We hope you had a good holiday season and wish everyone the best for 2024!
Here are our predictions for the next 12 months. They come from tons of reading, watching, and listening over the holidays. Of course, it’s risky making predictions, and no doubt some of them will be proven wrong by the end of this year. If you have any predictions or comments, please share them via the comment button below or email us at smartcreative1618 at gmail dot com.
First, a few key points we hope will help you navigate the world of gen AI:
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Gen AI is not going away. We hear from or about freelance and in-house copywriters who think generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) isn’t worth using, in part due to the gaffs it’s made since its launch. But gen AI isn’t going away. It will continue to improve, and more copywriters and content writers will use AI and therefore increasing productivity. In many cases, clients and colleagues will expect you to be knowledgeable about AI.
In fact, scientists predict that generative artificial intelligence will learn mimic human language patterns more accurately. This includes AI’s ability to use natural language processing (NLP) algorithms. NLP is the branch of AI that focuses on enhancing AI to the point that it can understand text and spoken words in much the same way humans do. -
Know more about gen AI than your colleagues and clients. Canadian copywriter Nick Usborne says that to prosper as a copywriter in 2024, you will need to know at least 10 percent more than your clients and prospects, or colleagues if you work in house. Set aside regular timeslots to learn about gen AI and monitor updates regularly. Focus on improving/developing skills in data analysis, AI literacy, and collaboration with technology to stay ahead of the curve. Maybe your manager will let you do this learning during working hours.
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Avoid businesses that rely heavily on gen AI. Organizations that plan to cut writers and replace their work with gen AI do not value quality. They have no understanding of the role of copywriters or the opportunities and risks inherent in gen AI. If you work for an organization that thinks like this, consider revamping your resume and starting your job search.
More importantly, laying off staff and replacing them with AI is a high-risk approach. If you read on, you’ll see that a business will potentially damage its brand and the trust it’s earned, and demotivate staff or contractors.
You’ve probably heard this statement already. And it’s being used across multiple industries: “AI is not going to replace you, but employees/freelancers who use AI are going to replace those who don't use AI.”
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Copywriters, stay tuned for Google Search Generative Experience (SGE). The Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) is expected to launch early this year. SGE is an experimental version of Google's search engine that uses AI to enhance the search experience. It will massively impact search engine results and businesses can expect fluctuations in both paid and organic results, impacting conversion rates for both SEO and paid traffic.
SGE will impact SEO by changing the way content is presented on Google, placing more emphasis on user experience, engagement, and relevance. It also means that traditional SEO techniques will need to change to meet the needs of AI-enhanced searches.
No one knows what the full impact will be of SGE on SEO and content writing and content production. SEO pro Eli Schwartz predicts that SGE will kill 50 percent of traffic. Copywriters will need to keep up-to-speed on developments by following authoritative sources about how content and search evolving when SGE is launched. We believe that, more than ever, authenticity and credibility will dominate high rankings.
Many of generative AI’s problems—hallucinations, deepfakes, voice clones—will not disappear. Until there is a definitive solution to these issues, copywriters will be needed not just to write, but to develop prompts, oversee input and output, factcheck, and proof, and more.
Next, getting gen AI to understand a brand and a brand’s (or a writer’s voice, or CEO’s voice) takes a lot of work, and sometimes efforts will be hit and miss. The inputs to an AI writing assistant will always need adjusting and fine-tuning.
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More and more we will see gen AI tools take over these kinds of tasks:
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Brainstorming
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Article, blot post, or media release outlines
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Captions
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Introductions and summaries
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Social media posts.
Keep in mind that generative AI’s output will only be as good as your input prompts (which we will cover in future articles). A content writer’s role may open up to include more strategic work, including audience analysis, brand voice, emotional resonance, and creative storytelling.
Content writers will be expected to become expert navigators of the AI landscape. Our role will shift to informing colleagues, managers, and clients and helping them select the right tool. We’ll also be expected to develop and continually fine-tune prompts, set appropriate parameters, and correct and refine the AI's output so that it’s accurate and matches a brand's voice and message.
The use of gen AI and other AI tools will mean that brainstorming and ideation for all forms of content will speed up. And so will some of the steps involved in producing content. With this newly available time, copywriters will be expected to take on new tasks. Let’s look at this more closely:
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AI can generate drafts and variations quickly, allowing copywriters to experiment and iterate. Writers may be able to improve the focus of content for various channels. For marketers, this can lead to better campaign performance and efficiency.
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This does depend on the quality of input prompts, but given solid and detailed inputs AI can generate more personalized copy for individual customers, a skill human copywriters can leverage to create targeted campaigns and enhance customer relationships.
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Again, given detailed and quality prompts, AI can generate scripts for video ads, product descriptions, and even social media posts, saving time for copywriters.
The AI issue termed “AI-as-black-box” describes the inability of humans to see how artificial intelligence makes its decisions. This is partly because AI, like humans, may forget how it learned something because it has so many inputs. The black box issue makes it difficult for humans to fix unwanted AI outputs, outputs that are incorrect, or biased.
Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Samir Rawashdeh, who is Director of the Dearborn Artificial Intelligence Research (DAIR) center at the University of Michigan Dearborn, says that AI’s “problem of robustness makes it difficult for us to trust deep learning systems when it comes to safety” and when it comes to bias. Why does this matter to copywriters? Because understanding how AI generates its output and identifying biases will be crucial to ensure ethical and effective copywriting.
Diligence, creativity, empathy, and understanding of a target audience are a few of the skills that made you a good content writer before gen AI. Writers create content that hits the right balance between facts and emotion. Human copy at its best is sincere and connects with an audience. AI cannot do all this, so you will need to emphasize these skills and use them in 2024.
Another advantage for copy and content writers is that we can quickly address audience questions. If we have direct contact with customers, we are able to enhance trust and brand authority.
Almost all gen AI is unable to check facts or verify sources of information, although Perplexity is one tool that is improving in this area. Using AI to produce full blog posts, long-form articles, or publishing content before checking it will damage your business’ reputation. And that means your employer or client cannot be trusted. It’s essential that any content you produce and publish is accurate and up-to-date.
There are businesses selling tools and training that, they claim, will teach you how to produce “unique“ content with AI. Almost all diligent copywriters know that ChatGPT was trained on millions of web pages and published books—all copyright material. Because of this, AI can output copy that resembles existing content existing on the web. Without careful oversight, there is a risk of unintentional plagiarism. Copywriters, or a supporting colleague, must conduct thorough checks to ensure your AI-generated content is original.
If you rely solely on AI for SEO, your organization will definitely encounter approaches to SEO that are incomplete or incorrect. Some of AI’s keyword choices are wrong or even bizarre.
Having a human SEO expert who understands your brand, market, and opportunities is still a requirement for successful SEO.
AI tools have a knowledge cutoff. As of the time of writing, GPT-4’s knowledge cutoff is April 2023. For most industries, this will limit how you use gen AI. It also illustrates that AI isn’t flexible enough to recognize real-time shifts in trends, searches, or consumer behaviour.
Generative AI is unable to create meaningful and well-organized narratives, because it struggles with complexity. According to Search Engine Land (SEL): “Providing insightful analysis, coherent narratives and in-depth exploration of topics remains challenging for AI as it simply lacks the depth of knowledge and subject matter expertise that human writers and experts possess.”
SEL continues by noting that AI does not possess in-depth understanding or niche topics. The result is shallow and inaccurate content. It doesn’t possess humans’ creative and reasoning abilities, either.
SEL adds that gen AI can output content based on patterns and data, but may struggle with producing truly innovative or emotionally resonant content.
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AI-generated copy can lack the emotional spark and nuance that human writers bring. Copywriters will need to focus on infusing AI output with their own creativity and understanding of the audience. Stories that move, engage, entertain, and forge human connections are best crafted by human writers.
As we mentioned in point one, AI learns from existing information, and some of it is quite old. Plenty of bias exists in this existing and old content.
This means that everything that is input into AI and all its output must be checked, edited, and corrected. No organization wants to jeopardize their market position or face legal action because a human didn’t catch AI output containing discriminatory language or insulting stereotypes.
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This year, we will see more specialized AI products being launched, and existing products will be adding new features.
Skip the next three paragraphs if you’re not interested in the detail behind AI will improve.
Gen AI companies will continue to work hard to improve their products. ChatGPT has been through a technique called Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF). RLHF has been used to train ChatGPT, with OpenAI implementing this method to optimize the model's policy and behavior based on human-generated rewards.
This approach has enabled ChatGPT to align with human preferences and provide more accurate and contextually appropriate responses. While RLHF has been a significant factor in enhancing ChatGPT, it's important to note that the model's training and improvement processes are dynamic, and new techniques such as Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) may also be integrated to further enhance its capabilities.
RAG can improve accuracy by enabling AI models to retrieve up-to-date and contextually relevant information from external knowledge bases. This helps ground large language models (LLMs) on the most accurate and verifiable facts, reducing the chances of the LLMs providing incorrect or misleading information. By incorporating information from external sources, RAG reduces the possibility of LLMs generating false information and, AI developers hope, will improve the trustworthiness and accuracy of generated responses.
Progressive organizations will recognize the value of copywriters and content writers and will use AI wisely, despite its abilities and gradual improvements.
Decision-makers who are up-to-speed on gen AI will identify the need for a balanced human-gen AI blend, so that quality, trust, and employee engagement remain in tact or improve. Companies worth working for will want to move with caution so that careful decision-making minimizes risk.
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Writers who adapt and develop new AI skills will be set to use AI to enhance work, while acknowledging that it cannot replace creativity. AI is still in its early stages, and its impact on the industry will continue to develop over time. The key thriving in 2024 and beyond is to remain curious, open-minded, and adaptable as a copywriter and content writer.
What do you think, fellow writers? Let us know!