Hear that?

Oh, right.
That’s because my reaction to this breathless clamor around AI is a silent (but no less primal) scream.

The sky is falling around copywriters and marketing professionals — or that’s what the Chicken Little pundits want us to believe.

The grey area doesn’t get clicks. Nuance doesn’t generate revenue.
Grumble.

I should say that my reaction to AI — specifically, ChatGPT, who I have come to lovingly refer to as “Gipput” — was a soundless wail.

But I’m coming around.

Last week, I asked Gipput to help me write some page titles and meta descriptions (Ann Handley told me to) for a luxury landscape lighting designer’s website I’m working on. 

I provided my copy and the foundational messaging I’d created, and it spit out 130-character Google-ified metadata that I had no interest in attempting to “wordsmith.”

That stuff doesn’t need to be poetry — copy, paste, boom 💥

Just yesterday, I entered this prompt verbatim into ChatGPT:
“What’s a less douchey way to say ‘level up’ or ‘next level’ or ‘upgrade’?”

Turns out an AI developed in part by nerd bros may have bro bias. I received “step up,” “progress,” “improve,” “enhance,” and “refine,” dba “nothing helpful,” in return.

Be less basic, Gipput. 🙄

Cueing to a defined brand voice trims the GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) factor by a hair.

I started a conversation — yes, I do consider them conversations with my friend Gipput, who has a British accent — asking for several LinkedIn posts based on the content of a recent email.

Then I asked it to rewrite them in a voice that marries Jennifer Lawrence and Chrissy Teigen.

I wound up with Gen Z Hype Girl Party Girl Girl Boss.

But it was better than where we started.

Then, I asked that silver-tongued, brown-nosing automaton to define my brand voice based on the same email:

Color me equal parts flattered and vindicated.

This is the stuff a robot won’t be able to do for you for a long time.

Let it build a dry-toast messaging skeleton and slather your Kerrygold personality all over it.
Let it spit out the metadata.
Let it brainstorm high-level blog post topics.
Let it hammer out FAQs to counter objections before would-be customers can even think of them.
Let it power an AI cat named Mittens, as my genius friend Stacey has.

Gipput’s actually lovely to spend time with.

What he can’t do yet (and I do mean “yet”):

BE YOU.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: There are probably at least a few folks who do what you do. But nobody does it like you.

And nobody can talk about what you do (like you do) like you do.

Do go gentle into that AI-powered night,
Paige

P.S. The Daily just did an episode about Bing’s new AI-powered chat search, its possibilities and limitations, and the doomsday it (clearly) hints at for advertisers and marketers. Give it a listen if you’re down to Barbaro.