If you’ve spent any time scrolling the endless copy and paste posts on LinkedIn, watching Fox Business, or dropping into the latest corporate “all hands on deck” meetings, you’d think AI is the next business Jesus that’s come to save us all.
If that’s you, and you’re convinced… cool. Good luck.
Look, I’ll admit it, I’m definitely going to plug this copy into Grammarly’s AI and have it clean up my grammar and see if it has any good recommendations. But the key to that sentence is “plug this in”.
Too many businesses are leaning into an “AI will do it all” mindset that’s sure to get you nowhere fast. Examples like Wix (every web designer’s favorite) offering all-inclusive marketing from website design, social media, to blog posts and SEO… all created by AI… as if social media hadn’t become an algorithmic cesspool of low-value content as is.
We’re still early in the game, and the rules aren’t quite written in stone yet, so this mindset may even work for a while. But here are just a few reasons to pump the brakes—admittedly coming from someone who’s got skin in the game. (A human can use em dashes, too, btw.)
1. The Issue of Plagiarism & Duplicate Content
First, whether you have moral qualms with “borrowing” other people’s copy or not, Google still does. If you’ve been in the SEO game at all over the past 10 years, you’d know that duplicate content is the cardinal sin. While AI is capable of writing unique copy, it tends to take verbiage word-for-word from its sources. So if you’re using it to fill in some of the technical areas of your copy, be sure to cross-reference it with a plagiarism checker.
2. Is it On Brand?
Secondly, AI by default tends to write in a certain tone. If your business’s tone is robotic, soulless, and deferent to authority… that may not be a problem. Sure, you can program an AI to sound a certain way or another, but it’s never going to feel completely human. In an age where being a relatable brand is a prominent selling point amongst all the noise, that could be a problem. Ask yourself: if an AI is creating all your social posts, blogs, graphics, and content, is it going to feel at all like you? Are people going to connect with it? Which brings us to our next point…
3. The Slop Haters
Those who are really psyched on the potential of AI tend to be big business owners, board members, elites, politicians, and finance guys.
Re-read that sentence.
What does that demographic have in common?
No offense to anyone who falls into those categories, but the common man (AKA most of your customers) isn’t your biggest fan. There’s a reason for that. Most people’s experience of AI is negative. People relate it to mass layoffs, the usurping of creativity, and the destruction of the environment, all in the name of enriching the already wealthy. The near absence of adoption of things like Google’s AI mode, and the growing resistance to data centers, back that up. The word “slop” has caught on like wildfire, and AI proponents are surely trying to do damage control. The pejorative that describes anything created by AI as essentially valueless is telling.
Do you want your business to be seen as dishing out slop?
4. If All Your Friends Were Jumping Off A Bridge…
Remember the adage about wanting to do something that all your friends are doing? If in the marketplace of marketing and business 80% of businesses are just relying on straight AI slop to market themselves, would the 20% using a human touch stand out? It’s a safe bet.
Right now, not every consumer is going to be discerning enough (i.e., your uncle sharing AI videos on Facebook like they’re real), so you may get away with it for a while. But when it comes to SEO, it’s very likely that the more general & AI-generated the content is, the less likely it will rank. People want local, relevant, and first-hand expert information, not the same regurgitated “top 5” blog that’s on every other industry website. (That’s why I only included 4, to keep you on your toes.)
The range of reasons to pump the brakes when it comes to AI runs the gamut from ethical to practical; regardless, you should be careful when jumping too far into the deep end. Sure, tactfully use it as a tool to improve or supplement your marketing materials, but don’t think it’s going to be a do-it-all solution that will take care of everything for you.
If you’re looking for a human to create your website and help formulate your marketing strategy, reach out to AntiStatic Marketing today, and let’s take slop off the menu.
