As part of our curious experiment, Writers Against the Machine, we’ve discovered a large part of that curiosity is connected to what our clients think of AI.
For as much as we can demonstrate a writer’s worth and protest (too much?), it’s our clients who are deciding whether to hire us, or not.
We spoke to three Incredibble clients from various industries to hear their take on AI.
The copy-loving marketing director
“AI works well for formulaic forms of writing,” said Louise Donkor, in conversation with me in December 2024. “But where you need extra, where you need more personality, a copywriter can be a better option,” she commented, joking that ChatGPT’s penchant for the word ‘unwavering’ marks its work out a mile.
Louise is Marketing Communications Director at Yondr. A company that builds, owns and operates data centres globally. The rise in AI has skyrocketed the demand for data centers globally. So it’s impacting Louise’s world in more ways than one.
We kept our conversation focused on marketing and, paraphrasing the quote below, Louise told me she wants to see AI give people more time to do art: “Don’t do our art for us.”
Louise has a background in content marketing and has huge respect for the craft. And while she wonders how “advanced and nuanced AI can get”, she’s also aware she’d need to put in time to train it. And Louise is busy.
It’s suddenly clear to me that if you’re the one doing the copywriting, or someone who has done it, you understand it as this precious, beautiful thing that’s both heaven and hell and ultimately deeply rewarding - as all creative things are. It is art.
If you don’t see copywriting that way, if it’s a chore, if it’s an uncomfortable flashback to torturous school days, red pen and blank sheets demanding to be filled, writing can be merrily handed over to a machine with nary a backward glance.
The conscientious founder
Hmm. Nary a backward glance goes too far. Because here’s Abena Fairweather, managing director of Legacy Events, a sustainable event management consultancy, and a lover of the written word who hates a blank page.
Abena contacted me after reading part one of our curious experiment. We worked together in 2020. Last year, she introduced Claude to help her write and proofread technical reports. “And I have found it a gamechanger in terms of efficiency and getting me started.”
Blank pages “would often put me in a state of extreme procrastination”, she said. But has found that “Claude (and ChatGPT to a lesser extent) has also dumbed me down since I now rely on it to prompt ideas”.
Another lightbulb. Copywriters are no fans of the blank page either. But we know how to fill them with dirty first drafts, snippets of research, bullet points and quotes. We know how to build an outline and structure ideas. This is our art. Our practice.
I don’t know about you, fellow copywriter, but that’s a side of my skillset I never highlight. Maybe it’s time to start doing that.
Would it give us one-up against the machine? No. But it would be good for humanity. And for creativity.
If we don’t want people to feel dumbed down by AI, let’s share our creative practices to help keep creativity alive.
It’s important to note that Abena was unlikely to be our client beyond the initial package of work in 2020 when we defined Legacy’s voice. Abena can write and wants to. AI helps her and her mission, skills and solutions get into the world faster. Hooray for AI!
The tech-first agency leader
Sean Redfearn is CEO of Red-Fern Digital, a technology-first digital agency. Sean believes any agency who’s not acknowledging AI head-on is on the back foot. He’s embracing it. And here’s one of his latest dalliances with the tech.
Sean used AI to write an SEO-optimised landing page about the best manufacturing marketing agencies in the UK. He added his own SEO expertise and the page is currently ranking #1. (As of January 2025. Open an incognito tab and search “manufacturing marketing agency”.)
It took him three to four hours to create. And this page is driving leads. A £50,000 project within four months, for example.
Another lead came in via this page to write a white paper.
Sean contacted Incredibble to quote for it.
I asked him why he's not using AI to write it?
“AI can’t interview people,” he said. The brief (which I’m 99% certain was written by AI) required multiple client interviews. Sean also explained that he doesn’t have capacity or the right experience in-house to deliver the asset.
So what can we learn from this second part of the curious experiment?
AI has eroded a large portion of the market
And that’s OK. These clients were never going to be our clients. And AI is helping them create more, sooner. For the likes of Abena, who is conscientious about how she’s engaging AI, this is only a good thing.
This is an invitation to go higher
If copywriters continue to position themselves as people who ‘do the words’ (a line I’ve used many times), we’ll all be eroded. We do so much more than writing.
The industry (all of us) needs to do a better job of demonstrating this. It will look different to different writers. It might be workshop facilitation, tone of voice development, audience research or strategically repurposing existing content.
We call it the think before the ink. It’s a rich playground that’s inherently human. And AI really struggles to be human.
Training and using AI will be pushed down the ranks
In time, marketers like Louise may look to hire someone else to take care of the AI. As many of us seasoned professionals cut our teeth on segmenting data or building html templates, the next generation will build their careers on training AI.
But combine early careerists with AI-induced laziness and we're in trouble:
- If you don't fully grasp a brand's tone of voice, you're not going to know how to apply it.
- If you don't understand the nuances of an industry, skill, process or business, you won't know what's right and wrong.
- If you haven't been exposed to copywriting techniques or marketing psychology, you won't know how good something could be.
So what do we do?
Keep a tight fist on prompting and outputs? That sounds like micromanaging.
Do we need to learn how to prompt AI so we can be more sure of its outputs? Possibly.
I think marketers certainly need partners and suppliers who understand the technology so they can fully rely on them.
A new service offering
Copywriters don’t need to become AI copywriters. They need to become strategic AI advisors. People who can guide a company to use AI effectively and ethically.
I think this starts with conversations with more clients, new clients, old clients and other copywriters. It’s also about learning how AI works, what it takes to perfect its outputs, what a company needs to bring to the conversation in the form of voice, positioning, boundaries and ethics.
I’m exploring this next, this time working with a broader pool of experts. I think the output will be a best practice guide. But who knows. The curiosity continues.