The rise of AI and why you still need a copywriter

As somebody terribly brilliant once predicted: “robots will take over humans completely.” And it would seem, with the emergence of AI writing tools, that fateful day, as told by Stephen Hawking, has only gone and damn well arrived for the content and copywriting industry. 

The beginning of the end (or just a maintenance break?)

Just as we thought things couldn’t get much worse after, oh, you know, Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden’s Irish tea party, the Dalai Lama sucking some kid’s tongue, and Kim Kardashian getting a starring role in the new American Horror Story (not my grievance. I’m a KiKi fan), Google Bard strolls in and asks us to hold its drink whilst casually plotting world domination (according to the Daily Mail. Which means it simply must be true. Ahem).

Resistance is futile (and other tall tales)

Resistance is futile, my fellow copywriter friends, so we better just accept we’re all well and truly screwed and that it’s time go find ourselves a manual job as our talents are now utterly useless. Whatever will become of our fair soft hands that were made for tippy-tappy-typing? We know not of the perils of laborious labouring for our keep – just the occasional RSI on deadline days. And the utter devastation of running out of coffee. Oh, the horror!

Why AI still needs a sharp-brained human at the helm

But here’s the thing, dear reader, although AI is well and truly creeping all up in the copywriting grill, it’s preposterous to believe that it’s going to replace the art of a finessed wordsmith anytime soon. 

From Bard taking a ‘maintenance break’ (perhaps I could use this line when I need a spa afternoon) and missing keywords from detailed copy briefs (oh, I’ve put him through his paces), to confidently giving the wrong information on public figures even when questioned (clearly taking inspo from the Daily Mail), I can confidently say, from the thorny seat of my copywriter’s throne, that using Bard for ‘content’ requires two things: a Google account, and a sharp-brained organ grinder at the helm.

Bite me, Bard.