Have you heard of ChatGPT, Jasper, or any of the other Artificial Intelligence (AI) writing tools currently flooding the internet? If not — you soon will. AI-assisted writing is breaking big, and it’s probably going to change the way content is created, regardless of your industry.

We asked one AI tool to write us a paragraph explaining itself. Here’s what it said, presented without edits or corrections:

AI writing tools are quickly becoming more and more popular in the modern world. These tools allow users to take advantage of AI-based capabilities to complete a variety of tasks, from generating creative content to optimizing existing content for better readability. AI writing tools are built with natural language processing and smart algorithms that can understand how user's write and help them craft content that is both engaging and concise. With AI writing tools, users can quickly create high-quality content without having to spend hours or days on manual editing.

Not bad, huh?

Yes, there is at least one punctuation error in there, and some of the writing is a little “uncanny valley,” but this took just seconds to generate – less time than it would take a human to simply type the words. And it is a pretty good surface-level explanation of what AI writing bots are and how they work.

There are plenty of signs that this will not be a passing technology fad; Google has invested in its own AI writing technology and Microsoft has committed $10 billion to ChatGPT creator OpenAI. It’s pretty clear that AI-assisted and AI-generated content is here to stay. The question is: How can you use that to your advantage?

With an AI writing tool, users ask the bot questions or provide prompts based on what kind of content they would like to generate. The more specific your prompts, the better, more effective content the bot will generate.

This could be a game-changer for home services industries like pest control. A tool like ChatGPT can revolutionize how you approach customer service, recruiting and hiring, and more. It can be used to create personalized sales pitches based on customer data. You can have the tool compose pre-pay letters, internal memos or emails to coworkers, or even to rapidly write accurate and effective job descriptions in minutes.

However, it’s important to note that AI-generated content is far from perfect. OpenAI even says as much on their website, noting that, “ChatGPT sometimes writes plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers.”

This is just one reason why you’ll still need actual humans involved in the final product. The content created by an AI tool can sound, well, a little robotic, lacking the hard-to-describe but easy-to-recognize human touch. Effective content appeals to emotions – empathy, urgency, humor, even fear and anger – and, unlike a human being, AI does not possess the emotional intelligence to do this. Besides: there would be no AI-created content without a person inputting prompts and data in the first place. And there would be no AI writing bots without the humans who created them. 

Right now, the best way to approach an AI writing tool is to use it as just that – a tool. AI is an excellent, efficient way to jump-start content that might actually take you hours to compose from scratch – but you probably shouldn’t just cut and paste whatever the bot gives you without giving it a solid edit and making sure that it’s saying what you actually want it to say, the way you want to say it. 

AI writing tools are an emerging but still-evolving trend, and it remains to be seen just how profound an effect they will have on marketing in general and service industries in particular. As with any new technological development, it’s important to stay ahead of the trend so you don’t end up having to play catch-up. Partnering with digital marketing experts like Coalmarch who know the landscape and understand the latest trends and technology will ensure that your company is able to use these tools to your advantage.