AI might be nothing short of magic when it comes to those popular sci-fi movies we all enjoy.
But when it comes to content, AI is simply a machine that journeys across the internet, collects related information, and puts it into words.
Sure, AI writing might bring “lightning-fast” results to the table. AI content tools might even be a lot cheaper.
But, when all is said and done, is AI writing truly better than human writing?
The answer? A big no.
The reason? Read on to find out!
AI Lacks Human Touch, Which Puts Your Brand Reputation on the Line
The content your brand crafts goes beyond just “a bunch of words stitched into several paragraphs” – something that is often the case with AI writing.
Great content marketing is something that deeply resonates with the readers, drawing valuable emotional responses from them. After all, original ideas, empathy, flair, uniqueness, style, and emotion can only brew in the human mind.
Strike a comparison between AI writing and human writing and you’ll notice how the latter wins by a landslide. With AI, the writing you get is typically just mundane, repetitive, and worse, robotic. AI writing may collect scraps of data from the internet, but human writing goes several steps further, making the content highly engaging.
To understand this better, let’s take a quick glance at Moravec’s Paradox. It reveals that AI can easily learn things that humans might find difficult but when it comes to elements like emotions and empathy, AI has a long way to go. This is not surprising since emotions aren’t exactly easy to teach. They don’t have a “logical roadmap” to follow. How humans feel or perceive can only be felt by another human. Without a good dose of empathy, your content becomes devoid of sensitivity.
Moreover, consumers today can distinguish between content that glows with human empathy and content that is written by a machine. When they’re constantly exposed to robotic content, it causes them to lose both interest and trust in your brand.
AI Writing Tools Often Fail to Grasp the Tone and Style
Style and tone are critical elements for your overall brand choice. They reflect the message your brand is trying to get across, help you craft content that your audiences relate with, and ultimately drive valuable conversions. Unfortunately, AI writing falls short in this regard.
Let’s say you’re using an AI tool. You pour in some inputs that outline the tone and style you’re looking for and hit enter. The outcome, unfortunately, doesn’t go far beyond a basic (or even a general) style and tone. The reason? You cannot input more than 2-3 words to describe the style your brand demands. But in reality, each brand has several messages to convey.
For instance, if you want your AI tool to add a comic or whimsical touch to an article, the outcome is far from what you’d expect (and certainly not in a way your brand would relate to).
A human writer, on the other hand, scours your entire style guide to deeply understand your style preferences, the recommended word choice, and syntax to weave a brand voice that would “stick” with your consumers.
AI Writing Lacks Accuracy (And the Inaccuracies are Difficult to Spot)
AI writing hops across cyberspace to gather data related to a specific topic. Then, it puts it all together to create a piece of content. In other words, it conjures up a piece it “thinks” (no room for ironies but we thought we could squeeze one in) your audience wants.
At first, it might seem like AI does the job – even saving you tons of time and money. But sooner or later you realize the pitfalls. One of those pitfalls is a lack of solid fact-checking. Most AI content tools assume any data associated with a topic is accurate, even though (sometimes) it’s not. The algorithm typically trusts the sources without double-checking.
In some instances, AI might end up using a source that stands against the message you’re trying to get across. For instance, if you want an article about how brand A is better than brand B, there are high chances the AI tool might fail to understand this angle and generate content that contradicts your hypothesis.
Factual inaccuracies can be damaging to any brand. Without human intervention, you might end up with AI-generated articles that are full of noticeable flaws.
AI Writing Carries A High Risk of Bias
It is well established that AI doesn’t come with a mind of its own (unless you’ve just entered the world of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey). It is only as good as the data its programmer feeds it. That means there is always a crack for biases to enter.
Take, for instance, a chunk of data that underrepresents a certain group of people. The result will undoubtedly be a biased model. Amazon had to do away with its AI recruiting tool due to this very reason. The tool showed bias against women because the algorithm was trained using male resumes. The result? It gave preference to male candidates.
AI bias can spew expensive consequences for a company. If a brand publishes biased articles, the consumers slowly begin to avoid the brand. Moreover, in a world where social media reigns supreme, even unintentional bias can bring heavy losses to any business.
AI Writing Can Bring Down Your Google Ranking
Google recently revealed its helpful content update with the goal to “help people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.”
What does this mean for your content?
Search engines favor the content crafted by humans that offers a better experience alongside following the right SEO practices. The same update also mentions, “avoid creating content for search engines first.”
So, what happens when you use AI writing to generate your content? The tool fails to comprehend what your audience is really looking for. Instead, it analyzes search engine outcomes in a purely robotic manner, clearly straying away from Google’s guidelines.
If that doesn’t convince you just yet, Google even made its view on AI content crystal clear, “Currently, it’s all against webmaster guidelines. So, from our point of view, if we were to run across something like that, if the webspam team were to see it, they would see it as spam.”
But how would Google know if a piece of content is generated by AI? Having invested billions in AI and Machine Learning, Google certainly knows a robotic piece when it sees one.
AI Content Tools Don’t Meet Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines
Aside from putting your content in the web’s oblivion, AI-generated content may also fail to comply with Google’s quality rater guidelines. These guidelines help the search engine analyze how your content performs in terms of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T)
The reason E-A-T criteria is so critical is that Google uses it to differentiate between good content and content that lacks E-A-T. The rise of misinformation has caused several readers to skeptical of content on the internet. Now, more than ever, the expertise of an experienced human writer is an absolute need for brands looking to dominate their markets.
AI Writing Doesn’t Stand a Chance In Competitive Markets
According to HubSpot, “the average time on page across all industries is 54 seconds.”
This time span can decrease substantially if the content on your page is not engaging or fails to strike an emotional connection with your audience. Consumers, today, can easily sniff writing that is generated by machines and end up losing interest within a few seconds.
Great human-written copy, on the other hand, can extend this time span further, engage the consumer, urge them to explore more, and even make a purchase.
No business is immune to growing competition and AI content tools can become the biggest obstacle when it comes to helping your content succeed.
Moral of the Story: Your Content Is Just Too Valuable to Trust A Machine
Today, content marketing is the most important way to reach and connect with your customers. It is how businesses and potential customers can build a solid foundation of trust.
With the competition that skyrockets in the blink of an eye, the question is, should you leave your business’s success to bots?
The answer is a massive no.
AI writing tools might seem time-saving and cheap from a distance. But when the outcome finally arrives, it might not be what your brand and customers would like.
What If There Was a Solution?
But what if there were a solution for you to get your content crafted by expert “human writers” and delivered to you (fresh and made of exquisite quality) within 12-24 hours?
We, at Iris Mar Sol, are brewing just the solution to help your brand succeed. Stay tuned, we’ll have more news about this soon!