Are AI-written copy and marketing materials just for the lazy, for those who plagiarize, or both? Or is it a time saver? Is it cheating? Or, as a marketer if you refrain from using it, are you cheating yourself?

After all, artificial intelligence (AI) is smart enough to discover plagiarism. The Giant Language Chat Room (GTLR) can analyze if a machine or a human wrote copy. Another tool is Originality.AI which can detect if an AI writer generated content.

Yet, marketers have powerful AI writing tools at their fingertips, like ChatGPT and Jasper.ai. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) driven chatbot from OpenAI that can answer any prompt to write emails, scripts, social media copy, and other kinds of content. It has received plenty of attention for what it can do. Publications and blogs are “test-driving” technology for researching and creating content. Jasper claims to “help spark ideas and create content easily, so you stay consistently top-of-mind.”

The technology can be dead on for some marketing materials, but it can also misfire. And, as a marketer, it may not capture your “voice.”

So, it is important to understand the good and the bad regarding these AI writing platforms.

If misused, you will be cheating yourself and your marketing effectiveness. Used properly, you can be responsive in beating the competition. For the pros and cons, I will focus on ChatGPT, which is one of the most advanced platforms.

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The Good

ChatGPT can simplify and reduce research time. It can write catchy subject lines for an email or list promotions you could run for a specific event. It can help with targeted marketing by describing a segment of customers, then asking it to recommend a campaign.

Similarly, ChatGPT can offer channel recommendations or rewrite and convert a blog post into an email message. It helps tweak simple wordsmithing, greatly aiding marketers who need a nudge to get started writing something or get writer’s block.

For research, rather than spending several minutes – or much longer searching via Google and then culling results into usable content, ChatGPT can conduct the research and pare down the results. For example, ask it to find the 20 best-performing email subject lines of marketing best practices for a particular product or service or the 20 best ad campaigns in the past X years – results will be delivered much faster than humanly possible.

The Bad

ChatGPT is trained on the Internet. So, its source is the whole world’s public information. It analyzes and creates from the whole world’s public information. It may seem like a dichotomy, but that is a myopic view for marketers.

The world’s information does not include your world as a marketer. So “out of the box,” ChatGPT does not access the data of your customers, business, marketing strategy, or environment. It generates responses based on natural language processing (NLP).

While embedded artificial intelligence can find or extrapolate from the world’s databases, it can’t tell you anything intelligent about your data. It won’t be able to discover customer insights relevant to your customers or suggest what campaigns would best match a specific segment of yours. It will only be able to base its responses on “generic data.” It also won’t deliver your “voice.”

For example, let’s look at some iconic advertising lines that in creating a brand’s voice, used poor grammar, compared to the correct grammar:
Incorrect grammar                               Correct grammar

• Apple: “Think Different” — Think differently
• Eggo Waffles: “Leggo my Eggo” — Let go of my Eggo
• Milk: “Got Milk?” — Do you have milk?
• Subway: “Subway, eat fresh” — Subway, eat freshly
• McDonald’s: “I’m lovin’ it” — I am loving it
• Staples: “We got that.” — We have that.

AI won’t create this brand difference.

Similarly, for the technology to offer the best channel suggestions, it has to be trained on your customer base. If you provide ChatGPT with generic information before querying the technology, it will give generic results.

ChatGPT will only produce good results in personalized marketing if provided with great personal information. Just like other information-based technology – it could be garbage in, garbage out.

However, it is not a replacement for great marketing. It is a fast start for marketing that needs to be honed. If you use it for finished work, it will finish you as a marketer. After all, we are in the age of personalization while maintaining the marketer’s voice.

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Causing the Reeducation of Education

In academia, ChatGPT is changing education. A New York Times article revealed that it is revamping the way universities teach. As one professor discovered students using the app to write papers, he plans to have first drafts written in the classroom “using browsers that monitor and restrict computer activity.” In later drafts, students have to explain each revision. This exercise seems fruitless.

Consider that, other skills have been displaced, like the automobile wiped out the buggy whip. Handwriting is no longer taught, as computers replaced cursive.

ChatGPT is a powerful tool that writes, researches, and more. And it draws from the world’s information. It is a remarkable tool.

A parallel is the invention of the scientific calculator. It did not “end” long division but made it easier and more efficient. Before the calculator, long division was calculated by hand. Long-hand division was slow and error-prone versus the speed and precision of the calculator at the push of a button. Educators did not ban calculators. Instead, calculators were integrated into education.

ChatGPT will create super editors

ChatGPT will make the best creators into super editors. Marketers must embrace this tool and harness and direct its power.

ChatGPT should be mandatory in a modern marketer’s toolbox. It has many believers, including Microsoft, which invested $10 million in OpenAI in early January. But, like many other types of technology, especially those based on artificial intelligence, to optimize the benefits of the technology, you have to ensure that there is human intelligence behind the use of ChatGPT.

If done well, marketers will not cheat themselves with automated marketing that is not personalized but will beat the competition by teaching ChatGPT to personalize messages in the marketer’s voice.

Now, one question: did I write this, or did ChatGPT? Why don’t you check it out on The Giant Language Chat Room (GTLR)?