Last week, I attended the AI for Writers Summit and The AI Advantage Summit.

Both events sparked a lot of conversation in the chat and left me with lots to think about.

I’ve been on the AI train for a few years now, but it is incredible to see it finally come further into the mainstream over the last 6 months.

I firmly believe it will be as common as TV in our everyday lives within the next 5 years.

So it is fascinating to be watching (and riding!) the wave of technological advancement in real-time.

Goldman Sachs released a big research study on 26 March.

They believe that as many as 300 million jobs will be affected by AI and that 7% of workers will lose their jobs entirely in 10 years if generative AI reaches half of the employers.

AI could automate 18% of the global workforce and of the jobs most affected – 46% are administrative jobs, and 44% are legal jobs.

However, they do note that this huge shift in the workforce could eventually increase the annual global GDP by 7% in 10 years.

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

So these changes aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Change is always a little scary, and it’s particularly tough when this will impact millions of people’s jobs. 

But rather than be scared and resistant to change, we need to remember that it’s happening already – whether we like it or not!

The people that get on board now will have the advantage over those that stick their heads in the sand.

So what does this have to do with content marketing?

Well, AI has made possibly the biggest splash in the marketing world so far. And that’s because a huge amount of content creation, writing and marketing can now potentially be done by AI.

You’ve probably heard of ChatGPT and the wondrous things it can do at a click of a button.

I know I’ve certainly been utilising this fun new tool! It can be very helpful with writer’s block and brainstorming ideas. But so far, the output from these tools needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.​

Not only are there issues with the actual words coming out being factually incorrect, but there are limitations in the quality too.

No matter how good the prompts are, the tools aren’t quite producing words that sound human yet. And even if it does sound human – the most important thing is – does it sound like you?

There are lots of ethical implications for AI, which I will be exploring more this month.

But there are also issues with the quality of what it’s creating too, which everyone needs to be aware of. You can’t just copy and paste what comes out – it still needs to be edited!

Which is why I’m not worried about it replacing jobs just yet. As a content creator and ethical marketer, I could easily be worried about the rise of AI. But instead, I see it for what it is – a tool that I can use to make my work even better. It saves time, which means I can do more. It’s as simple as that.

What do you think of AI?

Is it worth the huge shift in how we work?

Should we embrace the future?

(And no, ironically, I didn’t use any AI to help me write this post. Could you tell, though? If I told you I used AI to write 50% of my posts, could you easily tell which were which? Does it even matter? Lots to think about!)