Whether you’re starting a new blog or looking to grow your current blog, you may have wondered, “should you use an AI writer?” An AI tool can do a lot, and they can write blog posts.
However, they’re far from perfect, and they’ll never replace human writers. Read on to learn whether you should use an AI writing tool and the pros and cons of them.
But first, this post contains affiliate links. Read my full disclosure policy to learn more.
Why Use an AI Writer
As much as I hate to admit it, AI writing tools can be useful for blog owners. They’ll never replace us humans completely, but they can make our lives easier when creating content.
Here are some advantages of using an AI writer.
Save Time
One of the best reasons to use an AI writer is if you’re short on time. Depending on the tool you use, it can generate a short blog post within a few minutes or so.
If you’re a slow writer, you may be able to save a decent chunk of time by using AI. Unfortunately, you can’t just prompt AI to write a blog post and put it up on your website.
These tools can do a lot, but they’re also prone to making mistakes, which I’ll cover later. Still, if editing takes you less time than writing, an AI tool could help you be more productive.
Scale Your Content
The more content you create for your blog, the sooner you can get more website traffic. And if you can do that, you can turn those page views into money.
Even the most prolific writers can only write and publish so much content. We all need breaks, and we can burn out or experience writer’s block (or both).
As you learn how to use an AI tool, you can figure out how it works and how to get it to write better content. Then, you may have less editing to do, so you can really start to publish more articles.
Save Money
Another (and in my opinion, better) way to scale your content business is by hiring freelancers. However, that can also cost a lot of money, while an AI writing tool comes with one (relatively cheap) monthly fee.
The nice thing about starting a niche website is that it can be a pretty lean business model. You can get a domain and hosting for a few bucks a month from a company like SiteGround.
And if you do all of the content creation yourself, hosting will be your only expense. Hiring a team can significantly increase your expenses, but using an AI writer won’t increase your costs so much.
Get Over Writer’s Block
One of the least ethically questionable ways to use an AI writing tool is to help generate ideas. If you frequently suffer from writer’s block, you can use AI to help.
Maybe you have a basic idea of what to write. Input that topic into a tool and ask it to create an outline for a blog post. You may not like all of the points, but it can at least get your writing juices flowing.
I’ve used it to help outline a couple of blog posts, and it was really helpful. While I have yet to have AI write a full blog post, making it create outlines is quick and can be more efficient than what we can come up with on our own.
Do Keyword Research
I have yet to try this myself, but I’ve seen other bloggers use an AI tool to do keyword research. You can ask the tool about the competition for certain keywords as well as the average search traffic.
If you don’t have any keyword ideas, you can also ask the tool for ideas based on your niche. Then, you can verify the data with a keyword research tool.
Once you validate a given keyword, you can create an outline and start writing the post. Of course, you can continue to use AI tools for those steps or do most of the work yourself.
Why Not Use an AI Writer
AI can be very helpful, but it’s far from perfect, especially when it comes to writing content. Before you determine that you should use an AI writer, consider why you may want to hold off.
These tools may get better in the future. But at least for now, there are quite a few drawbacks.
Poor Quality
AI is often a very poor-quality writer. While I haven’t prompted ChatGPT to write a blog post, I have asked it some things. The answers it gives are very boring, so I wouldn’t want to read something longer.
So sure, AI could churn out a blog post, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be any good. At best, you’ll lose a few readers, and at worst, you may start to drop in search engine rankings because more people leave your website.
What’s more, AI can also be straight up wrong. For example, I play the flute and piccolo, and I asked AI to compare the two instruments. One of the “facts” it told me was not accurate at all.
If you want to use an AI writer, you need to spend a good amount of time fact-checking the content. So while it may be okay for a niche you know about, it’s not worth it for other topics.
Dehumanizes Writers
Another big downside of AI writing tools is that they can take away jobs from real writers. Paying a human to write content for your site won’t be cheap, but you’ll get the quality you pay for.
When you rely on AI, you won’t get very good writing. You’ll have to do a lot of editing and updating, so you can waste a lot of time and money that you would have saved by hiring someone.
Of course, you may not care about other people making money. But it’s still worth thinking about whether you want to take work away from people in favor of machines.
No Human Experience
A massive problem you may experience when you use an AI writer is that it’s not human. What I mean by that is that even the best AI writer hasn’t lived through anything.
The human experience can be vital to creating good content. It makes the article unique and more interesting, especially if you’re writing a review about a product you love.
In fact, the advancement of AI has encouraged Google to start prioritizing human-focused content more heavily. So if you only ever use AI to write your blog posts, you’ll miss out, and Google could punish your content accordingly.
Regurgitated Content
A lack of human experience also makes it so AI can only regurgitate content that’s already on the web. It can’t add any new points or unique ideas to the blog posts that it generates.
Even before AI was as big of a thing, search engines weren’t big fans of “spun” content. Readers want to see new things, and search engines want to show them that.
I don’t care how far AI advances. In a few years, it probably still won’t be able to do anything other than scan the internet and rephrase existing blog posts on the same topic.
Potential for Plagiarism
Then there’s the fact that spun content can easily lead to plagiarism. If you want to use AI to write some of your content, you’ll need to run that through a plagiarism checker such as Copyscape.
There are only so many ways you can rephrase certain things. On the other hand, if you write content manually, you can use your own words and ensure they’re unique.
So even if you’re sharing similar points to existing content, it can still be different enough to provide more value.
Final Thoughts
If you want to grow your blog, you may wonder if you should use an AI writer. AI can be a helpful tool for generating ideas or outlines, but I wouldn’t use it for anything else.
There are still too many bugs and too many risks, such as plagiarizing existing blog posts. It’s just not worth it, so don’t be afraid to contact me if you want to hire a real, human writer.