Content Marketing: Why AI Won’t Change *Everything*

Another day, another article about AI. But this one’s different, we promise. Most of the time, people talk about how AI is going to change everything, how it’s going to revolutionise the digital marketing industry and even how it’s going to put people’s livelihoods at risk.

There’s no denying that generative AI is a hugely significant innovation, not just for the marketing world, but for the world as a whole. It allows us to streamline a whole host of different tasks, saving us valuable time – and it can even make us laugh. Who doesn’t love messing around with an AI image generator?

But those who act like generative AI is going to take over the world – much less the content marketing profession – are wrong. And here’s why…

It’s not what Google wants to see

Google has openly said that it won’t penalise content purely because it’s AI-generated. In February of 2023, for instance, the organisation said in a Search Central blog post, “Our focus on the quality of content, rather than how content is produced, is a useful guide that has helped us deliver reliable, high quality results to users for years.”

So, what do we mean when we say that AI-generated content isn’t what Google wants to see? Let’s refer back to the search engine’s own E-E-A-T guidelines, which state that every piece of content needs to showcase Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness in order to rank highly in the SERPs.

AI-generated content can’t outperform a human in any of these aspects, and it never will be able to. Your favourite chatbot hasn’t worked ‘in the industry’ for 25 years. It doesn’t have the hands-on experience and real-world knowledge that a human has. And although it can come across as authoritative and trustworthy, it’s ultimately just regurgitating second-hand information it’s picked up from other sources, creating an (albeit convincing) pastiche of an article written by a human. It’s kind of like watching a tribute band perform as opposed to the real thing; the music might be note-for-note perfect, but there will always be something missing.

It lacks personality and authenticity

Consumers are starting to sniff out AI-generated content, and they’re not always glad to see it. According to a recent study from Bynder, 50% of consumers are able to correctly identify a piece of content as being AI-generated. That’s significant in itself, but even more noteworthy is that 52% of those surveyed said they would be less likely to engage with content that they know is AI-generated. This is bad news, because Google tracks how users engage with content – and a lack of engagement is likely to impact rankings.

Here’s another interesting statistic from the survey: 55% of the 16 to 24 year-olds who took part in the survey found the human-written article to be more engaging than the AI-generated one. 

So, not only does AI lack the kind of real-world, hands-on experience that makes a piece of content truly authentic, it often lacks the personality and charisma that keeps readers engaged.

According to the survey, consumers think AI content reflects badly on a brand too. 25% said it makes the company feel impersonal, 20% think it makes the brand seem lazy, 20% said it comes across as untrustworthy and 19% said it makes a brand look uncreative. We doubt you’d want any of those words associated with your brand.

It can’t break new ground

When you use generative AI, you only get out what you put in. If you feed it a prompt that’s too broad or vague for instance, you might be disappointed by the content you get in return.

That’s because AI chatbots are only able to draw on pre-existing content to output ‘new’ pieces. They’re not really new, hence the inverted commas: anything AI creates is based on something a human has already created. It’s an amalgamation of ideas that are already out there. There’s nothing ‘new’ about it, which is a problem when you consider that Google rewards unique content.

If we rely on AI to generate all our content, how will we ever move forward? Only humans can create original, groundbreaking content that moves the game on.

It’s not always right

How many of you have tested ChatGPT, Gemini or any other chatbot to see how factually accurate they really are? We have, and the results are mixed. Often, you can ask them a question only to receive an answer that completely takes you off guard, or an answer you know is completely wrong. Just look at what happened earlier this year when Google first started experimenting with AI overviews in the SERPs.

Not only was this embarrassing for Google, it was a stark reminder that – despite its convincing, authoritative tone – AI doesn’t always get things right. Even if you do choose to generate content with AI, you’ll always need a human to verify its accuracy before you hit publish.

The buzz is wearing off

Generative AI isn’t new any more. If you can believe it, ChatGPT launched two years ago, so there’s no need to talk about a hypothetical future where AI content becomes commonplace… we’re living in that future right now.

And what has changed? Generative AI has improved incrementally. It has become a vital tool in any content marketer’s arsenal, making planning, ideation and drafting a much more efficient process. But it hasn’t eradicated the need for human writers, and it never will. As long as there are humans consuming content, there will be humans writing it too.

Don’t think this blog makes us anti-AI. We’ve embraced it here at Brave, simply because it allows us to streamline many of our processes and focus more on the areas where we can really add value. That’s the key thing to take away from this: AI is making our lives easier in many ways and making us more productive, but there are some things that will never change. The desire for entertaining, captivating, groundbreaking human-written content is one of them.