before you garner the desired output.
In other words, you might as well just pay a copywriter to do it. Whether that copywriter uses AI or their own human brainpower, it still takes time from a trained, skilled professional to manipulate the words into something that speaks to the audience in the desired fashion.
Regardless, AI is not going away. We can’t even “pause” it, like some world leaders are calling for. It’s real, it’s big, it’s exciting, and it’s going to change the world, for better or worse. Embrace it. Roll with the punches. Adapt.
Maybe the role of copywriters shifts a little. Evolves. Instead of pouring blood, sweat, and tears into crafting the perfect piece of original content, we’re now the curators of that content—bringing it from dry, lifeless robot jargon to something juicy and sappy that calls our human readers to act, click, buy, and stay engaged with our clients.
Who knows? It’ll probably save us copywriters time. Instead of struggling with writer’s block for hours on end, we can now use that time to scour the thesaurus for a stronger synonym, adjust the sentence structure, or tweak the AI prompt so that it tugs a little tighter on those readers’ heartstrings.
The point is that AI is not an enemy of, nor even a replacement for, a good writer. It’s just another tool in our toolkits.