AI copywriting involves using artificial intelligence tools to generate compelling marketing copy. With the goal of driving more sales for your business (or your client’s business).
You can use it to create:
- Snappy taglines
- Persuasive product descriptions
- Attention-grabbing social media posts
There are lots of AI copywriting tools out there. And the technology is continuously getting better, faster, and more accessible.
This leaves many worrying that AI might replace human copywriters altogether.
But AI isn’t there to replace copywriters. AI is there to help you become a more efficient and creative copywriter.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to get the most out of AI copywriting tools. And we’ll go over a few of our favorites.
If you’re just looking for tools to use, here are the four we recommend checking out:
| AI Copywriting Tool | Best for | Starting Price |
|---|---|---|
| Jasper | Ad copy and slogans | $49 per month; 7-day free trial |
| Copy.ai | Product descriptions and landing page copy | $49 per month; limited free account |
| Semrush AI Social Content Generator | Social media posts and captions | $35 per month; 7-day free trial |
| ChatGPT | Getting feedback on your copy | $20 per month; limited free account |
How AI Copywriting Can Help Your Business
Using AI for copywriting comes with various benefits. From speeding up your workflows to saving you money.
Note: While AI tools can help streamline your efforts (and even improve your copy), we recommend you learn the basics of great copywriting first. This will help you assess and improve the outputs the tools provide.
Speed Up Your Copy Creation
AI copywriting tools can drastically reduce the time it takes to create compelling copy.
You don’t need to spend hours brainstorming the perfect tagline, product description, or social media copy. As you can use an AI tool to instantly generate a dozen options.
Each tailored to your brand voice and target audience (when you include the right directions in your prompt).
Here’s an example of AI generating 10 variations of a tagline for a new bakery in just under a minute:
This rapid ideation lets you quickly test and refine your messaging. Which means launching your campaigns faster.
Save Marketing Budget
If you’re on a tight budget, generative AI tools can save you A LOT of money.
Instead of hiring a team of copywriters or outsourcing to agencies, you can use a tool that delivers copy at a fraction of the cost. Or even for free.
Note: We’ll talk more about the quality implications in the next section.
Scale Your Content Production
With AI, you can quickly and easily create variations of your copy. Or repurpose old material for new platforms.
It’s like your personal AI copywriter working 24/7, churning out as much copy as you need. When you need it.
For example, you can give AI your tagline and ask it to create 10 Instagram captions:
This saves you a significant amount of time and resources. As you can generate a bunch of copy in seconds.
Maintain Your Brand Voice
AI copywriting tools can help you maintain a cohesive brand voice across all your marketing channels.
How does it work?
You can train AI on your existing content and give directions on your preferred tone, style, and vocabulary. This helps the AI generate copy that seamlessly blends your established brand voice.
The Challenges and Limitations of Using AI Copywriting Tools
While AI copywriting offers impressive benefits, it also comes with limitations. Before you hand over your copywriting to AI, it’s important to understand these challenges.
The Copy Lacks Creativity and Human Touch
AI can produce well-structured, grammatically correct copy. But it’s often missing the creative spark that human writers bring to the table.
AI-generated copy can sometimes feel generic and lack originality. That’s because AI tools are trained on existing content. So they can’t create “new” content by default.
Which means the copy is typically limited in its creativity.
For example, this AG1 ad “You’re going to need a smaller cabinet” is a creative and smart play on words. It highlights the product’s comprehensive nutritional content. With a short and sweet tagline.
It’s also an example of situational irony. As normally when we buy anything, we need to consider more storage space—not less.
This creative approach is something AI would likely struggle to replicate.
Let’s try to create ad copy for the same brand with ChatGPT:
As you can see, AI provided a few options of concise copy to highlight the product’s comprehensive nutritional content.
But none of their headlines are as catchy (or creative) as the original, human-written version.
What to Do About It
While the internet is getting flooded with AI-generated content, originality is becoming more valuable than ever.
To stand out, infuse your copy with personal experiences, unique perspectives, and original data.
Even if you write your initial copy with AI, make sure to enhance it by adding your unique personality before publishing.
Many of these tools can now read various file formats. Use it. Provide original content or curated ideas for inspiration. You’ll likely find that the output is way more creative.
The Copy Has Context and Nuance Issues
AI often struggles to grasp nuances of language, context, and cultural references.
This can lead to awkward phrasing, inappropriate tone, or even factual errors.
Generative AI tools rely on patterns and data to generate text. But it may miss the underlying meaning or intent behind certain words or phrases.
For example, AI might miss out on the opportunities to use humor or relatable language for a specific audience. And this can lead to copy that falls flat.
Take BarkBox for example, a company that offers a monthly subscription service delivering dog toys and treats.
They use relatable language and a playful tone to appeal to dog owners and their emotional connection with their pets:
It also makes use of parallelism and repetition in the sentence “No muss, no fuss, no disappointed pups” to create a sense of rhythm when you read it.
Which is more creative (and concise) than simply saying something like “To minimize mess and fuss, and to keep your dog happy.”
Now, let’s try and generate copy for BarkBox with AI:
Even though the AI tried to be playful and emotional, the copy still feels flat and generic.
Unless you heavily edit the copy, it won’t resonate with the target audience as well as BarkBox’s original message does.
