In the uber competitive B2B digital marketplace, content marketing remains one of the most effective ways to reach and engage your target audience in a way that delivers measurable results. From website descriptions to blog articles to social media copy and case studies, businesses of all sizes always need content. And a lot of it. Content still is and will always remain ‘king’ as a differentiator for decision-makers during their purchase journey. And while, in theory, this seems simple enough – how difficult can producing content be when there is so much information readily available online at the click of a button, right?
In practice, however, any writer or content producer will understand the time, effort, and sometimes very creative ‘grasping at straws’ that has to be done to create and collate a constant supply of fresh, compelling content out of seemingly thin air. Finding a quicker, simpler, and just as effective, if not more effective, way to create great content is, therefore, probably something that any business would not only hesitate to invest in but would happily be willing to pay premium for; and a growing number of businesses already are.
Being able to upload a precise writing brief onto an AI platform and then casually sitting back and waiting for said AI tech to speedily spew out content, which ticks all the right boxes and gets consistently high audience click-through rates, is, for most writers such as myself, a little disconcerting to say the least. Here, AI headline generators, Sassbook plagiarism checkers such as Plag.ai, and grammar checkers such as Grammarly, are just some of the online tools now available to assist in the writing process. But while producing content is not outside the realm of AI possibility, writing great content is really where AI falls short. Because although ticking all the right text boxes is what AI can undoubtedly do quickly, efficiently, and dare I say, in some instances, just as well as a human being could, what it can’t do is tap into human emotion. And although these types of automation tools are a great way to free-up writers to focus on aspects of projects such as creativity, subtlety, and fine tuning of messages, humans continue to excel at things that AI cannot replicate. So while AI may be able to simulate intelligence, it cannot in contrast (at least for now) replicate creative and emotional expression. Here the complexity of human thought and emotion allows human content writers to choose words that resonate with other humans far better than AI ever could. In fact, it is near impossible for AI writing to compete with a real person who has emotions, experiences, and an understanding of the brand’s goals, which is essential to creating content that helps build relationships with customers.
It’s that magical use of emotive language that engages, moves and often has a lasting impact on the audience, who, as we all already know, are also other people. It’s that bit of subtle but so relatable humour or empathy mixed in amongst all the functional, informative, and albeit necessary facts that in the B2B world needs to provide the audience with just the right amount of information to help them make informed decisions, together with the feeling that ‘hey this brand actually understands and gets me’. Something that can only be drawn from and delivered by human experience.
So while there are an increasing number of AI-driven writing tools, that together with human intervention can and are providing valuable roles in assisting with ideation, title generation, summarisation, structuring and outlining, and more. Considering today’s market requires personalisation based on an understanding of consumer needs and aspirations. AI writing still lacks the human experience and expression needed for brands to establish a distinct identity and engage their audiences. Here, despite its super processing power, AI cannot actually ‘think’ without the guidance of a human writers and there is still a long way to go for AI systems to have the ability to imagine, feel, and comprehend complex emotions and creatively express them.
As the author of ‘Brands, Bandwagons & Bullshit’, Harry Lang, aptly puts it: “AI will struggle to replicate the very human frailties and perceived weaknesses from which creative greatness so often stems.”
While this may be slightly disappointing for marketing agencies who will still have to factor in the human influence into timelines and budgets, this is good news for all writers out there, who will hopefully be able to relax and write a little easier knowing nothing can replicate the skill, craft, and necessary personal human experience of 100% legit Homo sapiens.
Written by Alison Sharp, Senior Copywriter at Demographica.
