Content and AI – A Match Made in Heaven or Star Crossed Lovers?

The concept of robots serving humans was once limited to science fiction. Now, it’s reality. Technology has evolved; machines can now write compelling, optimized content on almost any imaginable topic. Sure, it’s revolutionary and sounds like a dream for writers and marketers – but is it too good to be true?

This blog dissects that question, discussing what AI content and tools are, how they work, their pros and cons, some of the best tools, and, most importantly, what Google says about the subject.

What Is AI-Generated Content?

AI content is written content produced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) – not humans. It’s written by AI writing tools, also known as “AI content writers” – software that generates text depending on what the user inputs. AI writers can create convincing written text similar to (or sometimes even better than) what humans can write, thanks to the power of artificial intelligence.

Why Use AI Writing Tools?

Granted, AI writing tools aren’t human; they’re robots, which can raise eyebrows. However, they can be excellent for many individuals and companies. People and businesses that undertake content marketing and creation may find these tools useful if they produce large volumes of copy for:

• Blog posts and articles
• Social media posts
• Ads
• Website landing pages
• Video descriptions
• Titles and topic ideas
• Emails

Although AI writers are helpful and can generate quality copy and ideas, they’re not an outright substitute for human writers. This technology is still in its infancy, meaning it’s nowhere near as good as a real professional who undertakes Content Writing services. That said, many utilize AI writing tools to assist their work (not do it all for them), leading to greater and faster productivity, ideation, and optimization.

How Do AI Writing Tools Actually Work?

AI writing software generates content output based on what the user puts into its parameters. For example, most tools will let users input keywords, title ideas, and headings, after which the program will create content based on those points.

Some AI writing tools suggest titles, keywords, headings, and an overall content outline, making that initial idea generation much faster and easier. Pretty neat, right? As cool as this all is, how exactly does it work under the hood?

AI writing tools are “trained” using data in various formats. Over time they “learn” this data, which enables them to improve their writing and ideation skills. As time goes by, they become talented in producing well-informed, natural-sounding text that’s more human-like than ever. That latter quality stems from the fact that the data these AI tools analyze to “learn” comes from humans.

When it’s time for an AI writer to produce content, they conduct “research” on the given topic – as a human writer would. To do this, they scour existing content on the internet and collect data based on the user’s input. Using the acquired data, the AI writer processes it to produce brand-new content.

This entire task would be a fairly lengthy process for a human. However, the beauty of an AI writer is that it carries out all its research, data compiling and processing, and content writing in seconds. How amazing is that?

Why Are AI Writing Tools Popular?

This is clear: AI brains can do a lot for content writing, so the surge in popularity and widespread use is a no-brainer. In fact, according to Salesforce Research’s State of Marketing Study, 84% of marketers claimed to use AI in 2020 compared to just 29% in 2018 – a figure that shows a whopping 186% increase in only 2 years.

With those staggering statistics in mind, what can AI content writers offer users? Here’s a summary:

• Automation and acceleration of content creation
• Faster content ideation
• Search engine optimization of content
• Collection of user-generated content
• The undertaking of repetitive, tedious tasks
• Saving time, allowing humans to focus on other tasks
• Reduction of costs associated with paying human writers
• Mitigation of writer’s block
• Production maximization

What Are The Pros and Cons of AI Content Writing Tools?

The list above briefly mentions a few benefits of AI writing tools – but let’s get into the finer details: the main pros and cons.

The Pros of AI Writing Tools

Starting on a positive note, here are some of the top benefits of AI content software:

1. Efficiency and Scalability

AI content is generated at non-human-like speeds – far faster than anyone could ever write. Think about it: all that ideation, research, and writing might take a human writer anything from 30 minutes to 3 hours. An AI writer fulfils this task in a few seconds. This efficiency can lead to increased scalability.

Other advantages stemming from this efficiency and scalability include:

• Speedy production and publication of content on trending topics
• Ability to localize language for specific geographic regions
• Developing social media content tailored for each platform

2. Cost

AI writing tools are cost-effective. Typically, paying quality human writers commands quality payment. Some copywriters charge anything from $10 to $25 per 500 words, while others charge several hundred dollars for 1 written piece. Of course, writer compensation depends on word counts, the number of articles, experience, and any specialist knowledge, credentials, and qualifications needed to write the content. The price is usually worth it; human writers can create high-ranking, well-researched content on a given topic.

In contrast, AI writing tools are significantly cheaper; they often entail a monthly subscription with restraints on keywords, word counts, and articles generated within the billing period. Prices vary, as do their service types; generally, users can expect to pay $100 to $200 a month for tens or even hundreds of thousands of words. Although, sometimes there are no restrictions for higher-priced unlimited services. Pricing on the lower end (under $20) is also available but offers fewer services and benefits. Given the cost-effectiveness, AI writing tools can be beneficial for creating generic, simple content that doesn’t require too much specialist knowledge.

3. Idea Generation, Writing Content Without Expertise, and Writer’s Block

Every writer experiences the dreaded writer’s block at some point. This is especially common when their task is to create knowledgeable, authoritative content on subjects they don’t know much about. If they’re not an expert, they’ll need to spend hours researching and generating ideas for said topic. That’s where AI tools save the day.

AI writing tools can develop detailed content outlines, key points, and other important aspects for a topic, which is handy for writers who aren’t qualified in the given subject.

The Cons of AI Writing Tools

1. Quality

The misuse of facts and statistics, along with the often robotic flow of the content, are 2 primary quality concerns of AI writers. As mentioned, they rely on data analysis and algorithms to write content. Since they use existing content as a base, they’re not immune to unintentional repetition, and the tone can sometimes come across as unhuman-like.

Additionally, AI writers can’t fact-check – this is one of the current biggest concerns. Therefore, humans must check, proof, and edit facts and stats, which requires time and money. While the AI brain is impressive, it’s still a robot at the end of the day.

2. Plagiarism

Again, AI writing tools learn from pre-existing content across the web. Many also scrape content from other websites before re-wording them to make an “original” piece. That goes against Google’s guidelines on auto-generated content. The search engine giant states that “stitching or combining content from different web pages without adding sufficient value” is a big no-no.

3. Google Algorithm Penalties

Google’s Helpful Content Update began rolling out in August 2022, with a second update in December of the same year. This significant change means the search engine’s robots now aim to make the user search and content consumption experience more “helpful.” Google wants to see and will reward “original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.” In the same breath, it recommends that people “avoid creating content for search engines first.”

Plenty of AI-writing tools’ algorithms analyze search engine results without a user-first approach. When scouring the web, they don’t fully understand what the searcher is looking for – that’s something only a human can do. Bluntly, AI isn’t a user-first solution. Since Google likes human-written, helpful content, it might penalize pages and websites containing content it deems to be “auto-generated.”

4. E-A-T Concerns

According to Google’s quality rater guidelines, it ranks content for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T). Sadly, AI content often suffers from a lack of E-A-T, thereby harming its chances of earning high spots on the search engine results pages.

Today, people are skeptical of online content in the age of misinformation and fake news. A way to garner reader trust is to show off expertise, qualifications, and years of experience in the subject. The only problem is this: AI can’t offer these qualities – only real-life human writers can. That’s why the public and quality raters may struggle to trust AI-generated content.

Despite this concern, here’s some food for thought: the Click Intelligence team attended the BrightonSEO event in October 2022, where they watched a fascinating presentation on AI content from Mat Bennett – an Agency Advisor with decades of experience in running digital agencies. His talk, titled “Can you trust AI with your content”, revealed some astonishing (and promising) results.

Bennett compared AI-written articles with human-written ones (from specialist and non-specialist writers), asking the public to score each based on engagement, knowledge, and trust. Amazingly, the discrepancies between AI and human content were overwhelmingly minimal; both appeared to rank similarly under these categories. Could this data suggest that AI is getting rather good? Only time will tell.

5. Missing Nuance

Creativity and originality make content interesting, engaging, and shareable – very human qualities that only humans can inject into a piece. AI doesn’t have the same emotional intelligence as people nor the ability to comprehend nuances across languages, leaving much to be desired from its talents in these areas.

Furthermore, remember that AI writing tools rely on already-published content and data. Coupled with their lack of nuance and creativity, this reliance renders them incapable of understanding users’ search intent. Because of this, their use isn’t always ideal for long-term content goals and evergreen strategies.

AI Content – What Does Google Say?

AI content goes against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines – that’s no secret. In Search Engine Journal’s post on AI-generated content, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst, John Mueller, said that content written by AI is considered spam (as per Google’s spam policies) and Google’s algorithms could hand out manual penalties for its use.

Can the search engine identify AI content?Mueller doesn’t make any distinct claims when asked if Google can automatically detect and understand the difference between content written by machine learningMachine Learning is the branch of artificial intelligence (AI) that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. tools and humans. What he did claim, though, is that Google’s webspam team is authorized to take action if they spot auto-generated content.

Which AI Content Creation Tools to Try?

While the disadvantages of AI content writing are a problem (and Google’s keeping a close watch on its misuse), the technology is still a baby; it’s likely to improve in the coming years. For now, though, the many benefits of AI writing tools are tempting and could serve users well on the proviso that they utilize them wisely.

If you’re among the people looking to try AI content generator software online, you’re in luck; they’re plentiful. They’re not all made equal, however. Out of all the long-form and short-form AI content writing tools, the following come highly rated in terms of quality, features, human likeness, SEO-friendliness, user-friendliness, and price tag.

Writesonic

Reasons to try Writesonic:

• Over 70 tools and 25+ languages
• Engaging, SEO-friendly, plagiarism-free content
• Powered by AI and human creativity
• Built on the GPT-3 model
• Multiple content types – articles, blog posts, website landing pages, ad copy, and more
• User-friendly interface for seamless navigation
• Free trial
• Paid plans start at just under $13 for up to 47,500 words monthly

2. Jasper

Reasons to try Jasper:

• GPT-3 technology
• Generates various types of content: SEO-friendly articles, blog posts, social media posts, YouTube scripts, and ebooks
• Over 50 copywriting templates, an SEO mode, and over 25 supported languages
• Clean, simple user interface for smooth navigation
• Paid plans start from $24 a month

3. GetGenie

Reasons to try GetGenie:

• All-in-one AI WordPress tool for content writing
• Up to 1500 words with the free version
• Over 30 templates
• SEO keywordKeywords are the words and phrases that potential customers might search for to find your business. analysis
• Competitor SERP analysis
• Content optimization and SEO suggestions for search engines
• Produces all types of compelling, SEO-rich content for professional and personal projects
• Free trial
• Paid plans start from $15 a month

4. Rytr

Reasons to try Rytr:

• Very budget-friendly compared to other AI tools
• High-quality content (but fewer features than its competitors – reflected in the price)
• Over 30 languages and 20 tones
• Built-in plagiarism checker
• Free plan
• Paid plans start at just $9 a month

Tip: Don’t like any of these? Check out Search Engine Journal’s list of top 10 AI writing tools for more suggestions.

Conclusion

There’s no way around it: high-quality, engaging, sharable content combined with SEO strategies is the key to online success. For years, content creators, SEO experts, and marketers have undertaken this task manually to grow businesses. However, with the rise of AI content generators, professionals are getting a helping hand. These smart robots help spark ideas, enrich content for SEO, facilitate high volumes of content output, and undertake monotonous jobs so that professionals can focus on more pressing ones.

The technology behind AI writing software is too young and doesn’t come without disadvantages. In addition, as of yet, there’s no replacement for human writers, whose expertise, emotional intelligence, nuance, skills, and creative flair rank higher than AI. Still, for now, AI can assist humans, speeding up content creation, deployment, and marketing – as long as they’re used carefully and responsibly. Google has its eyes on this, after all.