At the beginning of 2022, I heard about AI writing solutions being “really good” for a change. I discarded that rumor. I had heard it a million times before and it was never true.
I blinked and woke up to 25+ solutions already launched on a market that’s heading for a staggering 15% CAGR.
I caved in eventually.
To date, I’ve tried roughly five tools. They all delivered more than I was expecting them to, although they are not all made equal.
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AI Is Capable of Creating Passable Content
Most AI writing solutions promise to help you produce content effortlessly.
It works like this: you give the tool a keyword or a topic and the tool churns out a draft in the form of sentences or paragraphs. Then you can tweak it or keep it as it is. The choice is yours. [This little nugget of information is AI-generated].
AI-Generated Content Is Good, But it Lacks an Essential Attribute: Originality
Prodigious as GPT-3 is and with all the promises GPT-4 holds in store, there is one problem with AI-generated content: it’s not original.
It does pass plagiarism tests most of the time, but it is not yet capable of producing original writing, new takes on already-debated topics, or new ideas. This is a problem rooted in the very fiber of AI’s making: AI is trained on existing content. It can spin, re-order, rephrase, and even improve things that are already out there. But original ideation is still not in the cards.
Moreover, Google says AI-generated content is against their guidelines, although they have some trouble detecting it. This means you will be able to sneak a few fluff pieces past the algorithm, get your coveted rankings, and even sell some products as an affiliate with AI-generated content, but that won’t last long.
Content and Copywriting Jobs Are Safe, But Changing
Yes, we’re talking about robots stealing jobs again. I was curious to see how my fellow writers see the rise of AI assistants and how they expect their work to change.
This is what I found out:
- AI writing is great to assist you with large volumes of SEO copy. Sam Thomas Davies, Head of Content at Drip.
- “I use AI tools but only for prompts and inspiration. I don’t think it’s reached the level of sophistication that is needed in B2B writing. Still, I’ll be open to using the actual content it generates once these tools become more refined”. Sanketee Kher , freelance copywriter.
- “AI-powered writing tools still don’t have that edge on real, human writers…so now is the time to think seriously about what you’ll do to put a stake in the ground and cultivate what makes you worth investing in as a writer”. Kaleigh Moore, freelance writer.
- “I love how AI can inspire us humans, and the things we can create together. A generation beyond AI writing, the best stuff will come from Human+AI partnerships“. Richard Clunan, co-founder at Verb.ly, an Ai writing solution.
I echo the restrained enthusiasm in the insights above.
Yes, AI makes content production faster and less demanding (at least up to a certain quality level). But this begs another question:
What Happens in a World Where Content Is Commoditized?
To exist in business, you need content. And AI promises to push content cost to zero.
People are flocking to it in droves — writers and their clients alike. In the Gartner hype cycle, AI writing is at its peak. Peak of inflated expectations that is.
I personally found AI writing assistants helpful when you’re looking to be thorough. Say you want to create a piece about building a SaaS from scratch; AI will help you make sure you haven’t missed any steps or any common hurdles.
It can do that because it does research (i.e. read almost everything relevant to the topic) faster than any finger-powered writer. But it won’t help you provide your readers with a never-tried-before approach — at least not yet.
That being said, I expect to see A LOT more content online — because it’s easier and faster to produce.
Sadly, I also expect its quality to drop significantly.
We won’t necessarily see poorly written content (although AI can sometimes mess this up too). What I expect is more of the same content. The same ideas re-written, re-arranged, and, if we’re lucky, reframed to look brand-spanking new.
We will be swimming in an ever-expanding sea of sameness.
If content costs producing fall to zero, what matters is distribution. Savvy content creators who leverage AI to produce better content faster will grow their online communities with mind-boggling speed. The chasm between the 1% and the rest of the world will be deepened even further.
AI writing will bring more attention to places where attention was already clustering.
What about the creators of AI writing solutions? Can they ride this technology wave endlessly?
The SaaS Model May Not Work for All the AI Writing Solutions
The market is currently exploding with new AI writing solutions to tickle every fancy: complete suites for everything you need, from sales copy to essays, minimalistic editors, tongue-in-cheek options, and everything in between.
With the commoditization of writing comes the commoditization of AI writing tools.
Comparing solution providers is incredibly hard for their customers. It’s hard to tell which AI writer “wins” because benchmarking outputs is challenging at best and impossible without inside info. You could rely on benchmarks from the vendors, but even those are hard to compare and contrast.
This battle will be won in the sales and marketing realm.
Again, distribution is the differentiator. The solutions that have already attracted a critical mass of fans will get to keep them — provided that they don’t lag behind their competitors and that their pricing is attractive.
Speaking of pricing, the peak of inflated expectations mentioned above is, by definition, a limited window. I’ve already seen AI writing solutions slash prices (some in half) after this new wave of players entered the market.
There are also free AI writers, some of them quite impressive. Competition at price-level has already claimed its first profit victims, which tells us that the initial enthusiasm for the technology itself is plateau-ing. The regular-SaaS games have begun.
Thus, distribution-savvy solution creators will be the ones left standing and leading the “plateau of productivity” stage.
Specialization will also bring some traction: all-in-one pricy tools may be agencies’ go-to, while non-marketing companies and independent, niched writers will opt for smaller-scale solutions that do one thing but do it right.
However, a lot of these users will be lost to the big fish in the tech pond. Microsoft and Notion are already embedding AI capabilities into their existing products. The low entry barrier for productizing GPT-3 technology and the virtually endless resources of the big players will pose significant problems for the smaller ones.
Of course, GPT-4, which is right around the corner, may render all of my points moot. If not, I expect to see AI embedded everywhere in the next couple of years — perhaps even in some of my favorite tools, like ConvertKit ‘s email editor or Sendible ‘s social media posts editor.
In the meantime, some of the tools you can try:
- Lex is writers’ favorite thus far. I use it the most too, sometimes instead of Google Docs to help me keep writing when I feel the well is dry. It’s free for now, but you need to be on a waiting list or get an invite to try it out.
- Outranking is ideal for SEO writing agencies. It’s a good place to start planning and mapping your content, even executing some of it.
- Hypewrite is completely free for now. If you want to dip your toes into AI writing, you can start here.
- Verb.ly promises to be your “AI muse”; it has tons of options, with more coming soon. Ad copy, naming, article and landing page writing, and even tools to build your own funnel and brainstorm things.
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