Using AI for Content Creation
In this article:
- AI content creation can save you time; however, it should never replace human content
- ChatGPT often misses tone, brand voice and nuance, affecting your content quality
- Privacy and AI hallucinations remain one of the biggest challenges of all
- Relying on AI content alone can also have an impact on your search rankings
- The best solution is to invest in AI copy editing to get the most from your content
At the rate tools such as ChatGPT are growing, more brands than ever are using AI for content creation. The rise of AI has been rapid. So rapidly that it’s become widely used in everything from regular content to research papers and even fake bands. Worries over privacy, AI hallucinations, misinformation, Google penalties, and other potential grey areas have all contributed to the confusion around AI.
With this in mind, where is AI going and what part will it play in content creation? Should you be using ChatGPT instead of a writer, and what does this mean for your content? In this guide, I’ll share a few things to know about ChatGPT content.
Despite concerns surrounding AI in general, it is essential to recognise that AI is not inherently bad. It has a lot of potential when used as a tool. From providing structure to rough article drafts to helping with content planning and ideas, it can save a lot of time and effort when planning content. However, relying solely on AI tools to do all the work without any human assistance is not ideal. The risk of factual errors, avoiding generic content that consumers can easily see, and the huge lack of nuance make it difficult to beat human content.
Does this mean ditching your ChatGPT altogether? Not necessarily. What it does mean is finding the balance between human and AI-generated copy.
How to Use AI for Content Creation
Here are some of the things you need to consider when using AI for content creation.
Check your prompts
Prompts need to be extremely clear. Imagine you’re giving instructions to a child or trying to give driving directions to someone who doesn’t know the area. The more information you give, the better the results you will get.
Bad Prompt Example: “Write 50 words on kitten toys” will give you very vaguge output, with information that may not apply to your specific products.
Better Prompt Example: “Write 50 words on kitten toys, including [your specific product categories]”
Be aware that things like tone and brand voice are not easy to perfect, even with the best prompts. You may have to tweak prompts multiple times to get things right. Even then, it’s hard to predict results.
Key Takeaway: The right prompts can help produce better results. However, you will still need to edit the results you get to ensure that the information and tone are right.
Understand tone & voice
A major hurdle with AI copy is the ability to convey tone and brand voice. This is because no machine will ever replace the human ability to inject nuance into written content. AI tools create text by collecting related information and linking it together. They do not understand context or flow. They may be able to create text that reads fine if the copy is simple. But they do not bring across the subtle tones that make your content suited to your brand voice. Instead, they use generic descriptive tones across all types of content – regardless of your niche.
Example: Overly descriptive terms like “enchanting”, “captivating allure”, “soothing beauty”, “bask”, “embrace”, and other terms not used naturally.
Teaching bots to capture brand voice is difficult, too. This is because every brand has a unique voice. You know how great it is when you can throw a quirky line or phrase into your copy that captures what you want to say? That’s something that bots don’t know how to do too well. AI cannot inject genuine emotion into text. Only humans know how to do that.
Key Takeaway: Tone and brand voice are essential to connect to your audience. Only humans can convey your unique tone that is suited to your niche and style.
Be aware of privacy risks
Yes, I know. That sounds a little dramatic. In the early days of AI, many were worried about the impact of rapidly changing technology. Italy, France and other countries in the EU are taking a very serious look at the privacy implications of AI. After employees at Samsung leaked sensitive data when using ChatGPT for work, corporations are getting alarmed, too. This is something every single business needs to know when using AI in content creation. I originally wrote this article a little over a year ago. Today, halfway into 2025, there are many other privacy challenges.
Bots are coming into trouble for using intellectual property, and as laws around AI are still a little murky, it’s harder to prevent them from stealing information. Bots can also copy huge volumes of pages in a very short time.
Key Takeaway: Privacy concerns remain a hot topic. This is because AI can steal and copy large volumes of information for training and decision-making. There is little control over how this data is collected, used, and protected.
Watch out for factual issues
I mentioned AI hallucinations earlier. These sound like something out of a sci-fi movie. But then again, so does AI in general. When I pictured the inevitable robot invasion, this really wasn’t what I was expecting. Anyway, AI hallucinations are a fascinating but scary phenomenon caused by bots throwing out misinformation.
In a few cases, AI has produced fake Guardian articles that looked exactly like the real thing, opening up the risk of misinformation, conspiracies and confusion.
When Google launched its AI tool, Bard, in February 2023, it managed to make a very embarrassing, very public mistake. When asked on Twitter about new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope, it threw out 3 answers, including one that the telescope took the first pictures of a planet outside Earth’s solar system. Twitter users (including astronomers) were quick to respond that this was not at all correct. In reality, the first image of such a planet was taken in 2004, with pictures shown on the NASA website.
ChatGPT has had its share of hallucinations, somehow of which had a far more serious impact. A mayor in Australia became the first person to sue OpenAI for defamation after the AI tool wrongly accused him of crimes such as bribery and corruption.
Fast-forward to 2025, and somehow, it’s gotten worse. Here are a few of the craziest AI hallucinations for 2025. All of this happens when there is no human around to say, “Wait a minute… that sounds a little out there.”
Key Takeaway: As far as content goes, this means that there is a huge need for human fact-checking. The last thing you want is errors in your copy that are missed because no human has gone over facts.
Look out for SEO penalties
What does Google think of brands using AI for content creation? Well, it’s complicated. Generally speaking, the official stance is that as long as content is human-centric, in line with Google’s Human First update, AI and human-written content can both rank if written well. But John Mueller from Google still has doubts. On Twitter, he pointed out that AI copy isn’t always factual and that Google can still penalise if AI-generated text is flagged as duplicate copy. Considering the way that AI spins out copy for larger projects can be a little same-same, this is something to note.
Fast-forward to 2025, Google is still focusing on its E.E.A.T. rankings. This focuses on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It’s a framework that Google’s human reviewers use to assess content quality. The keyword here is human reviewers.
If content can easily be seen as AI-produced, it loses any E.E.A.T. score. This is because it is not written by real people in your company. There’s a massive difference between an article written by you as a business owner with vast experience and one written by ChatGPT.
Key Takeaway: Google’s biggest concern is quality and authority. If your content is written for humans, make sure it’s checked by humans. Obvious AI content can be identified easily, meaning it will affect your rankings and your reputation.
So what’s next?
Ultimately, the decision on whether to use AI tools for content comes down to your budget and your goals. If you need to churn out generic copy quickly, using these tools can be fine. If you need well-written content, relying on AI completely is a big risk. Here’s what to do instead:
- Instead of using ChatGPT completely, get help from a human to edit your copy
- Use a writer with experience in writing, AI content refinement and SEO content
- Create rough drafts, blog topic ideas, outlines and strategies using AI tools
It may seem like an added cost to use AI *and* a writer. Ultimately, this is an investment that will pay off in the long run. An experienced writer with an understanding of SEO, brand voice, editing, optimisation and the ability to make human is essential. This gives you the best of both worlds. You can use your ChatGPT for rough drafts, then use a human to make sure that your content is 100% factual, unique and suited to your brand.
Many writers may offer editing rates for this type of content instead of rates used for content written from scratch. I do, anyway (I can’t speak for other writers, of course).
To find out more about using AI in content creation without these risks, give me a shout and let’s see how we can turn that boring, generic robotic text into something just right for your brand.
This AI content article was updated in June 2025 from an original version in April 2024.