Copywriting has been an in-demand skill for hundreds of years. That’s because carefully-written words have the power to breathe life into brands, compel consumers to take action, and drive business success.
But the recent advancement of Artificial Intelligence has many people in the industry (including copywriters like myself), questioning whether copywriting is still in high demand… or whether its importance will fade as AI’s skills and capabilities continue to increase.
Is The Demand For Copywriting High, Or Is It Fading?
When most people question the demand for copywriting, they are really asking two things:
- Is copywriting still in demand?
- Are copywriters still in demand?
It’s important to note that they are different questions. Copywriting is a skill that a person (or robot) can learn. Copywriters, on the other hand, are the people who specialise in writing copy.
Copy can be written by people (and robots) who are not copywriters. So whether copywriting is still sought after as a skill is a different issue from whether copywriters themselves are still in high demand.
If you ask me, the answer to the first question is clear. Copywriting is as crucial in marketing today as it was a decade ago. And it’ll likely remain that way in both the short and long term.
Most marketers, direct response copywriters, and business owners will tell you the same. Copywriting will always be in demand because it plays such a crucial role in helping businesses market their products and services. While visuals and imagery capture attention, it is the power of words that breathes life into marketing campaigns.
Even in the age of video-dominated content, you still need copywriting to craft compelling scripts that engage audiences and drive desired actions. It’s hard to see this skill becoming obsolete, unless marketing itself is wiped off the face of the planet.
The answer to the second question – whether copywriters themselves are still in demand – is up for debate. Previously, copywriters were necessary because they were better at writing copy than anyone else. And if you’re skilled at something that can make a business millions of dollars, you’re going to get more than a few enquiries for your services.
But now you don’t necessarily need a copywriter to write good copy. Instead, you can log into ChatGPT, Jasper, or any other AI writing tool and get them to do it for you. Which means that copywriters are no longer as important as they once were.
Will Copywriters Be Replaced By AI?
There are many copywriters who insist that AI will never completely replace them. In fact, if you Google this topic, the top few answers will probably be copywriters claiming they are irreplaceable.
But if you are a copywriter, there is a clear conflict of interest when answering the question (especially if you make a large percentage of your income selling courses on ‘how to become a copywriter,’ which many of the deniers do). Who wants to admit they are no longer necessary?
Despite how difficult it is to face reality, there are many copywriters who admit they will be replaced by AI – if not now, then soon. They believe the only copywriters who keep their jobs will be the ones who learn how to use AI. They will act as an editor, prompt engineer, and fact checker uses AI to write the copy for their business or clients.
In many organisations, this is already happening. AI has already replaced a lot of content writers (writers who produce blog posts and other educational content for businesses, such as how-to guides) and it’s coming for copywriters next. This seemingly impending doom has created a lot of stress for copywriters.
If you look at the marketing industry right now, you’ll see that some copywriters have started being replaced by AI. Some are even abandoning the profession altogether, opting instead for work that can’t be done by AI – walking dogs, for example, or fixing HVAC systems. Others are learning how to use AI so they can still remain valuable to their company or clients.
Of course, like any time an industry faces significant changes, there are teething problems. AI copywriting is no different. Many people have pointed out that the quality of AI copywriting is inferior to humans, and will remain that way until the technology improves.
3 Reasons ‘AI Copywriters’ Might Not Replace Real Ones
If you’ve used AI tools like ChatGPT before, you were probably impressed by how quickly it writes. It takes just seconds to produce long, detailed articles that might take a copywriter days to write.
At first glance, the article will be coherent, too. But if you read a bit closer, you’ll see that there are many problems with the work it produces.
There are 3 main flaws with AI writing:
1. It’s Often Inaccurate
A lot of AI tools write things that are factually incorrect. Take ChatGPT, for instance. Despite being widely regarded as the most advanced AI writing tool available, it often fails at basic math, refuses to answer simple questions, and even argues in favour of completely incorrect facts.
That’s because ChatGPT doesn’t experience the world and store knowledge like a human does. Instead, it’s been trained by reading what other humans have written. It uses that information to form sentences by selecting words it believes are the best fit in the circumstances.
This is arguably the biggest issue AI writing tools face. Because even if you replace a copywriter with AI, you will need to read and fact check everything it writes – something that is incredibly time consuming to do.
Of course, you could argue you should still fact check what a human writes as well. This is true, but a top quality copywriter should be substantially more accurate than AI (and if they aren’t you shouldn’t be paying them much!).
2. The Quality Is Poor
The other issue with AI writing is that the quality isn’t very good. It consistently writes sentences that sound generic or unengaging.
The quality of AI writing can be improved dramatically by changing the instructions you give it, such as teaching it to use a copywriting framework or giving it a prompt. But even if you do, it is still not able to produce the same level of quality or creativity the best copywriters in the world can write.
I’ve watched a multitude of videos on how to give AI better instructions to improve the quality of writing it produces. But every time I tried to use it to write sales copy, I spent more time fact checking and re-writing the copy than I actually saved. So as amazing as the technology is, it still has a long way to go.
3. There Is No Human Touch
As humans, we typically want to know what other humans think about something – not what a robot thinks. We want to have a connection with the writing, with the personal story behind the product or brand, the emotion or humour in the copy, or the writer’s view on a certain topic.
If you’re reading a review of a product, for example, would you really care what AI says about it? No – you’d want to hear what a human being who has used the product would say.
Skilled copywriters possess the ability to distil complex ideas into concise, persuasive messages that resonate with target audiences. They understand the psychology of persuasion and how to tap into the emotions, desires, and pain points of consumers, creating a connection that goes beyond surface-level aesthetics. They know what it means to be human, and they know how to connect with other people. That’s something AI it may never be able to offer, even if it manages to solve the quality and accuracy conundrums.
Copywriting Won’t Be The Only Job Replaced By AI
Copywriters may be some of the first casualties to lose their jobs to AI, but they won’t be the only ones. It’s estimated 400 million jobs, or about 15% of the world’s total workforce, will be displaced by automation by the year 2030. Computer programmers, legal workers, data analysts, and administration assistants are just some of the jobs that could be automated by the end of the decade.
There is a silver lining, though. As mentioned before, new technology also means new jobs. If you go back 100 years, 1 out of 10 jobs that exist today were not yet invented. So it’s likely in another decade we’ll see millions of new jobs created that previously didn’t exist. There will be opportunities for people to pivot or change their careers and earn a living.
Of course, the number of new jobs created will almost certainly be less than the number replaced by AI, which has many experts predicting the introduction of a universal basic income. The idea is that AI will do much of the work currently done by people, and the income generated would go to the human population. So we might all get paid without having to do much work at all.
Whether that actually happens remains to be seen. It’s difficult to predict the future when it comes to new technology. After all, it wasn’t that many years ago most people were saying that 3D TVs would become standard, but that hasn’t happened. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a 3D TV for sale at an electronics store. It may be that AI suffers the same fate, due to circumstances we can’t yet foresee.
Summing Up…
Copywriting as a skill is still in high demand today, and it’ll likely be in demand one hundred years from now. Who actually writes the copy, however, is up for debate. If early indications are anything to go by, it’s probable that most, if not all copywriters will be replaced by AI.
What will copywriters do when that happens? Ask me in ten years and I’ll let you know. In the meantime, if you’d like a human copywriter to work for you, a great place to start is my copywriting services.