Our current news cycle can’t go a day without talking about AI—an inescapable topic for modern-day marketers. If you’ve wondered if ChatGPT can do your job better than you, you’re not alone. There’s no denying that the digital marketing landscape is drastically changing, but how worried should we be about ChatGPT? Are our fears founded in reality, or can we leverage this new tool to become unstoppable experts in our respective roles? Let’s find out.
What are ChatGPT and generative AI?
Created by OpenAI, ChatGPT stands for “Chat Generated Pre-Trained Transformer” and is a chatbot, or virtual assistant, that uses natural language processing (NLP) to answer questions and queries that a user submits. Referred to as generative artificial intelligence (AI), it gathers data and uses algorithms to create new content in the form of audio, code, images, text, simulations, and videos.
OpenAI is also not the only one developing an AI chatbot. The list includes Google’s Bard, Microsoft’s Bing, and Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen. Meanwhile, other chatbots have been around for ages, seemingly slipping under the general public’s radar, including Kuki AI, Replika, Cleverbot, Xiaoice, and Rose.
Long story short? You type what you’re looking for or send a reference image (a new feature of GPT-4), and ChatGPT gives it to you. The more the chatbot gets used, the better it knows how to discuss any given topic.
What can ChatGPT do?
ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. The list of requests ChatGPT can complete is growing by the second—as is the list of countries trying to ban this form of AI. Especially as a writer, ChatGPT’s natural language abilities may take you by surprise.
In fact, if you ask ChatGPT for a list of things it can do, you’ll get the following:
- Engage in natural language conversations. ChatGPT is designed to respond to user inputs in a conversational manner, using natural language processing techniques to understand and generate text.
- Generate text in a variety of styles and formats. ChatGPT can generate text in a range of styles, from formal to informal, and can format text as needed (e.g., as a list, a paragraph, etc.).
- Answer questions. ChatGPT can provide answers to questions on a wide range of topics, using information from its training data and external sources like the internet.
- Generate summaries. ChatGPT can summarize long pieces of text into shorter, more digestible summaries using techniques like extractive or abstractive summarization.
- Generate content. ChatGPT can generate text content like articles, stories, and poems, using prompts and keywords provided by the user.
- Translate languages. ChatGPT can translate text from one language to another using techniques like neural machine translation.
- Perform sentiment analysis. ChatGPT can analyze the sentiment of text, determining whether it is positive, negative, or neutral.
- Generate captions. ChatGPT can generate captions for images and videos, describing the content in natural language.
It even notes that “these are just some examples of what ChatGPT can do, and its capabilities are constantly improving as it is further developed and trained.”
How AI has impacted marketing—good and bad
First, the “bad”
For advertising and marketing creatives and an industry that revolves around copy, what’s in store? With the sheer knowledge ChatGPT has at its disposal and the speed with which it can generate a response, ChatGPT has many marketers shaking in their boots. Is our industry as replaceable as it now feels?
There’s nothing stopping companies from using ChatGPT to create original content, from social posts and email newsletters to blog posts, white papers, and beyond. Suddenly, copywriters around the globe are wondering, “If ChatGPT can write the same types of content—and faster—why would anyone pay me to do it?”
However, it doesn’t stop at marketing copy. ChatGPT can develop strategy, provide ideas for content pillars, perform Google Ads research, structure Google Ad campaigns, identify keywords to bid on, draft landing pages, provide customer service, and more. Its abilities touch on largely every role within a traditional agency model.
Now, the good
But here’s the catch—everything ChatGPT writes is based on something already written. ChatGPT’s knowledge is a massive dataset comprised of books, newspapers, research papers, and a snapshot of the internet taken in 2021.
While it can predict what words to use and in what order to create the best response, anything ChatGPT writes is only what it has understood about something that has already been written. Moreover, ChatGPT lacks the context to provide 100% reliable and relevant answers with guaranteed accuracy.
If you haven’t yet, let out that sigh of relief you’ve been holding in. While ChatGPT’s technology is undoubtedly advanced, and its ability to aggregate and summarize data is impressive, it is incapable of original thought or creativity—unlike humans. As such, Chat GPT is not equipped to be a comprehensive replacement for any profession.
Marketing still needs humans
This is not an either-or conversation. The only way to move forward is by striking a balance between humans and AI. Instead of viewing all AI as an inherently ill-intentioned enemy, we must view it as a tool that makes the great work we do even better.
Amid a sea of AI, agencies like Concept Co. remain relevant to leverage quality content with what AI could be if it spins out of control. Left to its own devices, AI-generated marketing content is vanilla, run-of-the-mill copy with a hefty sprinkling of robot voice.
Remember, this isn’t the first time we’ve witnessed technological developments affect the workforce. Technology does make old jobs redundant, but in their wake, it creates new jobs that are more creative, technical, and skilled, with increased salaries and higher job satisfaction. Long-term, even the World Economic Forum predicts job growth as a result of AI.
“Is ChatGPT a danger to marketing?”
When asked this very question, ChatGPT’s reply tells you everything you need to know:
“No, ChatGPT is not a danger to marketing. In fact, ChatGPT can be a valuable tool for marketers to use in their efforts, helping them to work more efficiently and effectively. As a language model, ChatGPT can help marketers with tasks such as content creation, market research, and customer service. However, it is important to use ChatGPT ethically and transparently and to ensure that customers are aware they are interacting with an AI language model rather than a human.”
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves 😉
Need an agency to leverage ChatGPT for you? Look no further than Concept Co.