AI has been a hot topic around the world since ChatGPT launched in November 2022.

A combination of the rapid processing capabilities of computers with (a simulation of) the intellectual problem-solving skills of human beings, this new technology offers a variety of applications across countless business sectors.

In the marketing sector AI certainly has its fair share of applications and benefits, but is it right for content creation? Below are some of the main advantages and disadvantages of using artificial intelligence for marketing content creation.

Advantages -

• Increased productivity

Technology has always been used to automate processes and increase productivity, but this has exploded since the development of AI, as increased “intelligence” has allowed machines to perform tasks that were once reserved for human beings.

AI-powered technology is able to produce content at a much faster rate than a human content creator. This rapid process means that larger amounts of content can be created with the same level of time investment.

• Cost-saving

In the past, significantly increasing productivity would inevitably result in increased costs. Changes to processes, for example, could only improve things so much and real scalability required hiring more workers or external agencies. One of the most attractive benefits of AI is its ability to improve productivity without drastic increases in costs.

While initial investments in AI may be significant, the long-term benefit to labour costs can be massive, especially for businesses that require large amounts of content produced regularly.

This doesn’t mean getting rid of your content creators in favour of artificial intelligence. AI, for now at least, still requires human input to manage, proof and edit the content produced. It could, however, mean that your content creators are able to use AI technology to produce more regular content without the increased costs associated with hiring more people.

• Data-driven targeting

AI is much more effective at data analysis and pattern recognition than human beings. AI can analyse huge amounts of information, from multiple sources, very rapidly and identify patterns or trends that can be used to segment your target audience.

Once audiences have been effectively segmented, marketers can create more specific, focused content that is more likely to resonate with that audience.

• Consistent brand voice

A consistent brand voice contributes to a recognisable and relatable image for a brand; helping to build familiarity and trust among their target audience.

Ross Pike is Marketing Director of live marketing contractors Quadrant2Design - “Brand consistency is key to allowing your customers to form a relationship with your brand. The words you say can change from campaign to campaign, but the tone and character behind those words must remain consistent.”

AI is able to maintain a consistent brand voice across all content it produces. Inconsistencies can easily be filtered out of AI content, where humans may have trouble even identifying those inconsistencies.

• Detailed analytics

Because AI can handle such vast amounts of data, it can produce very detailed analyses of results much faster than human beings and even identify patterns and insights that slip through human analysis.

More detailed analytics allow for more specific lessons to be learnt and more intricate adjustments to be made to future strategies. Ultimately this makes it much more likely that future strategies will have the desired results.

Disadvantages -

• Reduced creativity

While AI can undoubtedly increase the scale and speed of content creation, it cannot match human creativity in either knowing what content to create or producing a genuine variety of content.

Everything that AI currently produces is a reconfiguration of what has come before. This can lead to mechanical, unoriginal content that fails to engage the target audience.

While it could be argued that all good ideas are just adaptions of what has come before, with no unique life experience of its own, will AI ever produce anything truly new?

• Lack of critical thinking

AI does not have the critical thinking capabilities that most human beings do and, as a result, the content it creates runs the risk of being biased, discriminatory, offensive or even dangerous.

There have been some worrying examples of this, such as an AI-powered image generator creating images of Barbies from around the world filled with offensive stereotypes and biases. There have been numerous other incidents of racism, sexism and other societal biases appearing in AI-generated content.

Multiple recipes produced by AI have also highlighted shortfalls in the technology. These range from subtle and humorous, like an “Oreo vegetable stir-fry”, to dangerous recipes for poisonous food and chlorine gas.

This has highlighted AI’s worrying lack of understanding and critical thinking. Formulating independent opinions, assessing qualitative data and “reading between the lines” are all actions that require a human level of understanding and consciousness and are also vital qualities in effective content creation.

• Information dependency

AI-generated content is highly dependent on existing information, which can lead to difficulty producing content on topics with limited information.

While human beings are able to deduce tentative links based on a more comprehensive understanding, AI does not possess the unique life experience to do so.

This can drastically limit the content that AI is able to create and could also partially explain the incorrect, biased and dangerous content that has already been produced.

• Loss of humanity

Personal and emotional connections are key components of effective marketing, particularly within content creation, where the key purpose is sharing human knowledge, opinions and understanding. AI-generated content lacks the genuine emotion that makes human-generated content engaging.

That being said, improvements to this may result in a whole new set of problems.

As AI becomes more effective at mimicking human behaviour it will become increasingly difficult to differentiate between human-written and AI-generated content. A recent example saw OpenAI’s GPT-4 program apparently fake being a blind person in order to trick a human being into solving a website’s CAPTCHA test. If target audiences feel that they can’t trust what they are reading, there is a risk that they may begin to dismiss content altogether, presenting an enormous barrier to engagement.

• Disruptive learning curve

AI is a new tool that requires some significant adaption for businesses to implement and take advantage of its functionality.

Integrating this new tool into a business will require a period of learning both for the AI and the staff using it which, in the short term at least, could present a significant disruption to workflows.

Conclusion -

The use of AI in content creation comes with both advantages and disadvantages. While AI can significantly enhance productivity, efficiency and data-driven insights, it struggles to replicate human creativity, emotion and critical thinking.

Content creation is, at its core, an exercise in sharing human knowledge and while AI can certainly provide assistance, the level to which we should involve the technology is still open to debate.

For now, it seems that AI is best suited to an assistant-type role, completing time-consuming roles while being managed by experienced marketing professionals.