AI: A Copywriter’s Creativity Multiplier 

As a 10x marketing agency professional over the past 30 years, I’ve struggled to balance my excitement around the efficiencies generative AI like ChatGPT creates with the impending dread of how it will impact the creative industry. As a writer, I particularly find AI’s impact on the copywriting profession interesting. I decided to focus my energy on creating a post that takes an optimistic “lean in” approach to a copywriter’s future with AI.  

If you’re a copywriter feeling anxious about the rise of generative AI, take a deep breath. While this rapidly evolving technology is drastically shaking up the industry, it represents an opportunity—not a threat. By embracing AI as a creative aid rather than competition, you can streamline workflows, unlock new creative frontiers, and, ultimately, produce higher-quality work.  

I’m not suggesting you auto-generate copy via AI prompts and call it a day. That would be a mistake, as AI alone cannot comprehend brand DNAs, audience nuances, and business goals. The key is leveraging AI throughout your process as a force-multiplying supplement to your uniquely human creativity and strategic expertise. 

So, let’s explore some practical ways you can start incorporating generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Gemini to elevate your copywriting game. 

Supercharged Ideation 

We all know those sparks of genius often arise from stitching together disparate ideas and perspectives. AI excels at rapidly exploring combinations that humans may never think to connect. For instance, you could prime an AI like ChatGPT or Claude with brand background, customer insights and your project brief, then prompt it to generate a dozen high-concept creative territories to explore. 

Sample Prompt: “I need big brand positioning concepts for a new line of outdoor apparel targeting eco-conscious urban millennials. Please generate 8-10 creative territory ideas drawing inspiration from sustainable product design, city life, and modern social media culture.” 

The AI’s output may include duds, but it could spark brilliantly fresh angles you’d never have landed on alone. With minimal effort, AI has exponentially expanded your ideation universe. It’s now your role as the expert to refine and cultivate the best approaches. 

Content Maximizer 

Once you’ve solidified that core messaging platform, AI can be a force multiplier for rapidly drafting and adapting content executions across any format—simplifying workflows so you can take on more billable work. Need a dozenköbesponsamed blog posts following specific guidelines? A suite of 300 SEO-optimized product descriptions? Or 50 unique landing page adaptations for PPC? Provide clear prompts and guidelines, and an AI tool like Gemini or Copilot can generate volumes of clean draft copy in minutes versus days of manual slogging. 

Sample Prompt: “Here is a golden product description and content guidelines to follow. Using those, generate 75-word Amazon listings for our top 40 kitchen gadgets that each read as 100% unique and on-brand.” 

This ability to instantly create “pennies” and massively expand your content output is potent for boosting bandwidth. Of course, as the strategic lead, you’ll need to thoroughly review and refine each execution. But the heavy concept lifting and brunt labor is now off your plate. 

Research Acceleration 

Thorough research and insight mining are essential for developing effective, resonant creative work. However, manually reading, analyzing and synthesizing dense reports and materials is painfully time-consuming and tedious. AI can be a game-changer for rapidly extracting topline findings and implications. 

For example, you could feed an AI like Claude or Anthropic transcripts from customer focus groups, market research studies, data reports and more. Then, prompt it to summarize key insights and opportunities about your specific audience and creative brief.  

Sample Prompt: “Based on these focus group transcripts regarding customer experiences with home appliance delivery and installation, what were the biggest unmet needs and areas of frustration expressed by participants?” 

The AI can ingest and synthesize dense information with lightning speed into concise, tailored analyses and recommendations. It eliminates countless hours you’d have otherwise spent manually poring over materials to gather strategic inputs.  

SEO Optimization 

Need to create a comprehensive library of SEO-optimized blog posts, ebooks, landing pages and more for an inbound marketing strategy? AI tools can be invaluable for both researching target keywords and efficiently generating drafts laser-focused on those terms.  

First, you can use AI to research keywords and map out clusters for each content pillar. Then, provide it with all those target terms plus content parameters to churn out complete drafts with perfect keyword volume and distribution. 

Sample Prompt: “I need ten 1,200-word blog posts that cover these focus keywords related to pet grooming. Each post should naturally incorporate the main term in the title, headers, body copy and meta optimizations: [list of 20 keywords]” 

The AI will generate complete drafts that hit all your SEO muscles while leaving space for your value-adding human touch on strategic framing, examples, creative flair, and authentically on-brand voice. 

Human Supervision 

While the AI examples above illustrate immense potential output gains for savvy copywriters, these tools are not an auto-magic solution. You must remain a vigilant operator, steering the AI’s direction and carefully reviewing all output.  

First, every AI prompt requires precise instruction catered to your specific use case and desired outcome. It’s on you as the expert to provide clear, complete context and guidelines. You wouldn’t hire a human production writer and simply say “write some ads.” The same level of direction is needed with AI to get viable outputs. 

Once you have drafts from an AI, scrutinize them with the same editing rigor you would human copy. Does the content accurately capture key brand messaging and voice? Are there any factual errors or conceptual misunderstandings needing correction? You should iterate and refine via additional prompts. Significant human lift is still required. 

But when leveraged strategically, AI can enable you to operate at a grander scale with profoundly elevated speed, creativity and efficiency. You’re no longer just trading creativity for billable hours. You become a hyper-productive creative force multiplier. 

The Future Awaits 

For copywriters willing to embrace this new AI-aided era, the opportunities ahead are boundless. By combining the strengths of human ingenuity and machine intelligence, you can massively increase creative throughput without sacrificing quality. That equates to more revenue, greater career longevity, and continually sharpening a uniquely future-proof professional skillset. 

To my fellow writers, feel empowered, not threatened. AI represents the next frontier of creativity, not its demise. Consider yourself promoted from copywriter to copy editor or creative director. Are you ready to amplify your copywriting abilities?