This is a bit of a philosophical post today, but I thought it would be interesting to think about whether automated content production will replace human writers sooner than we think.
Given the rapid development and increase in the prevalence of AI Natural Language Generation (NLG) and diverse algorithms that span almost every writing format, it is entirely possible that AI software will have largely replaced human writers within the next decade.
And it’s not just me that’s thinking this. Joe Pulizzi, founder of The Content Marketing Institute rather ominously states that when people start using robots and artificial intelligence to create effective content in 10 years, they will start to think about why they are wasting so much valuable time creating content.
In this article, I’ll back up my bold claim with evidence and insights that I hope will demonstrate to you just how far AI has come in the writing game.
And I’ll share my take on an AI software I am using that can write credible blogs and is on the market right now!
Rounding up, we will also consider whether software-generated content is a good thing not only for human writers but affiliate marketers too. After all, you only want to join the stampede if it’s headed in the right direction!
Artificial Intelligence-based technologies are already here.
In the UK there used to be a show on TV called Tomorrow’s World where a team of inquisitive presenters would explore science and technology and all the futuristic inventions that would soon become household items. And it’s kind of like that with AI.
Many people are unsure about AI and its application, making it one of the most pressing issues in the development of computer technology.
The way in which artificial intelligence is portrayed in the media has fuelled fears that it will one day make people obsolete in the world of work.
When people think of AI writers, the first thing that springs to mind is some kind of android sat a computer typing, but of course, the reality is very different.
Did you miss the AI revolution?
We may not recognize it, but Artificial Intelligence is already pervasive in our societies as the driver of many of the technologies, tools and devices that we rely on every day.
If you:
- Search for things on Google
- Ask Alexa for the weather forecast
- Read news bulletins on your phone
- Play the computer on chess.com
- Check your writing with Grammarly
- Drive a Tesla
You are already reliant on AI. After all, artificial intelligence is software or computer programming that has been designed to be able to achieve specific goals or objectives autonomously, usually through data acquisition, machine learning and conditional logic.
With AI a computer has been trained to accomplish some task so that you don’t have to and now the software developers and coders have turned their attention to copywriting in earnest.
AI writing technology has come a long way since the supercomputer ELIZA of the 1960s.
Back then the Natural Language Generation (NLG) that drives AI writing was completely novel allowing MIT techs to have the most basic of conversations via a text-based interface.
Later decades and the advent of home computing accelerated the development of predictive text and spell checkers.
Leaping forward to the 21st century, the internet age, and the vast volume of content moving through websites, search engines and email has provided the perfect substrate for AI writing bots to feast on as they learn to produce text-based outputs that are almost indistinguishable from human writing.
Getting the AI writing bots to do human tasks
The idea of replacing authors with AI software has been around for a few years. Content writing bots became commercialized when an American company called Narrative Science introduced their proprietary software, Quill.
Quill and its sister software, Lexio, are all about digesting large volumes of complex data to produce intelligent, coherent, and engaging reporting that are ready for industry professionals to read without the hard labor and late-night coffees of a junior analyst.
And with the explosion in demand for online content have arrived efficient and increasingly sophisticated writing software.
Leading news outlets including The Washington Post, New York Times, and Associated Press now routinely use AI-generated news bulletins and with hundreds of thousands of these concise, if not formulaic articles being pumped out, a rookie Clark Kent or Lois Lane is not getting a look-in anytime soon!
AI writing technology can sound credible because it is learning to write from human writers
To understand the stiff competition human copywriters are up against, try this quiz on the New York Times website.
I must admit I struggled to separate the human writers from the bots.
AI writing developers and coders have made real inroads into making automated content generation more natural, engaging, and able to convert business leads and sales.
One of the reasons why current AI writers appear authentic is because AI writers are programmed and trained by crawling content created by human writers.
The most powerful AI software produced by Google and Amazon will crawl innumerable amounts of content of all kinds using machine learning to develop their writing style.
So without human writers, you are unlikely to get the contemporary natural-sounding writing that readers will expect to engage with.
Natural Language Generation (NLG) is used to turn your writing ideas into speech
Content automation in AI writing tech is supported by Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Generation (NLG).
These processes allow a computer to process and utilize human writing or speech. NLP and NLG work together in AI writing programs to create content that sounds and reads like a human writer.
The initial writing that was produced by AI software was rather canned as it involved sequences of generic phrases being sewn together with one or two linking words.
It has, however, progressed to being able to conceptualize and structure more sophisticated articles with the software able to make nuanced decisions regarding lexical choices and expression as well as maintaining impeccable spelling and grammar.
AI is now poised to take over content production
For both generalist and affiliate marketers like me, software tools are essential. I am already routinely using a variety of AI software to shape my content strategies and also to assess the quality of the content I am publishing, so it achieves the best results for me and my site visitors.
I am sure you have put in those late-night, early morning hours drafting and crafting content and so you know how much time it all takes.
And for me, the opportunity to get back more of my time is reason enough to use AI in content production.
To take down the copywriting sector, AI will need to provide business owners and markers with undeniable benefits.
Here are 5 key benefits of AI content writing that I think will swing the balance towards the bots:
5 near-irresistible benefits that will spur on the domination of AI content production
Early adopters of AI content creation are already benefiting from the efficiency and broad scope of this technology.
Several AI writing solutions are available and ate proving to be capable of producing content that is effective for publishing on a blog, e-commerce website, or social media platforms.
With this in mind, here is why I think the AI revolution is here to stay.
#1 It is undeniable that AI can save you time
For any entrepreneur, business owner, employee or contractor, time is the thing you can never have enough of.
Properly researching, drafting, and editing an informative blog post can take hours if not days, whereas the leading AI bots can put together an acceptable article in a few minutes.
The difference is that stark and the time saved can be put towards other enterprising activities.
Even writers, who are likely to undertake more of the revision and editorial aspects of content creation can use the fast way in which AI pulls together articles, to boost their output and produce even better work.
Number two: With AI you can upscale your online presence quick time
#2 With AI you can upscale your online presence quick time
When you are encountering new niches and markets to penetrate, one of the most frustrating things is your mind moves so much faster than your content writing!
With AI, the content plan you draft can be completed in hours meaning that you can dominate your niches quickly.
This justifies the expense of using software to write for you, as your content can be scaled very quickly and credibly meaning you take a bigger bite out of the world wide web!
#3 AI content has precision and targeting that the search engines love!
You know how it goes. You have spent weeks crafting the perfect content plan, complete with primary and secondary keywords, headings, and a brief that covers everything.
You send it across to the content writing platform and what you get back is as far from your brief as night from day!
If this is a problem for you, a well-programmed bot will probably enhance your productivity.
For some, bots may be less expressive or creative but if you instruct them well, they can hit the mark for the technical aspects of your writing which count for SEO.
#4 If you are smart about it AI can save you money
I think that the price of AI software subscriptions is one of the reasons why this technology has not yet blown up across the net.
To use decent AI writing software, you are looking at spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars per month.
However, in return, you can crank out millions of words. I mean, these are business transforming levels of content that can be generated and the cost of the equivalent amount of work produced by your writing pool, or content writing platform would far exceed the subscription costs of a mainstream AI writing platform.
I can also see people who have worked on their site single-handedly opting for an AI writing tool that can be edited rather than purchasing articles to grow.
#5 AI has proven itself to be a conversion-tastic tool!
AI has demonstrable performance in producing the type of technical and quantitative descriptive writing that can help website visitors in their decision-making on products and services.
The best AI conversion software has been trained to be conversion ninjas by careful study of the most effective persuasive writing and call to action.
The thing with AI is, once it cracks the formula for winning content, it can reproduce it again and again and again…
AI writing is already a go-to for:
- Product descriptions
- Meta Descriptions
- Facebook Ads
- LinkedIn bios
- Google Ads headlines
- Amazon product descriptions
- Instagram captions
- YouTube video titles and descriptions
With advantages like these, you can see that Ai could change blogging forever
I am always on the lookout for a solution that will bring me improved results and my website visitors better content.
I think that AI will soon be unavoidable. So, to that end, I have dipped my toes in the water by trying out Conversion.ai.
Conversion.ai is emerging as a leading AI copywriting tool with great reviews and endorsements for its production of high converting copy.
This software uses powerful machine learning to create best practice content for digital marketing including blog posts of up to 5000 words.
It is popular for creating high converting copy for ads, landing pages, email marketing and product descriptions (it will also do meta descriptions and all those little bits of copy some writers may want to avoid).
Now, I am currently in the middle of testing this tool so I won’t give you my verdict yet.
But I will tell you a little bit about it and how it can be used by an affiliate marketer.
I share more on this with my short video:
Like the Joni Mitchell song, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
Widespread uptake of content automation will feel like the end of a far simpler era of blogging.
If we lose large numbers of content writers, those that remain will probably deliver a premium service.
Manufacturers and online retailers that use affiliate marketers and influencers to generate traffic and sales may decide to switch to producing their content using AI, meaning we could see big changes in our sector too.
I am all for embracing the benefits of technology but I also know that not all software is going to be capable of writing articles that sound authentically human.
In the rush to outsource content creation to bots we may end up spamming out the internet.
Error and bias can also be baked into AI which can have real implications for the quality of content that is produced and a big problem if inaccuracies are amplified across your site.
Search engines may not be the friend of AI content writing
Google’s algorithms could easily become aligned towards favoring authentic human content creators, if they concluded human writers provide a better service to their users, making it harder for AI authors to compete.
Why?
Because users want human authors who incorporate empathy, humor, and style into the content that they publish.
Successful content works by connecting with readers, it is definitely not a sterile, technical exchange.
That said, AI writers and writing assistants are extremely useful
Expect to see more of them in use, by both website owners and copywriters, and their content becoming less and less distinguishable from the human counterpart.
