The content is generic and uninspiring

AI tools work by delving into their knowledge of similar content and trying to recreate it. AI therefore isn’t really capable of having an original thought or presenting a unique viewpoint. Instead, most of the 595 words written are tired marketing clichés. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

The phrase “proven track record of success” returns over 4 million Google search results with quotes and 66.3 million without. “Comprehensive range of services” gives you 6.5 million with quotes and 740 million without. Not exactly unique and inspiring, is it?

Aside from the rampant clichés, many of the sentences are utterly bland and don’t really say anything at all. “They are proud of their work and the results they have achieved for their clients.” What work? What results? What clients? Nothing here builds trust, inspires action or demonstrates the uniqueness of DWH.

The tone doesn’t match DWH’s brand

Perhaps worse than this is the cold, unfriendly tone created by writing vague statements in the third person. It’s interesting that the tool made this choice after JB gave it DWH’s first-person-centric website as reference. This makes the article feel very impersonal, like we farmed it out to someone (or something) with zero connection to the brand.

By invoking the anonymous “they”, the article takes away the human connection. Phrases like “they work hard” and “they work closely with their clients” put too much distance between the reader and the brand. We want readers to feel a connection with the content and to feel genuine excitement behind every project.

The AI-generated article also includes a few phrases that would sound absolutely bonkers if a real person said them. My favourite of these is: “In conclusion, DWH Creative is a top-notch digital marketing agency…” Dave, can we adopt a new company tagline, please?

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It doesn’t score well on readability

The Hemingway Editor gives the ChatGPT-generated article a fairly poor readability score. It uses the US school grade level to estimate the level of education needed to read and understand the text. Hemingway suggests aiming for a tenth-grade level (ages 15–16), but it’s important to write for your audience. For example, GOV.UK recommends that its contributors write for a nine-year-old reading age (Grade 3–4) for clarity. Hemingway estimates the AI-generated article at a twelfth-grade level (ages 17–18), so it’s likely too complex for the average reader.

Here’s some good news. The article meets the goals of 6 or fewer adverbs and 7 or fewer uses of the passive voice. Hemingway also only identified one phrase with a simpler alternative. The bad news is that 6 of 36 sentences are ‘hard to read’ and 17 of them are ‘very hard to read’. This means that more than half of the article is a little too complex.

Hemingway uses reliable yet inflexible algorithms to determine readability. Not being able to take the full context into account means they aren’t suitable for all use cases. After all, aiming for Grade 9 readability on your doctoral dissertation might be unwise. It’s always important to write for the human audience who will be reading your words.

While you should take these recommendations with a pinch of salt, remember that another big fan of readability is Google. Sites that are easy to read and understand often rank better. Google might not look upon ChatGPT’s article too favourably, and that could hurt your SEO.

For reference, Hemingway scores this article at grade 8 readability. It thinks 24 out of 74 sentences are ‘hard to read’ and only 1 is ‘very hard to read’. Can you spot it?

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It uses US spelling and terminology

It might not be instantly obvious to all readers, but ChatGPT used American English to write the article. This means that it uses ‘optimization’ and ‘customized’ instead of ‘optimisation’ and ‘customised’. This is a minor difference, but it’s exactly this level of attention to detail that our clients are looking for.

Using UK or US spelling shouldn’t affect your SEO, but using the wrong one could be off putting to visitors. If you rely on local customers, accurately representing yourself as a British brand could make or break conversions. For topics where vocab varies between countries, however, an American focus might hurt your SEO. Think bonnet versus hood, or trousers versus pants. These keywords will bring up very different results depending on your location.

In conclusion…

Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. This AI-generated article isn’t up to scratch, and we wouldn’t be happy to put our names on this work and deliver it to our clients. However, there are more sophisticated AI tools out there, and the technology is advancing all the time.

In its current form, AI can be a useful tool for gathering information and creating a decent starting point for a human to refine. For now, it looks like the robots will be collaborating with us rather than taking our jobs, though there’s a very real possibility that machine learning will be able to create unique, complex copy that fits seamlessly alongside a brand’s existing content.

If you prefer less digital in your digital marketing, chat to DWH. Our team is backed by years of lived experience in online and offline marketing. We offer a human touch that robots have yet to successfully reproduce – and we’re good at it.