The chances are you’ve heard ChatGPT being mentioned heavily in your social feeds and in business articles in recent months. But what exactly is it?

In essence, ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that promises to automate many tasks, including writing content for you. But do these AI content-writing tools live up to the hype? And what’s the best way to balance using a solution like ChatGPT with the core skills of human-powered writing?

What does ChatGPT do?

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot model from OpenAI that can produce complex, well-written responses to any prompt you give it. It uses a vast database of sources to provide you with complete blog posts, articles, emails - in fact, it will write whatever you ask it to.

Is AI content writing the answer to your business prayers?

If you believe what technologists and business leaders are saying, these AI tools can potentially replace much of the human work involved in writing. This could mean writing your blog posts, sales emails, or even looking after your internal comms. (There are a lot of other functions the tools can be applied to, but we are focussing on writing).

What’s the best balance between AI and human writing?

AI tools are helpful. But, at present, you still need a human in the equation. Someone to initiate the ideas, write intelligent prompts and edit the output to sound human. Working with both AI tools AND a content professional is the best way to get the eye-catching content you deserve.

Does a solution like ChatGPT live up to this promise?

Yes and no. Here are a couple of things you’ll want to remember.

1. Creating Content That Stands Out

ChatGPT can undoubtedly provide you with business content – but it can be quite generic and bland. This generic nature of AI content may be a problem. You want your brand content to stand out and be unique – but this is more difficult when using the same AI tools as every other small business. As Tom Fishburne puts it, the issue is that ‘much of what is created is already a sea of sameness, written more to appease Google’s search algorithms than actual people.’

A human has opinions, personality, and can deliver unique insights. AI can’t do this. It’s limited to the source data and models it’s been provided with. So, if you want your business content to stand out, you need an experienced human who doesn’t just write for bots. Content writing is as much about good ideas as it is about good writing. So, what you input as your prompt to the AI is just as important as the text the software spits out.

2. Content Accuracy

When Chat GPT’s rival, Bard was first launched, it wrongly attributed the discovery of an exoplanet to a telescope that didn’t exist at the time of the discovery. The problem is that the internet has become increasingly cluttered with fake news, spam links and content that’s designed purely for SEO. So it’s no wonder that the AI will sometimes provide you with inaccurate content. As a business owner, you’ll want to ensure that a human is involved for accuracy and relevance for your brand and audience.

At Carthy Accountants, we are always monitoring the marketplace for the most effective tools, programmes, and systems. With the development of AI over the past few months, new products will be released regularly. Therefore anything new that comes out, or any updates released to existing software that we think will benefit our clients, we will be sure to notify you.