Is ChatGPT going to take my copywriting job?

Last year, I reluctantly fired her up when I was tasked with writing a fairly simple press release. I’d been putting off the to-do for a few days and decided it’d be the perfect test case to indulge my ChatGPT curiosity.

I was surprised and delighted by how quickly it spit out a perfectly boring, yet clear, starting point for my assignment.

The tool saved me time. Sure, I still had a bit of polishing and finessing to do (I had to take the mishmash of business jargon and translate it into something more nuanced, interesting and on-brand for the company), but it gave me a great head-start!

Which is what I think ChatGPT is truly exceptional at: helping humans get out of our own way and start our writing projects - big and small.

ChatGPT is not going to pen the next Barbara Kingsolver novel or Taylor Swift song. And it probably won’t do a great job naming your startup. But it’s incredibly helpful at getting things going during one of the most challenging parts of any writing assignment: the beginning.

Whether you’re writing a dreaded follow-up email where the tone needs to be justttttt right or you’ve been tasked with writing a think-piece (like this one? Meta!) for your company’s blog, starting writing projects can feel overwhelming both for seasoned writers and more reluctant ones.

It feels good to just have some other entity give you a nudge in the right direction. In my opinion, this is the best use case for ChatGPT. Second best use case for ChatGPT? The prompt in this IG thread.

Here are some other great writing use cases for ChatGPT:

• A sweet message to hand-write in your grandma’s birthday card
• Cover letters that match your personality and expertise to specific job postings and opportunities
• Blog post ideas
• Cheesy poems
• Theme ideas for your kid’s 2nd birthday party
• First messages to Hinge matches
• Passive aggressive emails to coworkers you low-key hate
• Generic rejection emails to unqualified job candidates
• Copyediting or spell-checking something you’ve already written (there are many other great tools for this too, like Grammarly and the Hemingway App)

But is ChatGPT coming to take my copywriting job? In my opinion, not yet - and here's why

*ChatGPT is only as smart as the person asking the prompts.

The challenge with so many AI tools is that the software is only as helpful and powerful as the human asking the technology for guidance. You, as the human, have to know what to ask and how to ask it.

What do you want? What do you need? How can you communicate this clearly?

As someone who has worked in the advertising industry for almost 20 years, I can tell you that even the most visionary, articulate clients struggle with this…and MOST clients are not the best at articulating what they want and why.

If you give a machine feedback, you need to clearly state what isn’t working and how it needs to be fixed. When you’re working with a professional creative or copywriter, you can be a bit more nuanced and vague, and allow them to interpret your feedback in a variety of different ways.

*ChatGPT is awesome at small, simple writing tasks, but it sucks at more creative, conceptual assignments.

For business purposes, ChatGPT is great at executing already formed ideas or strategies. If you need a blog post written on a particular topic or a first stab at a job description you’re hiring for, then ChatGPT is your girl.

But if you need to create a marketing plan from scratch or determine whether it makes sense to pay for LinkedIn ads vs buy an exhibition booth at such-and-such conference, then ChatGPT won’t get you very far.

It’s not fantastic at coming up with new concepts or growth tactics on its own. It’s incredibly literal; for better and for worse.

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*ChatGPT writes copy that is grammatically correct. But has no soul.

You need a human being to make your brand come alive. To feel friendly and authentic. It’s very obvious now when something has been written by AI or has been translated into English without being reviewed by a human with a strong grasp of the language.

Do not undervalue the importance of intuition, experience, creativity and human reason. Yes, using ChatGPT is cheaper than hiring a professional copywriter or creative director, but it’s nowhere near as good.

Although, I’m sure the technology will just keep getting better and better. Then ChatGPT will write the next Barbara Kingsolver book and every member of the human race will be moot. Hopefully I’ll be dead by then….