I’m genuinely sorry for writing this article because I am bored with all things AI at this point. There has been a ton of hype around the widespread popularization of tools like ChatGPT and Dall-e 2, which have really picked up exponentially over the last two or three months.

And honestly, my brain falls asleep just at the thought of another AI content article.

But this technology has enormous potential, and it also has a huge potential for going wrong. I’ve been experimenting with a wide variety of AI tools, including copywriters, image generators, ChatGPT, audio, and video generators for the last year or so and integrating it into my workflows. Here is what the last year has taught me:

Don’t: Publish AI-written copy unedited

For the love of god, there’s enough spam on the internet as it is. We don’t need more crappy copy with poor fact-checking. Here are just a few reasons you should never publish unedited AI-written copy:

  • AI copy is incredibly boring. AI copy reads like a C- essay in high school. It is, at a basic level, mostly functional, but it is also exceptionally mediocre.
  • Most 100% AI-generated content will not succeed in search in the long-run. It’s easy to detect GPT-2 and GPT-3 content using automated systems, and Google will likely roll out a big update at some point that wallops it.
  • The “facts” and background information that AI copy uses are often wrong than right. In some cases, it’s silly, and in other cases, it gives people bad advice that could potentially harm them.

Don’t: Use AI content instead of hiring artists or as an excuse not to pay people fairly.

Yes, you can use ChatGPT for free, but that doesn’t mean that a copywriter will accept $.01 a word for the next article you commission — and you shouldn’t ask them to. It’s true that good copywriters are hard to come by, many “cheap” copywriters will be using AI content rather than writing it themselves, and that “cheap” content only turns out about as well as AI copy anyway. But if you are asking someone to do labor for you, pay them for it. And ideally find someone great who will write interesting and optimized content rather than someone summarizing the top 3 results on Google for your given query.

Don’t: Expect massive social media growth from AI-generated images and captions.

We sometimes forget that the emphasis on social media should be on SOCIAL, not media. Posting an image a day with a generic caption will not skyrocket your engagement, nor should it. It’s absolutely boring. As with paying for a great copywriter, the work of a great social media person is not comparable to generic, unfiltered AI content.

Do: Use AI to help you clarify your point.

Grammarly is a great tool that utilizes language patterns, rules, and AI to help you improve your writing. It can help you write more succinctly and identify potential trouble spots in your copy that are overcomplicated. Other AI tools, even AI copywriters, can help you articulate a thought you are working on but may not have complete coherence. Use your brain to think up amazing creative thoughts, and then have AI assist you in articulating them if you need the help.

Do: Use AI for idea generation and inspiration.

While I personally don’t like the idea of selling AI-generated designs (we’ll talk about ethics in a moment), I like to use AI to generate images for things like mood boards and vision boards and to create lists of ideas for things like videos and blogs. Most of the ideas and images are bad! That’s where your human brain comes in, and you can use critical thought to formulate new ideas and opinions.

Do: Use AI to make your content more accessible.

We all process and absorb information differently. I don’t process audio content well, so I tend not to listen to podcasts or watch videos that rely heavily on audio. There are great tools utilizing AI technology that can help turn your written words into audio and video, and audio content into written words. If using AI helps you share your amazing, creative, original work with more people in ways they can better understand, that’s pretty cool!

Do: Reflect on your own morals and ethics around AI.

There are a lot of ethical questions around the use of AI (in general and in marketing specifically.) Most notably, AI trains on content by creators who did not consent to it and are not compensated for it. Is it fair to have AI draw you something and make money off of it in a style developed by an independent artist and for them to neither have a say nor any compensation for it?

Privacy also comes into play. Would you be comfortable if a photograph of yourself or your child was used to train an AI model, only for a big brand like Starbucks to create something in your likeness and make millions of dollars off of it? There’s also the concern of different types of bias, including gender and racial bias.

This is not an exhaustive list of the ethical concerns around AI-generated content! Do some research and reflection of your own to explore your own ethics in regards to using AI in your marketing.