In the past year, platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT have reshaped how content marketing is done. These generative AI tools make creating content quicker and more efficient, allowing marketers to produce engaging, high-quality material at a faster pace. Beyond just speeding up the process, ChatGPT’s natural language understanding and response capabilities have paved the way for more personalised content.
This change means that content can now be more specifically tailored to meet individual preferences and requirements, enhancing user engagement. We asked a few experts their views, after providing ours, on how ChatGPT has impacted content marketing this year.
Our Experts
Simon Bacher, CEO and Co Founder, Ling
Petra Smith, Founder, Squirrels&Bears
Jess Dickenson, Managing Director, UK and US, Precis
Stephen Jenkins, Founder & MD, Too Many Dreams
Dominik Angerer, CEO and Co-founder, Storyblok
Graham Burton, Chief Technology Officer, Plinc
Jack Bird, Content Operations Manager, Digital Marketing Agency: Add People
Erik Wikander, CEO and Co-Founder, Zupyak
David Walsh, Head of Development, I-COM
Steve Soter, Vice President and Industry Principal at Workiva
Carmen Dominguez, Head of Organic, Hallam
Chelsea Hopkins, Social Media and PR Manager, Fasthosts
Kim Lawrie, Head of Creative and Emerging Technology, House 337
Oliver Stainforth, Head of PR and Content, Go Up
Paul Stollery, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Technology, Hard Numbers
Marcy Jones, Junior SEO Executive, Cedarwood Digital
Simon Bacher CEO and Co Founder, Ling
“ChatGPT has revolutionised content marketing by enabling personalised content at scale, boosting engagement and customer loyalty. In web development, it’s enhanced user experiences with intelligent chatbots that offer quick, human-like responses to complex queries.
This is especially beneficial in e-commerce, where these chatbots aid in product recommendations and customer support, leading to increased sales and improved user satisfaction.”
Petra Smith, Founder of Squirrels&Bears
“I recently started playing ChatGPT bingo in my head every time I go online. My LinkedIn feed and inbox are flooded with content by people who are saying words that not only don’t sound like them, but it’s also all the same. It’s an easy game to spot the queries that people choose to present as their own voice.
I’m a big fan of ChatGPT, however I believe that there is a fine line between using the tool as a way of improving your content and brand voice, and replicating AI generated words, pretending to be your own. This might work in the short term, but as your audience becomes more aware of the AI generated-style content, they will quickly see through it and lose interest. Because they can simply run the query themselves.
Another important aspect is that brands simply take all info generated as fact-checked and up to date. But if you are using the tool for more factual content, you might want to check twice as some of the data you are receiving might already be out of date. And don’t forget that ChatGPT doesn’t only provide data, it also collects it – so be mindful of not just what comes out, but also what goes in.”
The digital space is crowded and it’s the authenticity of brands that capture interests and builds trust, not generic noise. So, whilst I would recommend using the tool as a way of improving content, this should not replace your brand voice.
Jess Dickenson, Managing Director, UK and US, Precis
“Does ChatGPT spell the end of Google? Imagine a world without search engines, where you get everything you need with a few simple questions with something that knows you intimately. The experience is already more conversational than a transactional online search and ChatGPT will only get smarter; it will start to learn our preferences and its answers will feel like a reliable friend.”
“As marketers, does this mean we will live in a world without search advertisements and SEO? Will we need to find new ways to reach and engage with consumers? Google is the largest source of traffic for the majority of online brands, so if consumers stop using Google how does that impact them? How do you “optimise” ChatGPT?”
“Marketing increasingly relies on the balance of art and science, man and machine, creative and technology. As Generative AI technologies become more mainstream, we will have to use all of these skills to elevate our brands so they remain a meaningful part of consumers’ lives.”
Stephen Jenkins, Founder & MD, Too Many Dreams
“In the absence of a robust education strategy, ChatGPT will usher in the era of ‘plag-AI-arism’ as students, born digitally native, find they can churn out their homework easier than ever before. And, unlike copying a Google search result, they’re unlikely to be accused of stealing if they include “write the answer in the style of a 14 year-old boy” to their ChatGPT prompt.”
“This doesn’t need to be our future. In our business, we use ChatGPT as an ‘ideas thesaurus’. Just as a traditional thesaurus provides new words to make your writing more relevant and engaging, ChatGPT is the source of more ideas than our small team of creatives could produce alone. But it does far more than that. It allows us to explore problems from a variety of perspectives; challenge our thinking and inspire new avenues of exploration; be more playful with possible solutions; and test them on imaginary versions of our target audience.”
“The Education Secretary will need to support schools as they explore new approaches to learning and exams. Homework that just tests memory recall is no longer sufficient. When Generative AI makes creation immediate, the human skills of synthesis, critical thinking, reasoning, and decision-making must come to the fore. It’s these skills our children need to be taught to enable them to thrive in this new world. This isn’t the evolution from abacus to calculator. It’s potentially the greatest teaching assistant we’ve ever seen.”
Dominik Angerer, CEO and Co-founder, Storyblok
“Within the marketing industry there’s particular interest in generative AI because of its ability to automate so many routine tasks, create collateral and enhance personalised engagement with customers. But the reality is that, save for a few use cases, generative AI is not quite game ready. Reliability and quality of outputs combined with a whole host of legal and ethical questions are likely to limit wide scale adoption in the short to medium term.”
“Between now and then there are a number of other, less talked about innovations that are profoundly changing how marketing can work. For example, the impending releases of Meta’s Oculus Quest 3 and Apple’s Vision Pro, presents a strong possibility that VR devices will become truly mainstream in the next year and with it will come an explosion of possibilities for the martech industry. It’s important to remember that VR and AR is not just confined to creating virtual sales experiences for consumers. It can also be used for a host of other marketing functions such as designing shop layouts, planning and selling space or sponsorship for events, and prototyping the look and feel of products.”
“Equally, VR and AR combined with smart devices, and underpinned by composable architecture and advanced data analytics could provide the key to creating truly omnichannel experiences that blurs the lines between the physical and the virtual. Brands may soon be able to link the real world interactions of their customers in store via devices such as beacons or interactions on VR headsets to their online personas. Successfully joining and understanding this information requires data infrastructure and advanced analytics. There is a rapidly growing cohort of startups that enable companies to connect these dots, and empower marketers to understand them and act effectively.”
“In this way, while there’s no doubt that gen AI is going to play a huge role in the development of technology over the next few decades, it’s important that businesses do not get swept away with the hype at the expense of seeing the opportunities that are here and now.”
Graham Burton, Chief Technology Officer, Plinc
“Generative AI has the potential to transform customer marketing through enabling hyper-personalisation at-scale. The truth is that personalisation remains a headache for most customer marketing professionals – let alone doing it at scale and in real time. As such, generative AI’s ability to create thousands of targeted messages in seconds, based on an individual’s activity and preferences, will transform the customer experience. Rather than seeing generic web pages, images, promotions or offers, customers will start having hyper-personalised interactions with eCommerce brands.”
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Jack Bird, Content Operations Manager, Digital Marketing Agency: Add People
“As a digital marketing agency, our team members have found a range of tasks that ChatGPT can speed up and ultimately improve efficiency. From helping with Excel formulas to pushing through writer’s block, we encourage our staff to explore how ChatGPT and other AI tools can help.”
“However, with this experimentation, it’s becoming clear that there are still plenty of reasons why we need the human element in content marketing. As an LLM, ChatGPT is not optimised to produce original ideas and form opinions which are central elements of a successful content strategy.”
“Additionally, a survey we recently carried out found that, across all industries, 30% of people using AI at work are doing so without approval from their managers. While it’s a good idea for people to explore how ChatGPT can benefit their workstream, there are still risks to using the tools without any oversight from managers such as around sharing sensitive information.”
Erik Wikander, CEO and Co-founder at Zupyak
(as included in Swedish startups to watch in 2024)
“Generative AI, exemplified and spearheaded by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, emerges as a game-changer for startups. Both as an enabler for dramatically improved and reimagined processes, but also as a toolkit to empower existing and new products. Its impact is particularly pronounced in content marketing, where it introduces a revolutionary approach to content creation.”
“In an age when online visibility and relevance are key, leveraging generative AIs’ capabilities in content generation, whether it’s writing blog posts, crafting social media posts, summarising YouTube videos or generating product descriptions and email campaigns, AI has emerged a creative partner for startups.”
“This technology significantly enhances efficiency and precision in audience engagement, enabling startups to create tailored marketing content effortlessly. For instance, a London-based startup targeting an audience in Berlin can now create tailored marketing content and offer round-the-clock customer support, something that previously required significant manpower and resources.”
“As with any disruptive innovations there are challenges, and the regulatory framework for AI is still catching up. In terms of marketing content, the impact of AI regulation may involve stricter rules on the use of generative AI in personalised ads, copyright usage, addressing privacy concerns, and ensuring compliance with evolving data protection laws. A recent example of the impact of copyright issues involved Stability AI’s head of audio and two other top execs to resign, due to concerns over the use of copyrighted material in training their generative AI models.”
“As regulations get clearer, companies need to adapt their AI content marketing strategies to align with new rules, focusing on ethical and transparent practices. Looking ahead, the demand for generative AI skills will continue to grow, becoming essential across various job roles, including those in marketing.”
David Walsh, Head of Development, I-COM
ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot are revolutionizing content marketing and web development by enhancing efficiency, particularly in routine tasks. These AI-driven tools significantly streamline the creation of basic content and coding, transforming previously less viable commercial tasks into achievable objectives.
In content marketing, ChatGPT excels at generating structured content like product/category descriptions and basic blog posts. These tasks, often a significant commercial burden, can now be efficiently managed, allowing content marketers to shift their focus towards more strategic and creative aspects. This reallocation of resources enhances the overall quality and effectiveness of marketing strategies by emphasizing brand storytelling and campaign planning.
Steve Soter, Vice President and Industry Principal, Workiva
“Looking forward to 2024, it’s clear Generative AI is going to make an impact – especially when it comes to corporate reporting and compliance. Next year, we’ll begin to see reporting teams moving beyond experimentation to using Generative AI to boost productivity in meaningful ways, such as drafting starter disclosures and performing data analyses.”
“There’s also a near-term opportunity to leverage Generative AI as a compliance check, focusing on how internal teams meet disclosure requirements, and even leveraged to perform audit tests and audit reporting. For these reasons, in relatively short-order, Generative AI will become increasingly critical in boosting efficiency and enabling insights that lead to better and faster data-driven decisions.”
“As the momentum of Generative AI increases, so do the attendant risks and it will be paramount for organisations to ensure proper governance, controls, and human oversight of the nascent technology. One aspect which is clear, is that Generative AI is not going anywhere and will play a crucial role in the technology sector in 2024.”
Carmen Dominguez, Head of Organic, Hallam
“I can see two clear ways in which AI has developed in content marketing: the positive way and the negative way.
The positives: it allows me to analyse client data versus competitor data way faster and in a much easier way than I used to before. If you create your own ChatGPT build, you can train it to do almost anything you want it to do that does not require human input: summarise, analyse, create templates, even train it with a specific tone of voice and then ask it to review a piece of content against that tone of voice. You can also use it to create an image that goes with your blog post. It has opened so many ways to make everything more efficient and more targeted, and because of this, I use it quite a lot in my day to day.
But, there’s still the negative: it has also flooded the internet with low quality content, very top level information that doesn’t provide anything new to the user and that, in my opinion, makes the internet worse. Of course, this is not necessarily AI’s fault but more of how marketers use it and, again, highlights what a lot of people were doing before AI came along: doing work that is not deep enough, that is not focused on the user and prioritising “quick wins” to save money. The only difference is that AI’s speed and ease makes it far easier for more people to amplify sub-par content than ever before.”
Chelsea Hopkins, Social Media and PR Manager, Fasthosts
“Chat GPT has had a huge – and mostly positive – impact on most creative industries, especially in content marketing which includes so many different ingredients. What it has done is take some of the monotony out of certain tasks, and it can be used throughout each step to create great content. Generative AI is really useful for keyword research, question generation and coming up with ideas.
It can also help draft all types of written content for anything from email marketing to blog and social posts. It can even proofread your work, and ensure it maintains the same style and consistent tone across all of your output. Although it can help save time, and be a good resource for when you’re feeling stuck or need a few fresh ideas, there is a risk of the industry becoming too reliant on the tool.
There shouldn’t be a problem if you use AI as a guideline, but you wouldn’t want to start sounding the same as other brands. We have come a long way where brands are pushing for more authenticity and are holding stronger values, so we shouldn’t let the convenience of automation make us lose sight of that.”
Kim Lawrie, Head of Creative and Emerging Technology, House 337
“More than ever, we’re seeing the sameness come to the fore when AI is left alone at the tiller, or sometimes TOV or content that feels downright recycled.
Content Marketing is the crucial point where brands often meet consumers directly, and it’s critical that a brand’s unique tone of voice, character, and cadence are preserved throughout.
While GPT can be trained on a tone of voice, the best use here is to carefully mix suggestions with human craft to optimise the process while never losing the craft and care that needs to go into content marketing.”
Oliver Stainforth, Head of PR and Content, Go Up
“ChatGPT has changed the game for content marketing and transformed our workflows — but it hasn’t replaced our writers. It’s mostly useful in the early stages of content planning, for generating ideas, wireframes, and compiling top-of-the-funnel keywords quickly.
It can even produce a half-decent first draft, but not without limitations. ChatGPT has a knack for producing generic responses that miss the mark stylistically. From a simple prompt, you often get back a block of text that errs towards word salad, especially if you’re not meticulous in your instructions.
Going forward, I think we’ll see a lot of businesses try and bring all their written content in-house with ChatGPT, even if they lack the resources to sustain a high-quality final product. We’re already spotting many of the hallmark phrases and structuring tropes across onsite copy. The text has often gone completely unedited and unchecked — and it’s missing that touch of personality that makes human content stand out from the digital crowd.
ChatGPT is a valuable tool, but for now, it is only a tool. Businesses still need humans running their content marketing to make sure that everything produced is high-quality and unique to their tone of voice, not diluted by everybody else’s.”
Paul Stollery, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Technology, Hard Numbers
“AI-generated content is going to put the final nail in the coffin of organic reach on social media.
As brands become more comfortable leveraging AI-generated content, we’re going to witness an unprecedented surge in content volume. This massive influx of AI-produced content is going to make organic reach harder than ever.
A lot of the content will be rubbish. But it won’t matter; it’ll be deemed good enough.
The internet scaled the delivery of content. AI will scale its production. Brands will be able to churn out content and they’ll be able to do it for pennies on the pound. This will make it harder than ever for individuals and brands to generate any real organic reach.
The obvious solution to this is to invest more money into paid. But earned media, too, can provide an alternative for the smart content marketers.”
Marcy Jones, Junior SEO Executive, Cedarwood Digital
“Since ChatGPT was released in 2022, there has been a lot of talk in the marketing world about the impact it can have on creating content and, whether your opinion is good or bad, it definitely has had a profound impact on content marketing.”
“In my opinion, ChatGPT is not a replacement for your own voice as a writer and it is important to remember that it is a tool and should not be a substitute for your unique writing style. However, I do think that if used correctly, ChatGPT can have significant advantages when it comes to content marketing. With its natural language processing capabilities, ChatGPT enables marketers to generate content ideas and can give you a fresh perspective, it can also generate high-quality content quickly and easily. ChatGPT can be used to create blog posts, email marketing content and social media posts, and when coupled with the human brain, it can create compelling, engaging content that will capture your reader’s attention.”
“However, there are some limitations; it may not understand the specific needs of your audience and it can create content that is not entirely relevant to your topic. It can also have a lack of SEO optimisation – although it can create quick content that may focus on a particular keyword, it cannot fully optimise content for search engines so it is entirely important to review all content and manually add optimisations in to help you remain competitive in the SERPs and ensure that your content is the most helpful and relevant for your audience.”
“While ChatCPT offers significant advantages in content marketing, it is essential for marketers to strike a balance between AI and human touch. The AI tool serves as a powerful tool, saving time, generating ideas and ultimately contributing to a more efficient and effective content marketing strategy and I can’t even count how many times I have used it to create effective content strategies!”