The future of content marketing after ChatGPT

When it comes to content marketing, there is clearly a period before ChatGPT and after it. One fateful November day in 2022, ChatGPT was launched, and the world of content marketing was shaken to the core. With its incredible ability to create any amount of text on any subject under the sun in practically no time, it upended the world of wordsmiths around the world at that time, and content marketers began to worry about their jobs.

​Things didn't quite pan out that way, with people eventually being able to distinguish seemingly brilliant AI created content from human created one and feeling shortchanged on account of it. They increasingly chose the former over the latter as it felt real, relatable and more human.

​That does not mean that AI-generated content isn’t useful. It is, but as a recognisable separate category of its own alongside human-generated content. AI can help one with research, generating ideas and helping structure human-created content, and where necessary generate the content, thereby making the content marketing process smoother, faster and much more efficient than before.

​Clients are fine with AI being used by human content creators to the extent that it makes them perform better. At the same time, they would like to have a disclosure on the part of the content creator with regard to the use of AI, as they would likely like to know how much of what they are paying is on account of human inputs.

​It is not surprising, therefore, that 40 percent of marketers use ChatGPT regularly. It helps them streamline their writing and  get the job done faster and better. No wonder content marketers these days consider prompt engineering a very important skill.

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What's there not to like about ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms?

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While ChatGPT is a great companion to the human content creator in helping them come up with topical, reasonably well researched and resonant content, it is not as if it doesn't come with its own set of pitfalls.

​For one, you are not sure about the provenance of the content it displays for your consumption. You cannot take what it provides you at face value every time it comes up with some information. Any references that it might cite need to be checked to ensure accuracy.

​Besides, the content that ChatGPT and other generative platforms often generate comes across as formulaic and repetitive. Machine-created content, which is not imbued with real human emotions which can only come from lived experience, does not connect with the target audience the way one would want it to. Human communication has to be both subtle and nuanced and not just expressive, and that often does not reflect in the text created by generative AI.

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A partnership between generative AI and humans

​Just like handcrafted and bespoke products and services are valued more than mass produced cookie cutter like ones, honestly created real content based on a living person’s real-life experiences will always resonate with people much more. AI is good at managing the mundane aspects of content creation like pulling up stats, organizing text into bullet points, research, creating structure and carrying out grammar and spell checks. It is also great at repurposing content.

​But when it comes to originality of thought, critical thinking and strategic insight, human content creators have an inherent advantage over AI. This is also true in the case of storytelling. Even though AI can spin a brilliant yarn in practically no time, it is inevitably regurgitating other people’s style of writing. It could write like another Hemingway, but never be another Hemingway.

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The Path Ahead

The future of content marketing after ChatGPT is in fact better than it would have been without it. The advent of aeroplanes did not kill off road and rail transport, but made the latter better. As a matter of fact, there is a resurgence in rail travel, which is seen as a cleaner alternative to air travel in these environmentally fraught times.

​Human content creation is evolving thanks to the advent of ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms, which makes content marketing perform way better than it ever has in the past, providing more bang for every buck spent on it.  

According to Harvard Business Review, premier management consulting firm McKinsey stated back in 2023 that LLMs and other types of generative AI would bring about a $4.4 trillion growth in corporate profits.Let’s see how things pan out on a macro level, but the future of content marketing is brighter and better than before- one should know how to be a part of it. Human-centric content and marketing are going to be at the forefront even as ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms play a vital supporting role.