Using Humans to Improve AI Content

In the grand dance of AI content creation, humans are not just spectators, they’re active participants. They shape and guide the content AI creates, infusing creativity and adding a human touch that makes the content engaging and relatable. AI, on the other hand, is not just a content-producing tool. It’s a partner, a collaborator, a co-creator with the ability to amplify human creativity and inspire fresh ideas.

The process of creating AI content is a dialogue, a conversation between humans and AI. It starts with human input, which AI uses to generate content. Humans then review, refine, and improve the content. It’s not just about content production, but about learning, growing, evolving in a symbiotic relationship where humans and AI enhance each other’s capabilities.

Wondering how AI creates content? It’s all about models and algorithms. But it’s not just about feeding the model information. It’s about fine-tuning the process to produce the content you want consistently.

No tech expertise? No problem. You don’t have to be a tech whiz to use AI for content creation. It’s about learning to use the available tools effectively. And while AI can generate content, it’s not infallible. That’s where you come in, guiding and correcting it as necessary.

AI is also about understanding and interpreting user intent and improving your skills to unlock new possibilities. You don’t need to be a computer whiz for this. You just need access to someone who understands prompt engineering to guide you through it.

The benefits of AI-generated, human-edited content are plenty. It’s faster, cheaper, and more efficient. However, there are challenges too. Some writers may feel their roles have shifted too much or fear AI will replace them. The key is to find a balance, understanding that while AI can generate content, it needs a human touch for authenticity and relevance.

So, what’s next? The future of AI in content creation is bright. It’s about finding your why for adopting AI and leveraging it to create content that serves a purpose. It’s about embracing AI’s possibilities while understanding its limitations.

Navigating the intersections of human creativity and AI isn’t easy, but it’s a path worth taking. AI reshapes the content creation landscape, but it’s not a human substitute; it’s a tool enhancing our skills and efficiency. So, get ready to embrace this change, master these tools, and dive into the thrilling world of AI-powered content creation.

Interesting Insights

• AI can greatly improve efficiency and scale in content creation, but human involvement is crucial to ensure quality, accuracy, and authenticity.
• Fact-checking is an essential skill when working with AI-generated content, particularly when it comes to dates, proper nouns, and declarative statements.
• The use of AI in content creation can lead to cost and time savings, but it’s important to balance this with maintaining the quality of the content.
• Writers and creatives may need to adapt their roles to work effectively with AI, but this can also open up new opportunities and ways of working.
• AI can be a useful tool for tasks that were previously impossible or impractical, such as producing large volumes of location-specific content.

Takeaways

AI in content creation doesn’t replace humans, but complements them for efficiency and scale

In the rapidly evolving field of content creation, AI is seen not as a replacement for human creativity, but as a tool to complement and enhance human capabilities. The use of AI can significantly reduce the time and cost of content production, allowing for content at scale while still maintaining quality and authenticity.

Jeff Coyle, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer for Market Muse, emphasizes the importance of human involvement in AI-driven content creation. “So we’re keeping humans in the loop, but we’re also inspiring human creativity. We’re also talking about ways that we can make humans most efficient while still taking advantage of the leading edge of technology,” he says. Ryan Sargent, Director of Content Marketing at Verblio, echoes this sentiment, stating that their process produces articles in “half the time at less than half the cost.”

Megan Skalback, head of AI at Verblio, highlights how AI can help in situations where traditional human-led content creation would be impractical or inefficient. “Something that they simply couldn’t do previously at any sort of cost that would have made sense… using the AI to generate most of the content for those pages… figuring out how you can help them make it easier and make it like, okay, you don’t need to go fact-check all these things,” she states.

AI and human interaction in content creation is a balance

The key to successful AI-enabled content creation lies in achieving the right balance between AI-generated content and human editing. According to the experts, while AI can generate a substantial amount of content, human involvement is critical for ensuring the accuracy, authenticity, and relevance of the content.

Megan explains the importance of human involvement in the early stages of content creation. “We’re first generating an outline… then that goes to the writer because you need that human input that early in the process. Otherwise, you’re just setting yourself up for so much work later on… the writer being able to edit, review, still make updates to the outline all the way through that process,” she says.

Ryan adds that using AI to generate content doesn’t absolve the need for human fact-checking and editing. “If you publish pure AI content on your website, you are taking a risk. I think the Google risks are maybe not what we thought they were six months ago, but there are other risks associated with that,” he cautions.

AI content creation requires a new skill set for writers

The use of AI in content creation necessitates a new set of skills for writers, particularly in the areas of fact-checking, understanding AI outputs, and refining AI-generated drafts. Writers need to adapt and evolve their skills to work effectively with AI tools.

Megan describes how their writers have been trained to use AI tools effectively. “We’ve done a lot of training and education around that, like what specifically to look out for and what they should be doing when they’re reviewing AI content…” she explains.

Ryan added that the art and skill of fact-checking have become more vital than ever in the era of AI content creation. “If you publish pure AI content on your website, you are taking a risk… We talked about high stakes fact checking, stuff like that,” he explains. He also notes that writers need to develop the ability to improve AI-generated drafts, stating, “When I get the intro paragraph to a blog back from the AI, am I a good enough writer to make substantive improvements to this paragraph because we’re then going to feed that back into the prompt when it writes the rest of the article…”

AI is a tool for future-proofing content marketing

The use of AI in content marketing is seen as a crucial step in future-proofing the field. As AI continues to evolve and improve, content marketers need to stay ahead of the curve and learn how to use AI tools to their advantage.

Ryan argues that AI will continue to revolutionize content marketing, and those who can use AI effectively will be at an advantage. “Doing the same tasks you were doing yesterday faster, better, even cheaper with AI is fine, but that will soon become table stakes… What can I do tomorrow with AI that I was not capable of doing yesterday without it?” he wonders.

Megan supports this view, noting that AI enables new capabilities and opportunities for content marketers. “The coolest thing for me has been seeing how many writers get excited about this… Yes, some of this content is a commodity… but kind of being clear on that purpose and understanding where it’s appropriate to use AI,” she states.

AI and human collaboration is the future of content marketing

The future of content marketing lies in the effective collaboration of AI and humans. While AI can generate vast amounts of content quickly and efficiently, the human touch is still required to ensure the content is accurate, relevant, and high-quality.

“AI in content creation doesn’t replace humans, but complements them for efficiency and scale,” explains Jeff. He emphasizes that the use of AI does not eliminate the need for human creativity and expertise but rather enhances them.

In their experience at Verblio, Ryan Sargent and Megan Skalback have seen how AI and human collaboration can produce high-quality content efficiently. They highlight the importance of human involvement in the process, from the initial stages of content creation to fact-checking and editing the AI-generated drafts. This combined approach, they believe, is the key to producing high-quality, relevant, and authentic content in the age of AI.

Key Quotes

• “The more information you give the AI at the beginning, the better it will perform and the more you can automate at the end.” – Ryan Sargent
• “I think as a marketer, we need to get away from the fact that like this is a piece of our soul that we’re putting out there right there is content that is that and it’s unfortunately use the same word for both of them but like being clear on that purpose and understanding where it’s appropriate to use AI.” – Megan Skalback
• “I think the best journalists will continue to succeed in content marketing. In that sense. I don’t think you should study prompt engineering if you’re a marketer.” – Ryan Sargent
• “I think we’ve been talking a lot about like AI is a word generator and Ryan Law said this really well that we’ve decoupled word count from effort. They’re just not related anymore.” – Megan Skalback
• “The content that answers a simple question particularly with like SGE and the other like search based AI stuff that content’s going to have to get very tight very tight and very straightforward.” – Ryan Sargent

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