Recently my LinkedIn feed has been taken over by people discussing AI generated text which has made me wonder whether the future of copywriting is dead and what this means for website content.  Could Al generated copy help clients who struggle writing their content and if so what would the knock on effect be for Search Engine Optimisation? 

ChatGPT

Launched in November 2022 ChatGPT seems to be the main generator that people are talking about and this is apparent as soon as I try to use it.  Because of the volume of people who are interested in this service you cannot always access ChatGPT when you want to, the first time I visited I was informed that the site was at capacity, meaning that I had to fill in a form to be notified when I could access ChatGPT.   What a way to induce FOMO!

So what is Al Generated text?  Basically you can suggest any topic and ChatGPT produces content for you on that topic. ChatGPT is particularly clever as it can produce content that is conversational and can even answer follow up questions.

If you can’t access ChatGPT when reading this you could also have a look at Jasper or You to see what we mean.

So surely this is the dream for everyone who has opened a blank document, tried to write about themselves or their business for their website, given up and gone for a brew instead?  Well, unfortunately ChatGPT is still in its infancy and whilst it is free to use (for now) it can write “incorrect or nonsensical answers“ and is incredibly “verbose.” (their words, not ours.) 

I have also seen posts online where users have asked ChatGPT about their own products and companies and been surprised by the result, so it is definitely not the easy way to write website content. However ChatGPT is in the feedback stage and users are asked to provide feedback so this is something that could be improved over time.

AI Generated Content and Google.

Google, who lets face it we are all trying to impress, says that AI generated copy is against their guidelines and is considered as spam and could lead to a manual penalty. However, there seems to be a lot of discussions going on about how Google and other Search Engines could detect this content, at the moment it would seem Google’s Algorithms need to evolve to be able to detect ChatGPT content, but evolve they will!

Is there a place for Al generated content?

Getting over ‘writer's block’ is one of the key positives that we can see for AI Generated content, it gives you a starting point when you begin writing and may help you to include more keywords that you may not have thought to use. However, it is definitely not at the stage yet where unbiased copy can be produced that you could copy and paste into your website and tick that job off your ‘To Do’ list. 

What next?

If you have also been told that ChatGPT is at capacity but you still need help with writing copy for your website or blogs, then don’t worry, we have some good old fashioned humans who will be happy to help you!