We all want to get more done, and many businesses are automating parts of their processes to achieve maximum efficiency. From ordering your guilty pleasure at McDonald's to using the self-checkout at the grocery store, automation is everywhere. But does it belong in the world of content creation, too? According to a 2022 study by Capterra, 33% of surveyed marketers who use artificial intelligence and machine learning software are leveraging it to generate content. Creating content with AI content generators is faster and cheaper than hiring a writer to do the same job, but are the world's best copywriters, writers and content creators about to end up on the unemployment line?

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has made incredible strides in its ability to generate human-like text. As a result, AI writing is becoming increasingly commonplace, with businesses and organisations using it to create everything from marketing copy to financial reports. While AI writing is still in its early stages and far from perfect, it's clear that it poses a threat to the livelihood of professional writers. After all, if a machine can produce text that is indistinguishable from that of a human writer, why would anyone need to hire a real person to do the job? It's not just low-skilled jobs like content writing that are at risk of being automated by AI.

Chances are you've already seen the headline (or some variation thereof): "AI won an art contest, and artists are furious" Here's what happened: A Colorado man entered an art competition at the Colorado State Fair Fine Arts Competition in the category of "digital arts/digitally-manipulated photography". The problem, however, was that he produced the image using Midjourney, an online AI program that produces images based on user text input. He entered the piece using the name "Jason M. Allen via Midjourney", thus disclosing the use of the AI and meeting all competition rules. The judges were not initially aware that AI was used, yet later admitted that they still would have awarded Allen the prize even if they had. As the headline above attests, many artists the world over were not pleased with this outcome.

Were you unable to attend Transform 2022? Check out all of the summit sessions in our on-demand library now! This article is an existential crisis. It is written by a professional writer writing about artificial intelligence that helps writers write. I mean, shouldn't humans write their own content?

In Sept. 2020, The Guardian published an opinion piece written by a program. The artificial intelligence, called GPT-3, is a large language model developed by OpenAI, and it posed a bold question in the headline of its machine-generated text: "A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human?" Indeed, it is a scary time to be a professional writer. Earlier in 2020, Microsoft laid off journalists to replace them with a writing AI. And as AI language models get increasingly better, researchers are claiming that soon, AI-generated text will be indistinguishable from that written by a person.

Writing tools over the millennia have facilitated the transmission of information and knowledge using countless types of mediums. But there has always been one key driver present in each and every one of those mediums: the infinitely creative human brain. Since advanced AI writing tools emerged on the scene, the brain factor seems to be less necessary. And as a result, the tech industry and writers themselves have been trying to figure out if AI writing tools are a good thing. Is it possible for AI tools to match what professional human writers can do on their own?

I am a professional writer who is happy to sip coffee and type on my Mac each day. About 10 years ago, (and after earning a Master's Degree from Penn State) I decided the office life wasn't for me, and that I would rather work from home. Digital marketing, technical and business writing is my thing. Over the years, i've managed to keep a handful of Fortune 500 companies happy, 2 great kids smiling and 1 husband away from the stove. I'm also the proud owner of an amazing, but very conceited boxer named Bella.

An AI algorithm developed by researchers at Salesforce generates snippets of text that describe the essence of long text. These tools can help writers skim through a lot of articles and find relevant topics to write about. "Since new semantic technologies are now mature enough to read human language, journalists and professional writers can finally go back to writing for people," Cuofano says. "The next revolution (which is already coming) is the leap from NLP to a subset of it called NLU (Natural Language Understanding)," Cuofano says.

An AI algorithm developed by researchers at Salesforce generates snippets of text that describe the essence of long text. These tools can help writers skim through a lot of articles and find relevant topics to write about. "Since new semantic technologies are now mature enough to read human language, journalists and professional writers can finally go back to writing for people," Cuofano says. "The next revolution (which is already coming) is the leap from NLP to a subset of it called NLU (Natural Language Understanding)," Cuofano says.

As a blogger, journalist or reporter, you have to meet several challenges to stay at the top of your trade. You have to stay up to date with the latest developments and at the same time write timely, compelling and unique content. The same goes for scientists, researchers and analysts and other professionals whose job involves a lot of writing. With the deluge of information being published on the web every day, things aren't getting easier. You have to juggle speed, style, quality and content simultaneously if you want to succeed in reaching your audience.