AI and Content Writing_ How to Adapt to the Future

Content has ruled digital strategies for the past couple decades now — and with that reign, we’ve seen some great content writing, as well as some misfires. But that’s all human error — unavoidable, right? Well, the recent evolution of AI has given us reason to think again.

With recent developments in the realm of AI and PR, we now have access to tools and strategies that make better content possible. We have AI programs designed to mimic human writing styles and improve the content that brands create.

But is this really as good as it sounds? What can AI do for your brand? What are the limitations of this technology? And what does the future hold for AI in terms of writing content? Let’s take a closer look and get answers to these important questions.

But first, let’s take the time to answer a simple question: What is AI?

What Is AI?

Artificial Intelligence

As Techopedia defines it, artificial intelligence is the “area of computer science that emphasizes the creation of intelligent machines that work and react like humans.” At first, this might conjure images of robot take-overs — but the reality is much simpler and much less scary.

In fact, artificial intelligence is something we use everyday, without even thinking about it. From speech recognition on your phone to customer service chatbots that field simple questions, AI makes our lives easier.

Over the past couple years, we’ve seen incredible leaps in the development of artificial intelligence — especially those that impact the PR industry.

As we’ve discussed in previous posts, AI is helping PR professionals in many areas. For starters, AI helps us to automate menial tasks like social media scheduling and simple office tasks. It also helps us sift through mountains of data to determine the best strategies — whether it be influencer marketing, social media or media outreach.

content writing and ai

But this brings us to the latest area of artificial intelligence: content writing.

In the past, writing content has always been relegated to content writers and creators. It was thought that content needed a purely human touch. Yet, analyzing millions of articles across hundreds of industries and with a vast knowledge of spelling and grammar, AI has stepped up to the task.

This of course opens up many of the questions we mentioned before, such as: What can this technology be used for? What are its limitations? Let’s take a closer look at present AI technology and get some answers.

What’s on the Horizon for Artificial Intelligence and Content Writing?

AI has some incredible capabilities — just in PR, we see how it has made our lives easier. We’ve also seen how AI can help our businesses to run smoother, especially thwarting human error.

And writing content is no different. We’ve seen for years how spelling grammar checkers can catch errors that we’ve missed and overall improve the quality of our writing. And with auto-complete on many phones and computers, we see how AI can speed up the writing process.

So it comes as no surprise that AI has continued to develop with the times. But does that mean that this technology is prepared to take on all of your writing tasks? Let’s look at what we know so far.

content writing and ai have limitations

The Limitations of AI Writing

As with anything, AI-written content is far from perfect. While artificial intelligence can glean tone and theme from a couple sentences of text and write a few paragraphs, it still makes some glaring mistakes.

The New Yorker recently conducted a test to see whether AI technology could be used to create an article that would meet its high publishing standards. Using an AI tool called GPT-2, they fed it the necessary information and the tool produced an article.

But the big question is… Was it ready to go to print?

In the end, they found that while the AI technology could construct grammatically correct senses, it lacked the ability and skill to reason and conceptualize — both important components in content, especially when you’re creating articles for The New Yorker. It seems that staff writers at The New Yorker do not have to worry about their jobs.

But even without the ability to reason and conceptualize as well as a human, AI still has the potential to help in the creation of content.

The Best Uses for AI Writing

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Right now, the majority of brands who use AI have it sift through data and create content from that. For example, The Washington Post has used AI to sift examine sports scores and create articles that summarize local games, as well as post updates to Twitter about those games. The LA Times has been using AI to analyze earthquake data and turn around breaking news articles on earthquakes throughout the world.

Such data-driven AI articles are a boon — they take the pressure off staff writers and help content sites disseminate important information as quickly as possible.

And the possible uses for this technology are endless. Think of the number of industries who create huge data sets daily. Without AI, it would take a lot longer to analyze the data, with the possibility of missing some key points.

The Bottom Line

Especially for high-quality content that needs to maintain impeccable standards, it’s unlikely brands will rely solely on AI in the near future.

Even when using AI to write articles, brands will need a safeguard to ensure standards and to maintain their brand’s voice. It’s safe to say that we are a long way from handing all of our content creation needs over to artificial intelligence. However, for data-based content writing where the facts are paramount, AI can be a boon.

Now that you know what’s happening in artificial intelligence, let’s take a look at some tools you can use in your content writing.

5 Powerful AI Tools to Keep at Your Side

Article Forge

This AI tool takes any topic and generates an article about it. How does it do this? Once you enter your topic and keyword, it will search all all relevant online content and gather that information into a unique article. It also can integrate SEO tactics into each article to give you a leg up.

Grammarly

While this tool does not write articles for you, its artificial intelligence and machine learning components help you to write better content. It is equipped to warn you of spelling and grammar mistakes, as well as offer suggestions for improvements.

Scoop.It

This platform, equipped with a knowledge of content marketing best practices and the ability to analyze the performance of your content, is designed to give you the best advice and predictions about your content. With fresh insights and advice, it gives you the knowledge you need to adapt your strategy according to your current needs. You can even set it to curate relevant content and distribute it to your audience.

Word.Ai

Have an article that you’re not terribly fond of, but don’t have the time to re-work it? This is where Word.Ai comes in. Input the article into its system and it will re-write it into a brand-new, original piece.This is particularly helpful if you need an article that won’t raise red flags with Google’s algorithm or Copyscape for duplicate content.

Wordsmith

This AI tool from Automated Insights takes your data and produces a written narrative for it. Whether you have data on your organization’s structure or goals, Wordsmith can take those numbers and give you back a well-written narrative. Used by such companies as The Associated Press and Yahoo, Wordsmith has produced thousands of articles with little more than a set of data.

Technology is constantly expanding the scope of AI, especially when it comes to content writing. This amazing technology gives you strategic tools to help you create better content. Let’s see what the future brings in AI technology.

Do you use AI for your content creation? Let us know how you like it in the comments below!

Read more: AI + Content Marketing = The Future of 2021