With the recent explosion of AI-related content generation, the big question marketers are asking is how can it make my life easier? Can it write my annual report? Can it create an alumni relations plan for me?
The good news is, it can do all those things. The bad news is, all those things will read and sound like they were done by Spock from Star Trek. (Trekkies! I know he’s not a robot but you get the drift).
Despite all the hype, AI isn’t replacing humans any time soon. And that’s because AI is really only as good as the person using it. I’ll explain what I mean in a little bit. Suffice it to say, AI will never be able to replace human creativity and craftsmanship. That’s good if you’re worried about your job, but bad if you were hoping AI could be your new source for student profiles.
Over the last couple months, we’ve been dipping our toes into the AI waters for ways that we might use it to save our client’s money. Here are a few things we’ve learned.
AI is great for certain types of content. For example:
- You have original source material you want rewritten (think longer, shorter, or in the style of Dr. Seuss)
- You know what you want to say but not how to say it
- You said something you want to say in different words
In these cases, AI content-generators like Jasper can help you repurpose content or generate “new” content in the form of first drafts and outlines.
This Vlog “How Can College Marketers Start Using AI” from GradComm CEO, Cheryl Broom, has three more suggestions for ways to use AI to make your job easier.
But no matter how you use AI, the truth is, if you want well-written, original ideas (apart from those you input), AI isn’t going to get you there. And the reason is simple—because AI generates content based on existing content and what it generates can only ever be derivative.
While that may be “good enough” for some people, it isn’t good enough for us. But what it is good enough for is busywork.
One area that seems promising to me, is that it cannot only help you repurpose a 2000-word feature article into a social media post, but it can also help you repurpose that content across platforms.
Another platform, Vidyo AI, enables you to convert YouTube videos into short, bite-sized videos for TikTok and Instagram. Pretty cool when you’re an army-of-one fighting for your sanity.
But AI has its limitations. One important thing to know is that computer-generated content can sound computer-generated (go figure). Transitions often lack logic. Narratives don’t always feel cohesive. And word choice can sound like a non-native speaker using a thesaurus.
This is a key lesson to learn. AI-generated content requires human expertise to not only use the platform, but to refine the content it creates. SwellAI, which converts podcasts to long-form content, doesn’t know what we want to emphasize and highlight, or how to generate emotion. So, we know not to use it for that.
One of the things our Marketing Director Coleen Fisher has discovered is that the content she gets out of an AI platform is only as good as the guidance and information she puts in.
Still, it’s a great way for Coleen, who is not a writer by trade, to get help turning her ideas into words. Coleen understands that this isn’t going to help her improve writing skills but when she’s in a pinch, it’s a great way to get the ball rolling and over the finish line.
“Learning to write better prompts in ChatGPT has helped me tremendously in being able to complete more content in less time,” says Coleen who knows that whatever ChatGPT creates, it will always require her to review and revise it.
In this way, AI is like a calculator. As a tool, a calculator isn’t going to help me get better at math but that’s not why I use it. I use it because it will help me save time and be more accurate when balancing my checkbook.
GradComm’s Graphic Designer and established Tiki-artist Harry Decker learned something similar using the image generating platform Midjourney.
“At first I couldn’t understand why my images were so bad and other people’s looked so good,” Harry said. “But once I learned the nuances of the platform and the kind of wording and direction it needed, my results improved dramatically.”
After building some expertise, Harry enjoyed playing with the platform and exploring what it could do. After a few weeks of familiarizing himself with the platform and AI-generated art, something interesting happened. He started to be able to distinguish between human- and AI-generated materials.
“The more you use it, the more you can tell.” So while AI might promise a quick fix for design needs, savvy audiences are already starting to know the difference.
Still, Harry found it a useful way to brainstorm and research ideas. But not for the reasons you might expect. Because image-generating AI uses existing content to build “new” images, AI can be a great way to research what has already been done.
“For example, if you ask AI to create a gym logo, you’ll probably get something with a dumbbell because that’s what everyone else is using. But a logo that looks like everyone else’s is exactly the opposite of what a logo is supposed to be.” Ironically, the real power of AI might not be what it generates, but what it tells you about what has already been generated.
As an artist and designer, Harry thinks AI’s real value is as a research and brainstorming tool. Even though what it creates can be cliché and off-looking, Harry admits that the spark of inspiration can come from anywhere.
While an AI-generated image or article might not be publishable in and of itself, it might contain a juxtaposition of aspect or color or language or theme that inspires something that is.
But it takes a human eye, not AI, to see that. And that, of course, is the rub.
