Artificial intelligence can be used to empower human copywriters to deliver results.
What if marketers could leverage artificial intelligence for copywriting to deliver content that resonates with specific audiences?
What if, instead of relying on gut instinct alone, creative teams could be mathematically certain about the words and phrases to use in marketing campaigns?
It is now possible to apply science to the art of copywriting, and many brands have already started bringing together man and machine to produce compelling copy and achieve better results.
Human vs. Machine?
As the world grows increasingly computerized, humans have begun to wonder how AI will affect life as we know it. Science fiction writers have already explored the impact of technology in the future, making us believe that the human vs. machine battle will probably end badly.
The debate around whether our society will adapt or succumb to machines is an old one. The Luddite movement in the 19th century is perhaps one of the most violent expressions of protest against the Industrial Revolution and machinery.
In marketing, where human creativity is invaluable, the mention of AI is often perceived as a threat — as if the role of machines would be that of replacing copywriters.
In reality, the goal isn’t to replace human creativity, but to enhance it: artificial intelligence can be used to strengthen writing.
There are already several tools, like Grammarly or Google Translate, that help copywriters on issues with spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc.
These tools are built on advanced NLP models.
Natural Language Processing
Natural language processing (NLP) is a branch of AI that deals with the interactions between computers and human language.
Simply put, NLP is what enables AI for creativity.
- Natural language processing (NLP) is the primary method to analyze human language and break it down into smaller components, like text-to-speech, morphological segmentation, or terminology extraction.
- Through natural language understanding (NLU), the algorithm tries to understand the communication’s meaning after analyzing its components.
- Finally, through natural language generation (NLG), the machine produces words and phrases as a human would do, choosing the appropriate information and grammar.
We use NLP on a daily basis without even realizing it: Google autocomplete, Gmail Smart Compose, LinkedIn AutoFill, text-to-speech functions, machine translations, spam filters in email providers, email classification tools, reply buttons, and many more.
Think of Alexa, Siri, Bixby, and Cortana, and how “nearly human” they seem. That’s the superpower of machine learning: the more data you feed into a model, the more it learns.
The Business Impact of AI
Before NLP, emails and call center requests had to be read or listened to by humans. It wasn’t certainly easy to collect and process millions of data, let alone to analyze it to drive improvements.
NLP solved the problem. By processing millions of customer interactions in a fast and efficient way, AI can provide scientific insights into customer needs, helping marketers produce personalized and effective content.
AI is not poised to replace human copywriters. On the contrary, AI can augment their creativity and help deliver the best content by taking the guesswork out of the equation.
Words + AI = Power
Imagine what creative professionals could do if they were armed with words that were mathematically proven to resonate with specific audiences.
Think of a retailer who wants to produce more personalized email subject lines to increase sales of shoes. A copywriter at the retailer could write “50% off shoes this January”. This subject line would perhaps perform because of the discount, but it wouldn’t make an impact — it’s not really remarkable.
By using AI instead, a copywriter could identify words and concepts that truly resonate with customers and motivate them to buy. With this insight, a creative professional would probably write something more impactful, like “It’s your lucky day! You’re getting 50% off shoes”.
As experiments continue to improve language generation, AI technology gets better and better, delivering AI-driven messages that truly resonate.
As a copywriter who works for a company that combines words with data to generate high-performing creatives, I can say that when a brand uses AI for copywriting, it works; the impact on revenue and conversions is almost immediate.
AI doesn’t write content for me — it improves the quality of my work.
In addition to helping me identify high-performing words and phrases, AI can:
- Ensure content is compliant with brand style guides (e.g. date formats, capitalization, or naming conventions).
- Make sure format, length, and tone are appropriate for a specific channel (e.g. headline should be no more than 50 characters).
- Check messages for spelling and grammar (e.g. repeated or missing words, typos, etc.).
- Identify disallowed words and provide alternatives (e.g. if “promotion” can’t be used, the machine may suggest “offer” instead).
One helps the other. It’s not human vs. machine. It’s human + machine.
The real winner is the customer, who can deliver impact and generate positive ROI by adopting AI for copywriting.
