3 Ways AI Could Change the Content Marketing Process

It’s hard to escape discussions surrounding artificial intelligence these days. Whether it’s a debate about the integrity of AI-generated art or just general news about what tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot are capable of doing for companies, there’s a very high chance you’ve heard something about the rise of AI in the last few months. And there’s a reason it’s popping up in so many conversations both on and offline: AI has the potential to be a major game changer for businesses, especially in the content marketing world.

Here are a few ways AI could revamp the content marketing process as we currently know it.

1. It can help produce data and ideas

 The possibilities for ChatGPT’s abilities have felt endless for companies since its debut in November 2022. One reason marketers see it as a useful tool is because it can be used for a multitude of tasks that will manage to help them save some time in the long run. These tasks include things such as putting together suggestions for ways to market a product or service to consumers, analyzing audience insights for a new or ongoing project, or just simplifying and interpreting large amounts of data, whether it’s feedback or conversations people are having on social media. 

But like anything automated, the key thing to keep in mind is that you can’t just plug in your variables and go. Automated tools like ChatGPT need a real, live human to monitor it to not only give it detailed instructions, but to also help avoid intentional biases and outdated information.

2. Brands and publishers could use it to write articles and other assets

Before AI’s recent surge in popularity, some marketers outside of content marketing were already looking into ways they could automatically generate content. Several AI tools such as Acrolinx, Article Forge, Atomic Reach, Ghost Writer, and INK have been available for people to use. These tools have the ability to do things like comprehend a company’s language and tone to produce copy, build out posts with videos and images, suggest content ideas, and sometimes even translate what it’s written into other languages.

An emerging trend following ChatGPT’s release has been brands and publishers experimenting with the tool — as well as OpenAI’s other offerings — to construct articles. Tech site CNET was the first news outlet to start publishing AI-generated stories without any formal announcement back in November. Bankrate, a financial services company, and CreditCards.com, a site under Bankrate, also followed suit with their own AI-generated content. Recently, BuzzFeed announced that it’s looking into generating some of its content with OpenAI, and that led to its stock shares increasing to more than 300% in mid-January.  

Although there’s a lot of promise and financial incentive swirling around AI-generated articles, a lot of tweaking still needs to be done to get it right. CNET has actually stopped publishing them for the time being because existing content generated factual errors and even caused some unintentional plagiarism. Bankrate and CreditCards.com, which are owned by Red Ventures, the same private equity firm that owns CNET, have also paused using AI tools for the time being. But with sites like BuzzFeed announcing plans to implement AI-generated content, it might not be long until another brand or publisher does the same.

3. It might create a whole new landscape for search engines

Content marketers simply publishing AI-generated articles has had a significant impact on SEO when it comes to how certain sites are ranked on search and how search engines evaluate and detect AI-generated content. But search engines themselves are quickly trying to ride the AI wave and adapt as much as they can to ensure they don’t get lost in the emerging technology world.

In December 2022, the New York Times reported that Google issued a “code red” in response to ChatGPT’s growing popularity and threat to being a major competitor for the platform. CEO Sundar Pichai is already working with other employees to figure out Google’s AI strategy. The Times also learned that some employees are even building out other AI products similar to OpenAI’s DALL-E technology for images and artwork in order to stay ahead of the curve. As of February 2023, the only response is the announcement of Bard, a new chatbot Google plans to unveil soon. 

Meanwhile, Microsoft Bing already has plans to join forces with OpenAI in the near future. In January, it announced that services from the research lab, including ChatGPT itself, is coming to Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform. The goal is to have these tools become more accessible for companies and developers to use in their day-to-day workloads. It even just released a new version of Bing powered by AI technology from OpenAI.

Interested in learning more about the intersection of AI and digital products? Get in touch.