Why we don't (and won't) use AI for copywriting

Some marketing agencies will use AI for copywriting – but not My Digital Hero. Find out why in our article.

AI! AI! AI! It's the acronym on everyone's lips. With ChatGPT able to turn out reams of human-sounding content with minimal prompting, why wouldn't you use it for your marketing?

Well, here at My Digital Hero, we take a different approach. We believe that AI is good for some things – but copy isn't one of them.

For our money, the things you want your copy to do for you are far better achieved by skilled copywriters than by a machine, no matter how superficially dazzling it is.

In this article, we give four good reasons why we don't use AI for copywriting – and what we can do that ChatGPT can't.

But, look. We know that people wouldn't be considering AI for copywriting at all if they weren't strapped for time. So if you want the two-sentence summary, here it is:

AI isn't a silver bullet. It's too much effort for too much risk.

Why? To answer that you need to think long and hard about what you and the customer want from copy.

1. You need a poet, not a mimic

AI's ability to sound like a human is impressive, if not a little eerie. But is "sounding like a human" enough? You might as well get a parrot to take your calls.

Good copy isn't just informative and it doesn't just sound like a human. It's witty, sparkling and engaging. Its purpose, after all, is to keep visitors on your site or reading your marketing email. If the content is mechanical, people will switch off.

The bottom line is that there's no substitute for human ingenuity. AI is incredible at some things and less good at others. Want to be thrashed at chess? AI's the answer. Want copy that will keep customers on-side? You need a human with imagination and technical skill.

2. You need precision, not plausibility

This second point is related to the first. AI is trained to sound plausible – that's not the same thing as being correct. In fact, there's a word for what AI does: sophistry.

Sophistry is the use of clever but false arguments to win people over. AI can talk the talk, but when you scratch the surface, you find that it's riddled with errors.

Some companies don't care enough to check – but we do. If we got AI to write our copy, we'd be all over it with a fine-tooth comb. By the time we'd made sure everything was above board, we may as well have written it ourselves.

Your company needs copy that's informative as well as entertaining. That means being sure that it's precise, not plausible – and for that, no text generator can replace a skilled copywriter.

3. You need good SEO, not bad

Let's be real: AI is bad for SEO.

That's because Google favours quality when choosing what to push up or down its search rankings. If you turn on your AI machine and get it to churn out an article, it's going to be relegated to the back bench.

We could, of course, use AI to generate text and then turn it into sparkling prose. But it's not a good use of our time – and our time is your money. It's better simply to put a skilful writer in charge of the task. That way, you get content that's good for humans and good for Google.

You also get better SEO all around. AI just isn't that good at it. You're usually left with copy that needs to be retrofitted with keywords – and when you do that, the reader can hear the creaks.

Compare that to a trained SEO copywriter's ability to weave in keywords smoothly and naturally. It's easy to see which is better for you and your website.

4. You need your customers to trust you

Using AI for copy is a way of fooling the reader. But people are getting wise to it and more and more customers can smell it a mile off. Soon, that mile will be an inch or two.

What AI copy says to the customer is that you don't care. It says that you'll cut corners to look and sound like the real thing – but ultimately, you're just trying to get in their wallets.

This is a bad look and it doesn't bode well for the customer. Whether consciously or subconsciously, they're likely to be wondering: what other corners is this company cutting? Can I trust it to deliver on its promises?

Working with us, you get creative, sparkling copy that shows the customer you care. Don't think you can fool them – people will spot your AI-generated copy and click away.

That's why we don't use AI now – but why won't we in the future?

Look, we don't know exactly how AI is going to develop. Perhaps one day it will reach such heights that it will be able to do all of the above. But until it does, we won't touch it with a bargepole.

You wouldn't get a robot receptionist that sounded almost human but lacked a nuanced understanding of human interaction. So why would you go for the copywriting equivalent?

TL;DR

Good copy serves multiple functions. It informs. It entertains. It optimises your search engine rankings. At the time of writing, none of these things can be done reliably well by AI.

Where copy is concerned, you need skilled writers with a turn of phrase that the customer will love. You need content that's accurate – not just accurate-sounding-but-vague-on-the-details. You need SEO with a human touch that will boost your brand visibility.

And guess what – we can give you all those things. Work with us and you'll see why good old-fashioned copywriting still has the edge over its text-generated competitors.

At My Digital Hero, website content writing for SEO is one of our superpowers. Get in touch today to find out more.