In the digital age, almost everything seems to be automated. From ordering food to booking a hotel room, our lives are becoming easier and easier with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). So it’s no surprise that AI is now being used to write articles, amid other forms of content generation. Although many people are skeptical of this new technology, articles written by AI have already been published by some of the world’s biggest publications. Here’s what you need to know about AI-generated content and why you might want to use it yourself.
How AI Can Help With Content Creation
Anyone who’s ever tried to write an article knows that it can be a time-consuming and frustrating process. You’ve to come up with a topic, research it, organize your thoughts, and then actually sit down and write the article. No wonder so many people give up before they even get started.
But what if there was a way to make the process of creating quality content, specifically articles, easier?
That’s where AI content writing tools come in.
AI, or artificial intelligence, is becoming more sophisticated and can now be used in a variety of tasks, including content creation.
There are a number of ways AI can help, from brainstorming to research to writing the actual article. And while AI is still in its infancy, it’ll become more useful as it evolves.
It’s being used in large corporations (including news organizations), agencies, and “cottage industries” or solopreneurs.
The Different Ways AI Can Be Used for Writing
There are many different ways AI can be used for writing articles.
Research
One common method is to use AI to assist in the research process. AI can gather data from a variety of sources and then put it into a format that’s easy for humans to read and understand. This can save the author a lot of time and effort by eliminating the need to dig through mountains of data themselves.
For example, there are AI tools like Scholarcy that can summarize an entire book at different levels of detail to give you a basic overview of the book.
Another tool I’d highly recommend if you have a Mac is DEVONthink. It’s very popular in the academic community and uses its own AI engine to identify connections between different pieces of text, which is helpful for a nonfiction writer when doing research.
It also has topic models and graphical representations of those models. One notable startup is Infranodus, which can represent a topic as a three-dimensional topic map and show connections between specific words and ideas.
Related: Is DEVONThink Worth It
SEO Article Research
If you’re writing SEO articles to attract traffic to your site via Google or another search engine, there are a number of AI-driven research tools that help identify appropriate topics and subtopics.
Some of the better known include MarketMuse (which we use at Brilliantio), Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, and Semrush.
Tools like Frase AI and SurferSEO make it easier to understand “search intent” (what searchers are looking for) by automatically breaking down the components of articles that Google is currently ranking for a given topic. By understanding what’s “winning” on Google, you can better understand what people are likely searching for.
These tools also help identify the headings – the sections – of the article that, when included in the article, will help it rank better on Google.
In addition, there are some new vendors that help identify so-called “long-tail” article topics for which a site can rank on Google (and thus be seen by searchers). Especially those that are underserved or unserved – in other words, for which there are currently no articles that serve information seekers on the Internet.
These new tools include, most notably, Low Fruits (which we use) and Keyword Chef (which we also use).
Writing
There are, of course, many ways to write an article. They range from pen and paper to fairly sophisticated systems.
Although many have looked for AI writer “one-click” solutions to article writing or long-form content – enter a topic, click a button, and post – this kind of programmatic approach doesn’t work well so far. Neither in terms of article quality nor in terms of Google deciding which articles to rank for a given topic.
Nevertheless, AI-generated content is playing an increasingly important role in helping content and article creators quickly produce a first draft of an article. They are rapidly becoming a crucial writing assistant for people who need to publish at scale.
In the past, writing assistant software and apps were at the level of ‘spinning’ – essentially, rewording existing text. A form of plagiarism, in fact, because in no sense were they generating original content. Now, the way in which progressive machine learning language models work means that they generate unique content, based on hundreds of millions of samples.
Our Experience at Brilliantio
At Brilliantio, we’ve experimented with the best AI writing tools – most notably Jasper, CopyAI, Chibi, and Sudowrite. We have a stack of other tools that we visit from time to time to check on their progress. Each app has its strengths and weaknesses and its own target market.
Sudowrite, for example, is particularly well suited for writing fiction and freely developing and expanding ideas. Chibi is in a similar vein but has the advantage of being more adaptable to your own voice and style – perhaps making it ideal for nonfiction writers.
Related: What is Sudowrite
Jasper and Copy AI are currently the best options for writing first drafts of a series of article headings. Copy AI has developed a special tool called the “Blog Post Wizard” for this purpose, while Jasper uses its Boss Mode Wizard with commands within the document or a special “Paragraph Generator” tool.
Ultimately, for all of these tools, it depends on how and to what extent they’ve been trained to produce the best possible output.
For example, we’ve found that CopyAI excels on topics related to personal development and mindset, but is relatively weak on topics that require expertise, such as writing or filmmaking. It tends to deliver lively and readable results. Jasper is very good at condensing expert topics into something useful for article drafting but tends to be somewhat pedantic and dry.
A human writer or editor must work closely with the tools to produce a first draft, which will then likely need further revision and perhaps additional research before it can become high-quality content considered ready for publication.
With these tools, however, a first draft can be completed in 30 minutes or less, rather than taking hours or days to complete the same task.
Factual Accuracy
There’s no doubt about it: articles written with the help of an AI content writer MUST need to be checked for factual accuracy.
This is due to the way the AI engine works, which is the basis of most tools. GPT-3 is a general “unsupervised” artificial neural network – or more simply, a program that learns from examples and experience. It learns from experience. It “sees” what happens when certain sentences and ideas are combined, and then learns from those results.
In other words, to you, AI content writing may look like it wrote a very readable article. But if you’re the one doing the actual factual consistency checking, then you need to understand that the AI most likely made a number of small factual errors – because it’s more concerned with readability.
It’s all about semantics.
In a sense, AI writing software is still in a “childlike” stage of development in terms of its understanding of the relationship between words, ideas, and facts.
Therefore, it’s important to examine the article not only for the factual accuracy of its content but also for the logic and flow of the thoughts and sentences themselves and how they relate to each other.
It’s like teaching a child to ride a bicycle. An AI article writer may be able to write an acceptable sentence, but it’s up to the parent to teach it how to ride safely without hurting itself.
So Where Does That Leave AI?
If used well, an AI writing tool can free up an author’s time to add value in other ways, such as improving the overall quality of the article.
But if used poorly, an AI content generator can contribute to low-quality, poorly written articles.
The acid test is whether a human reader looking for quality information on a particular topic would be satisfied with what they find in your article.
If the answer is “yes,” then everything should be fine. Even if you wrote the article with the help of AI, chances are the reader will be satisfied – and so will Google.
However, if the article is a nonsensical compilation of auto-generated words that amount to spam, you can expect the reader to bounce and Google to penalize your site in due course through one of its frequent algorithm updates.
Currently, there’s a cat and mouse game going on between certain types of programmatic article sites and Google: They rank for a short time, get lots of clicks and a certain amount of advertising dollars, and then they are relegated to the Internet wilderness because Google de-indexes the website.
Ultimately, this is a game that Google will probably win.
I’d advise you to stay away from such opaque practices and keep your articles and content “clean” and valuable to real readers.
Optimization and Editing
Most professionals and entrepreneurs who write articles for the web use some form of editing and optimization tools.
This mainly involves correcting spelling, grammar, and style errors quickly. Also, making sure that certain topics are covered to the right extent in the article so that Google considers the article to rank well.
All of this is a far cry from so-called “keyword stuffing,” where the article is enriched with a variety of keywords to make it more visible to Google’s crawlers.
Again, this is about whether a human reader would be satisfied with the article they’ve in front of them.
At Brilliantio, we use MarketMuse to optimize our articles so that they’re more visible to Google’s algorithms while staying on topic and readable.
For text editing and proofreading, Grammarly Premium and Instatext are unbeatable for us.
How to Choose the Right AI Tool for Your Needs
With so many options, how do you know which one is right for your needs? Here are a few things to consider that will help you choose the right AI tool for your needs:
- Consider what kind of work you’ll be doing. If you mainly write short texts, a simple word processor with AI features might be enough. However, if you plan to write longer articles or even books, you’ll need a more powerful AI tool that can handle more complex tasks.
- Consider what budget you’ve available. There are some great free AI tools, but if you need more features or want to use a tool that’s constantly updated, you’ll need to pay for a subscription. However, there are also some very affordable AI tools that still offer a lot of features.
- Take the time to read reviews about different AI writing programs before you make your final decision. This way, you can get a good idea of whether a particular tool meets your needs and fits well into your workflow.
Tips on How to Get the Most Out of AI-Powered Writing
There’s no doubt that AI is infiltrating every industry – including the writing industry.
These days, there are AI-powered writing tools for everything from coming up with ideas for articles to editing and proofreading your work. But with so many tools on the market, it’s often hard to know where to start.
If you’re interested in using AI to support your writing, here are a few tips on how to make the most of your experience:
Do your research: Not all AI-powered writing tools are created equal. Before you decide on a particular tool or vendor, do your research thoroughly. Read reviews, compare features, and make sure the tool is the best AI writer for your needs.
Start small: Don’t try to completely overhaul your writing process all at once. Instead, start with a small task that you think an AI tool could help you with – such as brainstorming or checking for grammar errors. Once you’re comfortable with the tool for that task, you can slowly incorporate it into other areas of your writing process.
Be aware of limitations: it’s important to remember that AI tools aren’t perfect – they can make mistakes, just like humans. So be sure to edit and proofread your articles or book manuscript to ensure good quality and to identify where the tool fails.
Don’t be afraid to edit: Ultimately, a good writer is a good editor. AI tools can get you off to a good start, but in the end, it’s up to you to put the finishing touches on your work.
Keep it simple: the more familiar you become with AI, the more you may wonder how far you can go with the technology. But before you dive too deep into the world of AI, remember that the goal is to improve your writing, not replace you entirely.
Take time to learn the best commands and prompts for the tools you are using – they can make a massive difference to the quality of the AI outputs!
Understand the difference between an AI content writer and AI copywriting tools. The best AI writing software tools tend to be optimized for one or the other. You will also find that some of the solutions are a better fit for social media publishing, but others are better for SEO publishing (which is what we do, at Brilliantio).