July 28th 2023.
Last year, I was working as a content writer for a marketing agency. It was a great gig, as I was able to churn out 15-20 articles each month for the agency’s clients. This agency relationship made up around 30% of my monthly income, and I charged a fixed price per article, no matter how long it took.
In December 2022, I received a message from the agency asking if I had heard of something called ChatGPT. I hadn’t, so I asked if it was one of those AI writing things. He said yes, and he was excited to switch me to an hourly rate, claiming I could pump out 10 articles an hour.
I’m all for anything that makes life easier, especially when it comes to work, but I had already tried platforms like Jasper and Copy.AI, and thought they were rubbish. The output was full of incorrect information, gibberish sentences, and had no personality in the tone. I figured AI wasn’t anything to be worried about for the foreseeable future.
The agency persisted, so I decided to give it a go. After creating a free account, I gave the machine it’s first prompt. Write 500 words on marketing strategies for e-commerce brands. I was shocked by how quickly ChatGPT produced well-articulated sentences. It was unsettling, to say the least.
I returned to the client and told them that ChatGPT was pretty dang good. This started a mini-existential crisis for me. I couldn’t sleep, all I could think about was whether this was going to spell the end of my career as a copywriter. I was in the middle of writing my first book, a step-by-step business guide for aspiring copywriters, and suddenly I wasn’t sure of the project at all. I paused the project while I figured out the impact of AI on my business.
Seven months on, I was no longer with the client mentioned earlier, and I had lost some work because of ChatGPT. No one had openly said it, but I was 97% certain that was the case. Thankfully, these losses hadn’t had much of an impact on my cash flow, as other clients had started giving me double.
But I knew that wasn’t the case for other copywriters. Many were struggling to find work, and some were wondering if they should pivot into something else. Business owners were using tools like ChatGPT to increase their profit margins, and we were in a massive exploration phase. Everything was still up in the air.
I believe AI tools like ChatGPT are going to become our collaborators, not our replacements. We can now produce high-quality work in half the time we used to, and no longer have to spend hours looking for sources of information.
It’s time to stop looking at AI with fear and instead start using it as tool to enhance our creative capabilities. Our role as writer is shifting, instead of starting with a blank page every day, we’re going to be editing what AI produces. We still need to understand the target market of our clients, their pain points and desires, and what elements should go into certain pieces of copy.
We need to think of programs like ChatGPT as our junior copywriters. We need to guide it, tell it where it’s going wrong, where it’s missing the mark. Our average client won’t know the fundamentals of copywriting and how to generate good results with AI, so our services will still be required.
As we begin to navigate this sea of change, it’s time to hitch yourself to the bandwagon or get left behind. AI has opened up new possibilities for us, and we should use it as an opportunity to enhance our creativity.
Guest Author: Rachael J. Low is a freelance copywriter and editor who works with a number of marketing agencies producing high-quality copywriting for their clients. You can find out more about her services at [https://www.rachaeljlow.com](https://www.rachaeljlow.com).
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