We've all heard quite a lot about AI (Artificial Intelligence) recently and most of us have heard of AI writing tools.
There are a whole range of AI powered writing assistants out there that quickly and easily generate content for you. They can write blog posts, college essays, articles, social media posts, hashtags and - apparently - even novels.
So, how good are they?
Can you tell content that is AI generated from content written by a living, breathing human?
We thought we'd find out.
Overview
In this blog we will discuss
Most people have heard of ChatGPT but there are a bunch of AI content writing tools to choose from. These include Writesonic, Jasper, Grammarly, Bard, CopyAI and lots more.
For the purposes of this article, we are going to use a tool called Chat by Copy.ai to write a blog post for us. This will be about things to do in London. We'll edit the post and make some editorial changes.
We will then ask Chat by Copy.ai to generate a LinkedIn post to help promote the blog post it just created.
Let's give it a go.
How easy is it to generate content?
Pretty easy. You will need to register to use Chat by Copy.ai ‐ this is free and easy to do. We'll come on to costs later.
The interface looks like this:
At the bottom of the screen there's a prompt for you to type your question ‐ in this case “Can you write me a blog about things to do in London.
Hit the go button and Chat by Copy.ai will display a message saying “Thinking about it!.
Within a few seconds it will have scoured the internet and produced a blog for you.
Pretty amazing really.
Here is what the blog looks like:
If you don't like the result you can ask for something else. In this case I asked “Can you just write a blog about 10 great things to do in London?.
Here is the answer:
All this has taken seconds and required no research or work on my part.
You can ask Chat by Copy.ai to make your blog shorter or longer, more entertaining, or suggest some hashtags.
What more could you want right?
Or, you might want to adapt your blog to a different audience or demographic. To give this a try I asked it to rewrite the blog and add some emojis. Here is the result:
If you want to edit the copy yourself you can just copy it to the editor on the right of the screen by clicking Add to Editor.
In the Editor you can manually make any text changes you like or format your blog any way you wish.
You can also select any line you don't like and click Rewrite.
An alternative line will be suggested for you. Hit return to accept this suggestion.
What if I want to generate a LinkedIn post to promote my blog?
You can automatically generate a LinkedIn post. To do this click Browse Prompts.
A number of options will pop up. Select LinkedIn Post and choose Use Prompt.
Chat by Copy.ai will create a LinkedIn post based on the blog post we just created.
In the dialog box that pops up I asked it to use a mix of short and long sentences and to be punchy and dramatic (!). Here's the result…
You can ask Chat by Copy.ai to make your post shorter or longer, more entertaining, or suggest some hashtags.
It will also automatically generate posts for Twitter and Instagram or TikTok scripts ‐ pretty much anything you could want.
So what does all this cost?
Currently, the pricing for this AI writing tool - Chat by Copy.ai - works out at $36 a month for 5 seats (if you sign up for a year).
You can also pay $15 to use it for 24 hours if you have a one off requirement. There is also something called a Freemium model which allows you to try it for free (there are a restricted number of words you can generate, after that you have to sign up for a subscription).
Obviously there are lots of other AI writing assistants and each have their own pricing model. You will need to shop around.
Does it read well or does it read like something that's been computer generated?
The million dollar question. And it's a pretty subjective one.
In my experience the content generated by AI tools like this reads well. In fact it's pretty amazing.
You could argue that what's missing is your voice. Does it sound like you?
You may find that you want to use AI to do the heavy lifting when it comes to research and producing intelligent copy that you might then want to add your own personality to.
Also, it's probably never going to be great at things like humour. Or irony. Also, it will probably never know your audience as well as you do.
So it's not going to replace actual humans (just yet!) but it has the potential to dramatically change the way we work.
Conclusion
So that's our brief look at how AI writing tools work.
We've only really scratched the surface when it comes to what AI tools can do but I hope this post has given you some insight into how helpful they might be to you and what sort of impact this technology will have on the way we all work.
If you are in the business of writing high quality copy, we offer a wide range of writing and editing courses here at Media Training. You can find a range of our writing courses here.
Media Training is one of the UK's leading providers of professional writing and journalism courses. All courses are run at our beautiful state-of-the-art training centre in central London or live online so you attend from your home or your office if that suits you better.
by Julian Woodfield | 27 Sep 23
