As a professional writer, I guess you could say I have a vested interest in denigrating text that has been written by an algorithm, not a human being. And I suppose you’d be right. Of course, there are things that irk me about writing that’s been produced by artificial intelligence (AI). For one thing, it is a bit bland even when you take your time to prompt it well. It’s also not good at figuring out ways to incorporate awkward keyword combinations – the sort of grammatically challenging searches people enter into Google that copywriters sometimes have to match.

Nevertheless, there is no point in telling you all about the limitations of AI when it is all but free to use and so quick at writing. Even worse, from the perspective of freelance copywriters, at least, it is very knowledgeable and has read virtually everything on any subject up until the most recent times. The more pertinent question is whether AI can completely replace human copywriting? I think not.

Why? To begin with, many commercial clients want copy that is original but also similar to what has been produced before. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked to produce blogs or landing pages based on competitor content but to write it such that it won’t lead to Google disavowals. In fact, I do this all the time. However, AI-written text uses too many phrases and clauses that are the same every single time it writes a fresh article. I’ve experimented with more than one AI platform and even when you tell it not to repeat something emphatically, it still does.

The Future of AI Copywriting?

Over time, Google and the other big search engines will start to recognise AI-produced text automatically. So long as web-published articles are relevant and add value, then AI can be a useful content-producing tool. However, as more and more similar texts are published, so – I predict – it will be the human-written ones that start to stand out. At least, the well-written human articles will. I reckon the love affair content managers have with AI will slowly start to wane as websites see their SERPs rankings fall because the only fresh content that’s been published has been too generic.

Consequently, although I’ve dipped my toe in the water with AI, I’ve decided it isn’t a tool I want to make extensive use of. It can help with research but not the production of high-quality copy, in my honest opinion. Of course, it may get better but we are not there yet. For now, human copywriting is still the best even though it obviously costs more than AI copywriting.

In addition, I notice that some commercial clients are telling me that they actively do not want AI in any part of their content production. That’s fine by me because I’ve been writing blogs, news, landing pages and other sorts of content without these sorts of digital tools since 2007. Editing AI-produced texts to make them seem less robotic is nowhere near as much fun as writing is, after all. I’m flexible enough to take on most kinds of assignments but what I really like – and what I’m good at – is writing.

Talk to Me About Your Copywriting Needs

So, if you’re looking for human-centred, relatable content that still delivers in terms of SEO, then feel free to contact me to discuss your next project. Note that I work in US and UK English and all the variants thereof.