Are AI copywriters actually any good?

You’ve probably already heard the buzz around AI copywriting software.  Designed to help content creators, marketers, agency owners, and social media managers streamline and increase their content production output, agencies all over …

Abby Wood

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Abby Wood

Abby Wood

The Content Lab

Originally from Cambridge, England, Abby now lives in Ireland with her partner Nick and their border collie Bosco. A content strategist and copywriter for over 12 years, she's founder of The Content Lab (a white label content agency) and Content Goodies (providing white label content templates for agencies). She's also co-founder of Ireland Website Design (a full service eCommerce agency) and LearnRight (a white label LMS solution).

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You’ve probably already heard the buzz around AI copywriting software. 

Designed to help content creators, marketers, agency owners, and social media managers streamline and increase their content production output, agencies all over the world are going nuts for cleverly-built AI platforms.

Pop in a few words of inspiration, choose a tone of voice, and those little robots get to work banging out a few hundred words on the topic of your choice. 

Over the last couple of months, a few of my clients have asked me how I feel about AI copywriting. 

Some of my fellow copywriters have messaged me in a bit of panic: what does this mean for the industry?  

Can agency owners skip hiring a content professional and just DIY it now? 

Will this be the end of human copywriters?

Well, what could I do but sign up for one of the AI copywriting platforms and test it out!

I checked out a few options and one name kept popping up: Conversion.ai. The AppSumo discount probably helped me make that decision too.  

Conversion.ai’s AI program is called Jarvis (cute!) and it generates content that can be used in blog posts, video descriptions, Facebook ads, social media posts, and really any other type of content you can think of. 

But is it as good as everybody is saying? Can it actually help you with your content writing?

What is Conversion.ai?

Conversion.ai is a software that can automatically generate unique content through the power of AI. 

The software is mainly used to create:

  • Content ideas & outlines
  • Introductions & conclusions to blogs
  • Advert copy
  • Blog posts
  • Landing pages
  • Social media posts
  • Email content
  • Meta titles & descriptions
  • Blog headings 
  • Long-form content
  • Books (yes, really)

Is AI-generated content any good?

Honestly? Yes and no. 

Will AI be the end of professional copywriters? Hell no. Was Wix the end of professional website designers? Nope. 

Don’t get me wrong, AI copywriters definitely have their uses. 

  • Need to get over writer’s block and get something, anything, down? Yep, AI can help. 
  • Want to come up with some blog titles in less than two minutes? Bingo. 
  • Struggle to write unique content for your clients or agency? AI’s a great starting point. 
  • Don’t have a copywriter on hand to help you? Boom, AI can give you a bit of support.

AI writers have multiple benefits for digital agency owners looking to create content for themselves (and their clients):

1. They’re super easy to use

Want to write 300 words on conversion optimization? Pop in your keywords, a sentence on the subject, and the name of the service you’re trying to sell and bam! AI will magically create it for you in a matter of seconds. 

2. It’s cheaper than hiring a (good) copywriter 

Getting a professional copywriter will save you time, but it will cost you money. AI will save you money but will cost you time. Depending on where your business is will dictate which option is best for you.  

For example, a singular blog post from a content writer can cost anywhere from $100 to $5,000 depending on the length and complexity of the subject. When you pay for a subscription to an AI content creator tool, you only have to pay a monthly fee of $100 or so, and you can create as many blog posts as you want, as often as you’d like. The quality probably won’t be up there with a professionally-written post, and it will take time out of your day to create it – but if you’ve got time to spend on content and not the money, this is a great option.

3. They can help you get over writer’s block

One of the best things that Conversion.ai and similar software help with from a writer’s perspective is helping you get over writer’s block. Sometimes it’s just difficult to get started, and with Jarvis and friends, you can input the subject, and they’ll generate an introduction or some general content on the topic. 

This is a massive bonus for anybody who finds themselves caught in the writer’s block trap from time to time. The content it gives you does usually have to be rewritten for voice and tone, but generally, it helps get the creative juices flowing. 

So, AI content software definitely has its uses, but it also has significant problems. 

The main problem being: you can tell when something is written by AI software. Why? It lacks humanity. It’s missing that unique human ability to understand nuance, use humor, and well, inject a bit of personality into words on a screen. 

Here are my three main issues I found when using AI copywriting software:

1. It doesn’t understand ‘audiences’

One of the biggest problems people have with Conversion.ai is that it doesn’t register precisely who your audience is. There’s an option to tell Jarvis who the audience you’re talking to is, so for example, if you put your audience as ‘freelancers,’ you’d presume that it would write content directed at that audience. 

Unfortunately, where it will address the audience by name, it doesn’t understand that audience. So it might write content that is common knowledge to freelancers and won’t provide them with anything valuable. 

If you say “write an article for freelancers” to a professional content writer, it means a whole lot more. They can figure out what that audience needs to hear and provide them with valuable content – that will ultimately make them want to convert into paying clients. 

2. The information generated isn’t always accurate

When a professional copywriter puts together a blog post, they fact-check every piece of their blog or article. The same can’t be said for AI. 

The AI takes information from the internet, reorganizes it, and forms content that looks like it works. Occasionally it’ll draw random facts from the internet and put them into the content. These facts sound ok when you read them but might not actually be true. 

I have an example for you: I was trying to write a quick blog about a tourism hotspot in Ireland. Jarvis said that an on-site café sold fishing gear. 

Odd right? You don’t usually pick up new fishing tackle and get a cappuccino to go. Maybe this super-popular hot beverage-maker was onto a new trend? 

A quick Google search and a double-check of their social media, it was clear that fishing gear was nowhere to be seen, just plenty of delicious-looking homemade cakes. 

Where did Jarvis pull that info from? No idea… but it could’ve been an embarrassing (and difficult to explain) mistake if it had slipped into the final piece. 

So if you’re using AI to pump out a lot of content, make sure that you fact check it thoroughly, or have it checked by a professional. 

3. There are hidden expenses

When we’re talking about hidden expenses, we don’t mean the company is trying to get more money out of you. They’re not. They don’t have fees hidden behind special features or anything like that. If you opt-in for the top tier membership, you usually get unlimited use. 

The hidden expenses we’re talking about actually involve real-life copywriters. 

If you’re using AI-generated content, then that’s great. You get to pump out a whole lot of content for an affordable monthly price. There’s just one issue, the content it’s providing you with is obviously written by a machine. It’s clunky, doesn’t have any personality, and it’s full of factually incorrect content. If that’s what you want, and you’re not really that bothered by the quality of your content, go for it.

But: if you want to create persuasive, engaging content that provides real value to your target audience, promotes you as an authority in your field of expertise, and brings you in more customers – well, it’ll need a bit of TLC.

There’s only one thing you can do, and that’s hand it over to a copywriter so they can fix it for you. 

If you have to do this with every blog post that AI generates, then you might end up paying more money per piece than you would have if you’d have just hired a content writer to do it for you in the first place. 

Is Conversion.ai going to replace content writers?

No freakin’ way. 

Fellow copywriters: don’t worry – the robots aren’t taking over just yet. 

AI is a great way to generate content quickly, but it’s not the right place to look for all your content writing needs. It can be a great platform to get through writer’s block or help you develop some ideas, but it isn’t the solution for producing high-quality content online. 

So with that, I’m cancelling my subscription – it’s just not worth it (for me, anyway). 

How about you? Do you love Jarvis? Not quite sure about AI’s capabilities? Let me know, I’d love to talk about content with you!

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Abby Wood

Abby Wood

The Content Lab

Originally from Cambridge, England, Abby now lives in Ireland with her partner Nick and their border collie Bosco. A content strategist and copywriter for over 12 years, she's founder of The Content Lab (a white label content agency) and Content Goodies (providing white label content templates for agencies). She's also co-founder of Ireland Website Design (a full service eCommerce agency) and LearnRight (a white label LMS solution).

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