Content marketers be warned: The robots are coming

GPT is about to throw a big ole wrench into content marketing.

You can close your eyes and plug your ears. You can clutch your pearls and claim AI is an affront to us all. But the longer you deny it, the more your career is at risk.

In 2023, you'll either start incorporating AI into your workflows or fall behind those who do.

I started using GPT back in 2020 and quickly encouraged my teams to start incorporating it into their workflows shortly after. And over the past two years, I’ve watched these tools go from “okay” to “holy fucking shit this is going to change everything!”

Here are some of the things I’ve already done with GPT:

• Basic stuff like drafting introductions, coming up with alternative titles, and outlining entire articles.
• Intermediate things like summarizing long-form content to be repurposed into emails and social media posts.
• And more advanced applications like researching the audience for a horizontal product and coming up with topics for a content strategy.

All of this was done with the current versions of GPT. The next one, GPT-4, is expected to launch in early 2023 and is rumored to be a major leap forward. I can’t even fathom what will be possible. All I know is the leap from GPT-3 to GPT-3.5 was massive. So the advancements that lie ahead are guaranteed to be game-changing.

What I do know for certain is that content marketing is about to be disrupted by AI. And if your approach to content marketing is to skim a bunch of articles you found on Google and write something comparable, you’ll be out of the job soon.

But if you’re a content marketer worth their salt, meaning you give a damn about your audience and work hard to offer them value, you’ll be good — just as long as you embrace AI today.

If you want to stay ahead of the curve with AI, here are my best tips:

1. Improve your AI literacy: It's important to have a basic understanding of AI and how it works. This includes understanding the different types of AI, as well as the limitations and potential ethical considerations of using AI.
2. Upskill on data analysis and visualization: As more and more content is generated by AI, it will be important for content marketers to be able to analyze and interpret data to understand what's working and what's not. This will require skills in data analysis and visualization.
3. Master collaboration and project management: As AI becomes more widely used in the content marketing industry, it will be important for content marketers to be able to work effectively with AI team members and manage projects involving AI.
4. Lean into your creativity and problem-solving: While AI can automate many routine tasks, it's important for content marketers to be able to think creatively and solve problems. These skills will be valuable in helping you come up with new ideas and finding ways to use AI to achieve your marketing goals.

Whatever you do, DON'T PANIC!

As my friend and founder partner of Venture.Studio Marty Ringlein explained recently, “The most obvious distinction between ChatGPT and a human is that when the AI writes, it comes from a place of information not from a place of experience. You always know what it understood, never what it learned. It can convey information, not experience.”

Put another way, AI cannot replace lived experiences and the innate human ability to reflect on those experiences.

So rest easy and give a warm welcome to your robot coworker in 2023.?