You can barely move for think pieces about OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool and how it is set to change everything, especially for marketers.
After having a play with it, it’s definitely cool! But here are a few reasons not to start retraining in cyber just yet.
It’s Groundhog Day. Again
“[Tech] will make human marketers obsolete” is one of those phrases guaranteed to make you roll your eyes if you’ve been in this industry for any length of time.
A quick search of the phrase “will make human marketers obsolete” brought up this article:
Source: Trendemon
Any guesses when it was written?
2016. And there are still a few of us about, so the answer is pretty clearly “No”.
It’s in a test phase
On its FAQ page, the first question is “How much does it cost to use ChatGPT?”
While “free to use” is the part most people will jump to, “During the initial research preview” is more significant.
Before throwing all your content production to the machine and moving on, think about where that approach would leave you if ChatGPT were to disappear. Or what if it were to simply suffer an outage when you’re relying on it for a critical piece of content?
The other thing that might happen is that OpenAI decides to charge for access. If every marketer in the world relies on their tool for written content, they would likely charge accordingly.
It doesn’t know your audience
Love it or hate it, every industry has its quirks, jargon and favourite terms. Talk to a non-marketer about CTR, CLV or RFM and you’ll probably get a blank stare. ChatGPT doesn’t yet have that sort of industry-specific vocabulary. So anything it writes for you will be entry-level at best.
It doesn’t have your voice
Quite apart from any industry jargon or talking points specific to your company, writing by human marketers retains a distinct style. On our team, we separate blog-writing duties between our B2B and B2C brands, mostly to allow focus. If you flick between our B2C blog and our B2B offerings, it’s probably immediately obvious that there are different people behind them, even if you ignore the Meet the Author panel!
Why you should still pay attention
Our main takeaway from giving ChatGPT a mix of sensible (write me a blog on zero-party data) and silly (write a letter to my boss explaining why I should get 6 months holiday a year) we concluded that it’s mind-bogglingly clever.
Despite the above limitations, it’s still worth having a play with. The hardest thing about writing content is often Blank Page Syndrome; once you get a few thoughts down, everything starts to flow. ChatGPT can give you that basis; something generic that you can adapt, improve and expand.
Putting the AI in email
Overall then, we’re not too worried about ChatGPT completely taking over our jobs just yet. If nothing else, marketing is too varied a discipline for a single program to replace.
If you do want to use ChatGPT for content, why not run a split test of its output against your own, and see what your audience makes of it?
