Using AI Effectively and Ethically in Your Copy

AI has taken the world by storm over the past year. It’s impacting almost every area of our lives, from how we search Google and Amazon to how we write emails and text messages – but for most people, the biggest area of concern for most businesses is the use of tools like ChatGPT. It’s now a given that AI is going to be used, but how it’s used is going to make all the difference, especially in your copy. 

In other words, AI is not a bad thing, but it’s important to have strong systems in place for your team to follow – and it’s essential to use it effectively and ethically. 

For this week’s post, I brought in my Copywriter, who is also one of our Marketing Coaches. Because she works with copy on a daily basis, she spends a good amount of time working with and vetting different tools as well as researching the impact of AI on SEO, social reach, and content creation. 

Her overall recommendation for generative AI is to: 

• Understand the capabilities and limitations 
• Use it as a tool rather than to generate an end-product 
• Communicate approved uses to your team 

Here are some tips to help you do that! 

Understanding the Function and Limitations of AI 

The first thing to understand about “generative AI” is that it doesn’t actually generate “new” content – rather, it collates a lot of information quickly from around the internet and puts it in a format that’s somewhat useable.  

It basically plagiarizes really, really quickly and gives you someone else’s content in different voices. While this can help you in the brainstorming and research phases, it’s not something that you’ll want to publish.  

Although many social ads will tell you that you can just insert a prompt and magically get ready-to-use content, that’s just not what AI is designed to do…and using it as such can seriously impact the effectiveness of your content. (It can also have some other effects that you don’t want to touch – more on that below.) 

The speed of AI is definitely a good thing, but used incorrectly, it can land you in trouble. In addition to potential plagiarism, other pitfalls include: 

• Inaccurate information. Whenever a program like ChatGPT can’t find the information it’s looking for, it will make things up to fill in the gaps. Unfortunately, it can’t tell you what’s true and what’s not. (This has already resulted in lawsuits, sanctions, fines, and more for various professionals who tried using it to write legal briefs, news articles, and more.) 
• Damaged SEO. Google is no longer looking for simple keywords and links – instead, it’s looking for authoritative, complete, user-friendly information. In order for your content to rank, it will need to be written with human expertise. As helpful as AI can be, it just can’t write content that requires a human. 
• Losing your brand voice. There are ways to “prime” a program like ChatGPT – and now you can even create your own GPTs – but unless this is done comprehensively, the results you’ll get are likely to be off-brand. Whether the content it generates is in the wrong voice, full of emojis you wouldn’t normally use, or writing content that isn’t relevant for the desired platform, using AI “as-is” can give you results you’re not looking for. 

Using AI Effectively and Ethically 

So if AI shouldn’t be used to generate your final product, what can it be used for? 

Quite a bit, actually! 

My Copywriter calls it her “jr. copywriting bot.” It saves her hours of research and testing every month, allowing her to spend her time and energy on writing amazing content and analyzing the results. (It also allows her time to stay up to date on all the newest intel!) 

80% of great copy is research. This includes things like market research, Voice of Client (VoC) research, trying different angles and voices, trend research, and more.  

It’s necessary, but it takes time to conduct and analyze. While AI can’t do all of work for you, it can cut the time down significantly and help you see trends and patterns that you otherwise might not.  

It can also allow you to test different marketing angles and voice options without having to come up with all the copy yourself.  

This means that if you’re not sure if you want a certain piece of copy (or even a full campaign) to have a professional or friendly voice, authoritative or conversational, you can see what various pieces of content might look like before you write.  

You can also test various angles. Not sure if you want to highlight pain points or aspirations? Or whether you want to be direct or a bit gentler in leading your audience through the sales journey? AI is a great way to test both options to see what they look like before putting hours into each. 

AI is fantastic for things like brainstorming, developing and honing your avatar, finding patterns in your data, and testing new types of content. It can also give you great ideas (that you can then pick and choose from) for fun new ways to repurpose your existing content. 

There are even programs that will analyze your competitors’ content and help you quickly see what’s ranking and what content gaps exist that you can fill – all in just a few minutes. 

AI tools can be extremely helpful and save you a ton of time, but only if you know what to use them (and not use them) for. 

Communicating Clearly with Your Team 

AI isn’t something you should shy away from, but it is something you need to be clear on with your team. What are you comfortable using AI for, and what types of human oversight will you require? (All forms of AI should at least have a basic human check in place – just like any other form of tech, it can glitch or go down.) 

For example – who will approve the branding and brand messaging information that is uploaded to an AI platform? What types of content are you comfortable with your team members creating? What layers of revision and review do you want to have in place? 

All of these layers of systems are necessary to have in place, and to make sure your team is clear on. This will protect you (and them) from ending up in a mess due to using an AI platform incorrectly. 

Make it clear that you’re not putting these systems in place to cause them more work or avoid new tech, but to make their lives easier and protect them from a potential mess. This way, they can streamline their jobs effectively while protecting your company from adverse results.