Generative AI prompts a lot of reactions from content marketers. Everybody seems to have an opinion — or more than one — on the effect of this widely accessible and always evolving technology.
But what’s the worst advice out there about generative AI?
We asked the speakers at Content Marketing World 2024 what they’ve heard and what they advise instead. Over 20 shared the bad and the good — and not all of them agree on which is which. Read on for their takes on the worst generative AI advice:
Take an all-or-nothing approach
Evidently, some people think generative AI involves absolutes. But that’s poor decision-making (or maybe a lack of decision-making), according to our experts.
Ignore generative AI
Some people recommend we avoid using generative AI, which not only sows fear but puts marketers at a disadvantage in a workforce and market landscape increasingly relying on generative AI. I still don’t recommend using generative AI to create content you publish wholesale as is. However, I do think it can be a useful assistant in the content creation process by helping you to generate ideas, analyze data, summarize large pieces of content, extract key points from larger content pieces, identify gaps in your content, and more. — Melanie Deziel, co-founder, CreatorKitchen.com
Don’t use it
The worst advice I’ve heard about gen AI is not to use it at all. That would be like saying I won’t use a spreadsheet. Gen AI is just a tool. Don’t overcomplicate it. Treat it like a member of your staff. Ask Gen AI to help with strategy and ideation and to suggest questions you should be asking, but you’re not. — Bernie Borges, vice president, global content marketing, iQor
Use it ASAP
The worst advice I’ve heard about generative AI in content marketing is to just get started. Yes, it’s undeniably the time to start playing around with generative AI tools and learning their capabilities before you fall behind. However, many content marketing teams — often under the direction of executives who misunderstand the actual capabilities of generative AI — have rushed into using AI to create entire articles and e-books from scratch.
There are many great first content use cases for generative AI — ones that will help you achieve your content marketing goals — and new long-form content creation isn’t one.
Before generative AI can create on-brand and useful content, even if it’s simply repurposing existing content, you’ll need to have a few foundational elements in place.
At a minimum, define your brand voice, create a content style guide, document your content governance policies… oh yeah, and build your content strategy, too! I know this can sound like a lot to take on, but these are integral for helping all content creators—human or otherwise—convey your unique brand voice through content. Otherwise, you’ll produce bland content that won’t appeal to anyone. And our communities don’t need any more of that. — Erika Heald, founder and chief content officer, Erika Heald Marketing Consulting
Go for it or do nothing
Quite a few folks take an all-or-nothing approach to generative AI in content marketing — the idea being that you can either fully embrace it or avoid it entirely. Generative AI can be a helpful tool as long as it’s used in moderation and never used to substitute for your voice or your company’s. — Beth Elderkin, content marketing manager, Informa Connect
Act like generative AI is the be-all-end-all today
Generative AI offers potential solutions, but some of the worst advice comes from people who view it as THE answer for today and tomorrow.
View generative AI as the future
Generative AI is the future of AI. In the martech world, it’s likely to take a back seat to insights AI and decisioning AI (acting) as more of an order taker than a decision-maker (BTW, this is a good thing.) — Tony Byrne, founder, Real Story Group
Treat it as mature technology
Remember the phrase, “I thought I knew everything in my 20s, but when I hit my 30s, I realized I knew nothing.” Generative AI is still in its 20s.
I do a lot of international marketing and I often find that AI can easily make mistakes with the interpretations of culturally rich content. For example, it may utilize the tone of a French Canadian; however, it pulls something that is French from France. All it takes is one error like this to lose the trust of your French-Canadian audience. — Michael Bonfils, global managing director, Digital International Group
Make AI the go-to team member
I’ve heard some scary advice, but by far, the worst has been to fully lean in and let it do all of the heavy lifting for you and your team. AI is a team member, not a replacement for an entire team. It shouldn’t be the crutch on which you lean to write your content but, instead, a powerful tool to enhance and support your creative process.
AI can provide valuable insights, streamline research, and even help with generating ideas, but the human touch is irreplaceable. Content marketing thrives on authenticity, creativity, and emotional connection—qualities that AI, despite its advancements, still cannot fully replicate. Over-reliance on AI can lead to generic, soulless content that fails to engage your audience or convey your brand’s unique voice. — Ashley Baker, founder and chief marketing officer, Coastline Marketing LLC
It’s coming for your job
Generative AI is taking your job. The extent of its effects largely depends on the company’s perspective. While some organizations might be inclined to replace human content creators, others continue to appreciate the value their content teams bring and view AI as a supplementary tool for enhancement.
To better comprehend the implications for your situation, it’s essential to gauge your management’s stance on AI integration. — Pam Didner, vice president of marketing, Relentless Pursuit LLC
Use it as a content creator
Marketers talk frequently about how generative AI tools make content creation easier and quicker, and without the need for human writers. But a lot of that isn’t the best advice.
Create drafts with it
With a few caveats, the worst advice I’ve heard is to use AI to write your first draft. That might be OK for some kinds of content (e.g., technical documentation) or for more mundane aspects of the workflow (e.g., outline, metadata, initial proofing, optimization). But if you’re aiming to differentiate your content from competitors and build a strong, loyal relationship with your audience, then it’s a bad bet.
The real value in starting with an ugly first draft isn’t just to end up with a first draft but to do the thinking that’s involved — to pressure-test your premise, percolate on the possibilities, refine your perspective, ponder whether you’re pushing the alliteration just. a little. too far. Training the AI on your style, voice, and tone may make the robot sound more like you, but writing is a muscle that gets flabby when it isn’t flexed. Use it or lose it. — Carmen Hill, principal strategist and writer, Chill Content LLC
Use it to write
One of the worst pieces of advice I’ve heard about using AI in content marketing is to use it to write content. That type of content isn’t really helpful to organizations in any way unless they’re simply in a race to produce the most content that sounds like everyone else.
Producing more content for the sake of producing more content isn’t getting anyone anywhere. Better content should be the goal. — Michelle Garrett, consultant and writer, Garrett Public Relations
Prompt the posts
Just have ChatGPT write you a blog post.
Do not use these tools as direct content generators without considerable human editing and oversight. These tools are trained with existing content, and the output they create is often word-for-word plagiarism from existing documents.
This technology is fantastic for brainstorming ideas, finding gaps in your content, adjusting the writing style or reading level, but not for copying and pasting. — Brian Piper, director of content strategy and assessment, University of Rochester
Go for volume
The worst advice about generative AI in content marketing is that it allows you to create hundreds of pieces of content and eliminate your writers. It reminds me of the saying, “Just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should do it.” Using AI to pump out that much content only ensures your content will not succeed.
While generative AI is getting better at sounding less formulaic, it still cannot match the finesse that comes from using human writers. AI cannot replace the emotion and strategic thinking infused in prose from skilled wordsmiths. — Andi Robinson, content strategist, Hijinx Marketing
Generate to create
Worst advice: Let generative AI generate (i.e., content). As more content is created by generative AI, the more our content sounds the same. Instead of having generative AI do the thing, use it for one step removed from the thing, which is to help brainstorm and plan your content. That’s right, think of it as ideation AI. — Dennis Shiao, founder, Attention Retention
Eliminate the need for human intervention
I spoke to an engineer who was passionate about tinkering with generative AI to find a way to fully replace humans for writing blog posts. They could not fathom that the best use of AI for blog writers was to make them more creative and efficient. They insisted on working toward a solution that would require little to no rewriting or editing and didn’t understand why we thought this was not only impossible but undesirable. — Monica Norton, vice president, communications and content, Nextiva
Write away
By far, the worst advice I’ve heard (and continue to hear) is to use AI to write your copy. Marketing is all about differentiation. If everyone is using the same copy, how do you stand out? Instead, use AI to generate ideas, summarize research content, and suggest topics. — Jenn VandeZande, editor-in-chief, SAP CX + Industries
Tap into generative AI for better content
Using generative AI as a helper in achieving your content creation and marketing goals is certainly an option. But it may not be the best assistant to help you deliver results.
Get-started assistance
Worst: It’s great for getting over the blank page problem.
Instead, It’s great for critiquing the writing you worked really hard to get right and will help you make it better. — Jim Sterne, president, Target Marketing of Santa Barbara
Don’t use ChatGPT for unique content
Worst AI advice: You can’t use ChatGPT to write unique content.
ChatGPT is trained on millions of pages of web content. So ChatGPT is intimately familiar with the content that has already been published on the web. Fortunately, you can use ChatGPT to measure the uniqueness of YOUR content ideas before you write or before you publish. Simply ask ChatGPT to measure the novelty of your content on a scale from one to 10 and explain its rating. This trick works for content, briefs, topics, outlines, and more. — Dale Bertrand, president, Fire&Spark
Write for the algorithm
Many organizations are worried that they won’t be found unless they write for the algorithm. There are two problems with this: 1. We don’t know the algorithm generative AI is using. 2. Writing for anything besides your audience is a waste of budget. Create content for people with user intent as your guide — not a mysterious algorithm. — Mariah Obiedzinski Tang, assistant vice president of content marketing, Stamats
Believe AI killed SEO
Don’t invest in SEO. SEO is dead! AI killed it. Oh, simmer, Chicken Little.
Gartner predicts search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026 due to AI chatbots and other virtual agents, but SEO isn’t dead, especially when it comes to web content creation and publishing. Search is evolving.
Remember voice search? It was supposed to replace how people bought things and got information. Now, it’s mostly used for simple task automation and to check tomorrow’s weather. Consider social media, too. Facebook, TikTok, Instagram — these channels didn’t replace a brand’s website for e-commerce transactions. Instead, they became other channels for e-commerce.
Generative AI will likely be yet another marketing channel in your customer journey. Remember that search optimization means being understood. Generative AI is another channel for your brand and content to be understood. SEO is the mechanism for being understood online. The pursuit of being understood (by people, AI, search engines, etc.) is a worthy investment. — Haley Collins, director of operations, GPO
See AI as a staffing solution
A lot of the debate around generative AI centers on the human impact. Yet, the experts at CMWorld say that’s a mistake.
Reduce your humans
The worst advice? Cut the staff. Let generative AI write it because it’s faster and cheaper. Yes, it is. But is it good? Right now, the A in AI could easily stand for average.
And content that stands out is anything but. It needs to be different than what’s already been done. It needs to offer a fresh take, a new way of looking at things, perhaps a perspective that challenges the status quo.
The best creative ideas make you consider things. Or reconsider them, viewing them from another vantage point. More than that, they make you feel something. And that job’s too important to outsource to average.
If you must, let AI help you research. Let AI check your spelling. Let AI ensure you’re writing at the desired grade level. But always remember who’s in charge. — Nancy Harhut, chief creative officer, HBT Marketing
Expand AI’s role
Worst advice: Reduce content teams and significantly replace them with a barrage of AI-infused tools for graphics, visuals, video, text, downloadables, etc.
You still need qualified, creative, vision-driven humans to create content that advances the cause. Generative AI is an additional tool in the arsenal; it is not a replacement. That’s where many are getting it wrong and spreading that nonsense like wildfire because they see the cost savings but never do the profit analysis of the value a good content team with tools and budget does in comparison to a lack of one. — Troy Sandidge, founder, Strategy Hackers
Erase the people
The worst advice I’ve heard is that AI is going to completely erase content writers and marketing.
I would advise using AI for the content creation process because it can help you be more efficient and creative as it can speed up tedious tasks that you previously were doing manually such as content outlines, content ideation, content calendars, etc.
AI will not replace people, but people who use AI will replace those who do not. — Zack Kadish, senior SEO strategy director, Conductor
Use it as a replacement
It’s nonsense when people say that our jobs will be taken over by AI. We, as experts in our field, will become better by collaborating with tools like AI. Experts working together with tools equals a win-win situation. — Pauline Lannoo, head of digital strategy, The Fat Lady
Let it do everything
Let’s use AI to do all the things!
No, seriously, we have been testing AI (both paid and free programs) to help us craft SEO articles and follow-up promotional deliverables, such as landing pages, email copy, and ad copy. (TL;DR: The output is like rewatching Star Wars or Alien from the 1970s just to laugh at the CGI. It’s very obvious what was created by a computer and what is from an actual human.) It takes us rounds of prompts to get the AI to seem even somewhat on message and craft content that is not plagiarized.
AI can’t solve all our production pain points for content…yet. Today, it’s a great place to do research, brainstorm different wording for titles, start a good first draft for non-writers, and help redo the tone of a piece. — Amy Higgins, director, content strategy, Cloudflare
Everything in moderation
Generative AI certainly generated a lot of conversation from CMWorld speakers. And though some of it may seem contradictory, a consistent theme emerges: AI won’t replace humans, but every content marketer should get to know the possibilities and figure out how this prolific tool can help — not hinder — their brands’ content marketing results.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute