To AI or Not to AI?

That, at the moment, is the hot question. I almost didn’t write this blog post and by that I don’t mean I almost got AI to write it for me. I mean, I’m kind of already done with the conversation, for two reasons.

The first reason is because everyone is talking about it and quite frankly it’s getting a bit boring. I keep seeing online business coaches telling everyone it’s a “game changer” and “if you haven’t looked into it yet you really should” blaady blaady blaa. A notion I don’t agree with.

The second reason is because I’m getting fed up of living in a world where we are trying (not very successfully, thank goodness) to replace people, losing connections and the sense of team, short cutting everything, deskilling ourselves and taking a shortcut to “success” without any sense of achievement or fulfilment at the end. This may sound slightly melodramatic but it’s genuinely where I feel some have got to in business and where many others are going.

We, as I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear, spend a lot of our time in the online world but we do it in a way where we want to make genuine connections with people. The way we create our websites and membership sites is to support business owners to connect with their customers, clients and members. We don’t want these sites to replace the connection, we want it to enhance it.

We encourage people to give writing their own content a go first so they can think about what they need to be saying and they can get their own voice across to their website visitors. If, after trying to write it themselves, they decide they need the support of a copywriter then they are in a better position to work with them and talk to them about the message they want to get across and a copywriter will have the experience to do this in their tone of voice.

I don’t believe that AI can do that.

AI can work well to have a bit of fun. We’ve had a play and created a silly message to a friend in the style of Lady Whistledown (which was wasted because the friend had never watched Bridgerton!) and a blog post in the voice of Romesh Ranganathan (which we’re unlikely to use but gave Chris a laugh) but that’s not our voice and won’t really help people connect with us.

Always Proof Read, Especially if it’s AI Created

AI especially doesn’t work well when you don’t proof read it. I genuinely received this email a week or two ago:

Hi Jude, 

As a co-founder at Ready Steady Websites, you understand the importance of high-quality and reliable services for tech brands.

Your expertise in professional design, membership sites and affordable pricing plans is exceptional – it’s clear that your company values providing customers with top-notch products while still making sure they’re able to thrive online without any headaches or issues!

We believe our agency could greatly benefit from working alongside the team at ***** *** Digital Branding & Experience Design Growth Agency For Tech Brands of Future as they continue their journey of growth within this field — which is broken down below the Ready Steady personalized business proposal. If you’re ever around North Baddesley area I’ve heard Plaza Theatre on Winchester Road has great shows let us know if there’s anything else we can help with?

Have an amazing week ahead!

There were so many things that made me laugh or cringe while reading it. Firstly, there’s this bit:

“We believe our agency could greatly benefit from working alongside the team at…”

I don’t know why they felt the need to tell me that they think they need to work with themselves.

Secondly, AI seems to feel the need for punctuation less and less throughout an email.

Thirdly, The Plaza Theatre being referred to in this email made us really laugh. It’s in Romsey, which is near us and no offence to anyone involved in the theatre, we have been there to see our friends in an amateur dramatics performance of Mother Goose years ago and it was very amusing (mainly because one of our friends was the goose!) but I think most residents of Romsey would agree that if you’re going to pick on a place of interest to suggest someone visits while in the area, The Plaza is probably going to come lower down the list.

Other places that could have been suggested are Romsey Abbey, Broadlands House if it’s open, Sir Harold Hillier Gardens or Mottisfont, a National Trust property and gardens. They all come up higher than The Plaza when you search for “places to visit in Romsey” (incidentally as does Peppa Pig World!) and all I can assume happened here was that AI was trying to be a bit more clever and to show a more local, human knowledge of the area. It failed.

And proudly in the footer of the email it states that the email was written and sent by AI (which I had already worked out) and that I can unsubscribe if I’d like to. I haven’t because I’m hoping to find the next one even more amusing.

AI Can Lead to Poor Brand Experience

This would be poor advertising for any company. Even if the email was written by a person, I don’t like this cold email approach assuming they can write a business proposal knowing nothing about how we run our business but it’s even worse that they are apparently experts in digital branding and experience. In one email they have created a terrible experience of coming into contact with their business and damaged their brand.

I’d love to know your thoughts on AI and for a Copywriter’s perspective, take a look at this LinkedIn post.

In conclusion, (if you’ve read LI post mentioned above you’ll find the use of that at least mildly amusing) I’m leaning very much to not to AI and I can’t see that changing anytime soon.

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Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash