AI continues to become more and more prevalent across industries. The amount of AI content in Google continues to increase overall. However, as more people talk about the concept of generative AI, one thing is becoming clear.
There are still many questions surrounding the best ways to use AI and its future development.
Learn about the future of AI-generated content along with the opportunities and challenges it presents.
AI has been around for several years now since it launched into the mainstream back in 2022.
According to Statista, when it comes to learning, approximately 35% of people use AI tools frequently, while 47% use AI occasionally.
With such high usage of AI, the concept of AI tools as a staple rather than a new phenomenon is becoming more popular.
Rising AI usage brings opportunities and challenges. Let’s discuss its perks and drawbacks in the context of AI-generated content.
Let’s start with some of the biggest opportunities that AI-generated content offers.
One of the top benefits of AI-generated content is the opportunities it offers for brainstorming and content ideation. AI is a great digital marketing assistant for small businesses or marketers working within a small budget. AI tools fill in the gaps, propose different angles, and establish user intent.
AI chatbots are expanding learning opportunities. It’s never been easier to research subjects and dive into them as much (or as little) as you want to. AI tools provide answers to questions in a matter of minutes and often answer follow-up questions.
Tools like ChatGPT are fantastic for developing writing briefs. They provide teams or freelancers with detailed guidance on what to write, who to write it for, and how to structure content.
Lastly, AI-generated content is excellent for translating content into different languages, whether you’re looking to read content published in other languages or expand your reach to start publishing content in other languages.
Although generative AI has brought many opportunities, it has also highlighted several challenges.
Plagiarism is one major challenge that arose from the launch of generative AI. Many websites and brands are concerned that AI tools are training models with their data only to become competitors.
The most notable example of this was regarding The New York Times, which is currently suing OpenAI over AI use of copyrighted work.
There are benefits to conducting SEO with AI (such as for keyword research or content briefs). However, if you rely too heavily on content generation tools and publish content that doesn’t comply with Google’s Scaled Content Guidelines, it could harm rankings rather than improve them.
Use the Originality.ai Website Scanner to review your website for the presence of AI-generated content and see whether any published content needs reworking.
One of the biggest challenges of a heavy reliance on AI-generated content is that high-quality content can decrease, negatively impacting user experience.
Imagine a world where you search for information on a topic, only to see that the top 10 results all contain the exact same information, just slightly reworded in places. This could potentially limit the variety of thoughts and opinions that add depth to research and discussions.
Another issue with a heavy reliance on generative AI is the potential spread of misinformation. AI tools often work by scraping search results on a subject and re-packaging that information into content.
If the data on a subject is misleading, incorrect, or inflammatory, AI could wrongly present those articles as fact, adding to the spread of misinformation. That’s one of the top reasons that fact-checking is important.
Keeping the opportunities and challenges in mind, here are three possible scenarios that could occur in the future of AI-generated content.
With so many people opting to use AI to learn new things, that immediately suggests that the way people approach search engines is changing. AI rapidly summarizes lengthy articles, providing a concise paragraph to save time.
Search engines and their moderation policies are likely to continue evolving, such as Google’s approach to people-first content.
Further, many search engines already incorporate AI into their platform or offer AI features.
If AI tools successfully enable brands to boost productivity, then that could, in turn, influence the selection and availability of products and services.
It could create the potential for new businesses to sprout by optimizing content creation workflow in small teams and expanding competition for businesses (and options for customers) across industries.
Another potential future change to AI is the need to follow stricter regulations and even include an AI watermark or label on generated content. For example, Meta adds an ‘AI info’ label to AI-generated content.
These regulations act as a sign of transparency for readers.
However, there are still major questions about how this could be implemented and monitored. AI-generated content is difficult for humans to identify (as noted in our study on ChatGPT words and phrases).
Looking for ways to find AI copy on your website? Use the Originality.ai AI detector.
AI has a number of benefits including speeding up content marketing strategy and streamlining research (although fact-checking is still recommended).
However, there are still issues with AI, and relying too heavily on AI could impact search rankings.
It’s best practice to approach AI content with transparency. Inform your audience if you use AI. Additionally, consider AI as a tool to supplement original work.
Then, if you’re conducting a content review, use the Originality.ai AI Checker to detect instances of AI for further editing and optimization.
AI content has come a long way and continues to improve, but it still lacks the nuance, creativity, and emotional intelligence of human-written content.
While AI can automate some aspects of the content creation process, it’s unlikely to entirely replace human writers.
Yes, there are ethical concerns surrounding AI-generated content, including plagiarism and the spread of misinformation.
While there are some indicators to look out for, such as depth and factual errors, to find out whether content is AI-generated, it’s best to use Originality.ai’s AI Checker.