Welcome to episode 86, where I’m joined by Konrad Sanders, CEO of The Creative Copywriter agency, to discuss the impact of generative AI on copywriting. In this episode, we covered:
– How Konrad’s team is adopting AI tools and the most useful tools they’ve found.
– The limitations of AI-written copy and what clients are saying about AI.
– Advice on managing the process of change within your team and integrating AI into your workflows.
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TRANSCRIPT
Jenny Plant 00:02
Today I’m absolutely delighted to be speaking to Konrad Saunders. He is the CEO of The Creative Copywriter, a content, strategy and copywriting agency that blends lateral thinking with the science of strategy. Konrad, big warm welcome.
Konrad 00:18
Thank you. Thanks for that warm welcome, I’m delighted to be here. So thanks for having me Jenny.
Jenny Plant 00:22
Well, thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. Obviously, one of the reasons I wanted to invite you on Konrad, is to get your observations around what’s happening with AI and how it’s disrupting copywriting particularly, but before we get into questions around AI, it would be great to spend a couple of minutes just on you, The Creative Copywriter, who do you serve? How do you help your clients?
Konrad 00:48
Yes, sure. So I’ll give you that, I’ll give you the spiel shall I ? So we like to say that we blend the science of data driven content, strategy and psychology, with the art of creative copywriting, basically, to help brands get their words right, every step of the customer journey and essentially grow revenue. That’s the end goal for us. Copy and content is a means to an end and that end is usually, scaling up and growing revenue. In terms of who we serve, I guess, I would say we are industry agnostic, for want of a better phrase. But we do work with a lot of big, sexy, global brands like Adidas, TikTok, Mercedes Benz, Panasonic, Thomson Reuters and also a lot of tech and SAAS startups and scaleups. We have helped them on that journey to growth and success, because they very much need, usually, to distil their message into the right words and content marketing comes very much into play when it comes to educating, nurturing, convincing and converting their audience. So yes, that’s us in a nutshell.
Jenny Plant 01:58
And tell me just out of interest, you have named some fantastic clients here. How many clients are you having conversations with around the topic of Generative AI?
Konrad 02:10
That’s a great question and as I mentioned, I’m quite and I don’t know if this is unusual or not, but what we are seeing is I would say it’s few and far between at the moment. As much as in the LinkedIn world, and in the world that we are very much going to discuss, you know, this fast moving world of AI, or so it appears to us when it comes to the bigger fish as we call them, these larger companies, especially, and even to be honest, the Tec-SAAS and SAAS scaleups that we work with, hardly anyone has reached out to us or mentioned Generative AI or ChatGPT, etc, at this point. I’m sure that’s going to change and I just think that, again, as I mentioned to you, I think smaller, more agile businesses, agencies, solopreneurs, etc, tend to be faster with these kinds of things, tend to have sort of, maybe more, I don’t know if we have more time, but more of a necessity to keep our fingers on the pulse of developing technology, or technologies. But larger companies, I think, are just slower to the uptake, they have got these, whether they are archaic or not, structures that are just not as fast moving and so naturally, I think, it just takes a longer time for them to build in an AI copyrighting methodology or Generative AI strategy, or even feel that pressure and need to do so. But, as I think we’re going to delve into in this episode, for us,
we believe it’s very, very important for us and for other agencies, to embrace the technology, to really understand the strengths and limitations and to future proof our jobs and our agencies and to ideally be, for us at least, to be the ones that will be the advisors when our clients do understand that they need to look at how AI can save time and improve processes and improve the output of whatever they’re doing. So we want to be the advisor, we want to be the curator, we want to be the ones that are that are at the forefront of the discussion and really get it and really understand it, so that the value of our agency is a) not lost and b) perhaps even more valuable because I think there’s a huge opportunity here.
Much like the Dot-Com Revolution right, if you are not burying your head in the sand and you are embracing it and at the forefront of this discussion and understanding, I think there are big opportunities for agencies that are doing so.
Jenny Plant 04:56
I echo everything you have just said. I was furiously nodding along. Because that was one of the reasons I invited you. Because I noticed on LinkedIn, particularly, you were at the forefront, you have come out with a weekly newsletter about AI and how it’s affecting copywriting. Opening the doors of your agency, talking about how you are using it and what you’re spotting. Obviously, you are part of a group that I am in, where we are all sharing information and latest news. So I’ve seen that and I think I applaud you for that. Because I think, worryingly for me, I have seen a lot of agencies that are just not adopting it quick enough. And I think you are right, we need to be at the forefront, because it’s not going away. So you said that you are embracing it, I would love you to share how you are embracing it in your agency.
Konrad 05:45
Yes, sure, I’ll start by saying that, for us, it’s not a new thing. It’s not something that we have all of a sudden been working towards, because of ChatGPT being launched in November. We have understood for many years that there are AI’s developing and large language models are improving. And again, in order to future proof, the agency, it was very important for us to keep a close eye on those developments. For example, GPT 3.5 has been around since 2020. And I think GPT 4 since August 2021 if I have got that right. So we have had a good understanding of what it could do, and there are certain AI copywriting tools that have been around for a few years using using GPT 3.5. So Jasper and Copy AI, we haven’t felt threatened and I will delve into that in a bit. But that first point is that what happened was Open AI obviously released this free tool, and the functionality of this Chatbot the fact that it feels like a very human conversation and the fact that it was free, obviously just blew up the internet. And millions, if not billions of people are now using it and what that has done is it has opened the eyes of the world to how far along we are in this AI and large language model journey and what that has meant for us, as an agency, is that it has basically meant that the perception of the value of our agency is at risk of changing or is potentially changing. So what that has meant is that we have had to move faster. Basically what happened in November with ChatGPT being launched, and all this hype and buzz, it means that naturally, it forced our hand in a way, not just to keep an eye on the industry, but, really try to embrace it, build it into our value proposition, talk about it, share our learnings, etc, as you mentioned. So now I will actually answer your question now. So how are we embracing it? I would say two main ways. So the first way is by going through a very well defined process of use case testing. So we have a scoring matrix, at The Creative Copywriter. We love taking that scientific approach to things. We have built out the spreadsheet with many tabs. What we have done is basically broken down or segmented every deliverable that we offer, as an agency, from buyer interviews at that research phase and interviewing the customers of our clients and following a certain methodology there through to brand DNA workshops. We have got different workshops, that content strategy work flows through to, writing a long form SEO blog post. Then what we’ve done is broken down each of those deliverables into granular steps. As an example, we all know long form blog posts, you might think it’s just a case of writing a bunch of words on a Google Doc, the reality is there are so many steps before and after the writing the meat of the content, that are crucial in order to get the success that we need to deliver to our clients. From, again, interviewing subject matter experts at the client end and transcribing that, summarising that, writing the brief. So account managers is where AMS come in. So again, things beyond just the talent team, the writers, etc, project managing it, getting feedback and briefing from the client, structuring the content, headline formulas, all the copy side of things that go into it and after the fact as well. So getting that feedback process etc. So we’ve really gone into this in a granular process, and what we did is created two columns for a score out of five, and scored each of the steps for each of the deliverables. The two scores are based on how likely we think it is that AI can help speed up or improve that step, that part of the process. So that’s out of five, and then how much we dislike that step. That’s the second one. I think that’s quite an interesting one, because, for us, as an agency, it is not just about profitability, right? We are also growing a great culture and a team of people that we love, and as you know, Jenny, it is crucial to have a team that are infused, that enjoy the work and enjoy what they do. So we thought it was really important to introduce that score into the mix. We don’t want to take things away that is why they got into copywriting and that’s why they got into the agency world, or just going to say hang on, we might be able to speed up by 10% by using AI, let’s remove it, take it off your plate. But there are naturally areas of the process, which people just don’t like as much, again, we can dive into the specifics in a bit, and AI can really help to speed up and or improve. So that’s the first way that we are really embracing technology. I will add, it’s quite time consuming, I have not got a huge amount of results to share at this very point because we are in the middle of the process. The second way that we are really embracing AI is, let’s say through our philosophy, in a way, in terms of how and what what we think the future of copywriting looks like, what we believe in, and by that I mean for us, we believe that the future of copywriting is very much collaborative, man and machine. It is less a case of, there’s the ChatGPT route work and some people say, Oh, you just need to be a prompt engineer, write a couple of sentences, and you can write an amazing white paper, or homepage. And I’ll dive into why I don’t think that is the case, the technology definitely isn’t there and we don’t believe that we will get there. But
we believe the future is a collaboration between AI and humans. That’s where you’ll get the best results. Based on that philosophy, we have been partnering with and having discussions about partnering with, certain AI labs, there’s one in Israel called A121 Studio who developed Jurassic-1, that’s their own large language model, and certain tools, like Wordtune Spices, etc, all of which are based on this shared philosophy that we have, that it’s a collaboration. So again, unlike prompt, here’s a 15,000 word blog post, it is much more of, Wordtune Spices is an example, much more of a back and forth, a sparring partner, and so they’re developing these really cool, really interesting tools that, for us, we believe that’s the future of copywriting, rather than let’s replace the need for a copywriter with AI.
Jenny Plant 13:15
Fascinating stuff. And I’m sure loads of people are taking notes. Let’s just go back a step. Because I think this is really interesting for those agencies listening, the way you’ve approached auditing what you are doing currently, or the services you provide breaking down the steps. Then you have asked yourself the question, can this be replaced by AI? And do we want it to be, or is it something we like to do? Because I think you have got a really good point. People get into writing because they love writing. They love the process. So when you have finished that spreadsheet, and I get that it’s a work in progress, have you started to identify those micro steps that you could use a tool for? Has that already started – that identification of the tool, and then use of that tool?
Konrad 14:01
Yes, so good question. The stage we are at, at the moment, is that we are already trialling current tools on the high scope, the high scores, the ones which, as I said, we felt are probably most likely to add value to the process AI is more likely to add value to that part of the process and is not as enjoyed as much as other parts. So we are, the way we are doing it. Again, we have limited time, right? We are a busy agency, we are a busy growing agency, we don’t have all the time in the world to run these experiments. But the way we are doing it is actually is based on actual client work. So an actual project. So again, you are much more likely, as a writer or a strategist, for example, to treat it more seriously I would say, if it’s an actual deliverable that you have to create for a client, we are just adding a bit of extra time, we are factoring in the project managers and factoring in, let’s say, an extra hour for that blog post for experimenting with these tools to essentially see if it can help with these points, ABC and D from that process. So yes, we are testing it out. We were already getting some results and getting a stronger idea of where the strengths and limitations are. I’m not sure if I mentioned that before, but the whole point of the use-case testing for us is to understand the current strengths and limitations of Generative AI. But more than that, also understand or get a good feeling as to where the technology is going. Because I’ll be honest, from most of what we have done so far to date we believe the technology is not quite there. It’s okay in some places, but that doesn’t mean it is not going to improve. And so I think exploring the use-cases, in and of itself is useful. But we have even got on the spreadsheet a column on the far right, saying does it help now, and if not, what would be needed in order for it to do so. Because I think this is a work in progress, this is evolving technology that we all know is improving fairly rapidly and it will continue to improve. So we might park certain parts of that and go, right, it’s not quite there, these tools did not really cut the mustard. But in the next phase or the next stage of their large language model, let’s say a more specific model built for that particular application, then that could be grea,t that could shave off 50% of that time, meaning we could use a 50% for more creative stuff, for example. So I think it’s like you said, it’s a work in progress, and that we need to think about the future and where it’s going, not just the now and that’s why we are doing it now to really prepare for a future of AI and human collaboration.
Jenny Plant 17:14
Love that and I absolutely 100% agree that this is what agencies should be doing right now, as much as possible, is testing, trialling, rolling up your sleeves and using this stuff. Because it’s not going away, it’s only going to get better, like you say, so you mentioned that some of the tools were not quite working as you would want. What, just as a big picture observation from your side, what do you think it can do? And what can’t it do? Can you give us a high level view?
Konrad 17:45
Yes, sure, again, I’m speaking to the copywriting world, obviously, in terms of Generative AI, we are expanding with with LLM’s, large language models. I can break it down in terms of where we have seen the value at the moment. In terms of what it can do, what it can help and is helping us with already. Research first of all, that’s an area and I think we can break down into two subsets, if you will. Research in terms of ChatGPT, for example, it’s almost like having a subject matter expert that you can quiz and that’s extremely valuable when we’re doing research into an area, especially a new field. As an industry agnostic agency, we have to work with clients that are in new, different industries and have to quite quickly learn those industries in depth, the ins and outs of them. Obviously, we try to talk to subject matter experts at the client end. But they are not always available, it’s difficult to lock down those calls. Sometimes you need to do desperate research to supplement it and naturally Google Search is great, in a sense, but it’s almost quite one dimensional, you read an article and that’s it, you take what you can from it. But imagine having someone there that you could dig around and ask further questions. So whether it’s the US medical world and that popped to mind because we have a new client so we are delving into that area, and you can ask around, you know, imagine if that thought leader, that expert that’s written that blog post was actually there answering questions when you have COVID and you wanted to dig deeper. That is very, very useful in terms of getting your head around a topic. So more of a two dimensional back and forth. Then on the research side, summarising, I think that a huge powerful use case for large language models is summarising information. Both from a buyer interview perspective, so there’s tools like Firefly with which you can transcribe an interview and then summarise it. Very, very powerful because up until now we have just been looking through transcripts and manually picking out quotes and things that are useful. Whether we are interviewing subject matter experts, or the customers, buyers of our clients, and also summarising articles online, so Firefly has again, the technology that is almost there, it’s okay, right for that side of things. But I think that ChatGPT, if the article is not too long, you can copy and paste into there and say, give me the key points. That’s very, very powerful. So research is one, I would say, that brainstorming and inspiration. That kind of aligns with like, removing writer’s block in a way. So we use it for writing headlines, for example, we can say, ChatGPT give me 20 other options, for example. Sometimes it’s not quite there, but it will just give you inspiration, food for thought, enough to get you moving, and you can edit it and chisel it and get that piece of that headline, or that CTA or something that you need and so I think it’s really helpful in that case. And writer’s block I mentioned, we believe that this could be removing writer’s block and Wordtune Spices, which was the tool built by A121. Lab as I mentioned, that’s brilliant for writer’s block. So the way it works is imagine you’re writing a sentence, or you’ve written a paragraph, then you want to add in an analogy, because metaphors and analogies are powerful, they are part of, we call it the creative spark lens in our 13 lenses methodology. I’ll be honest, I find it quite, quite tricky sometimes to think of good analogies, but you will probably see from my LinkedIn posts, there are always ones in there, I always want to have at least one in a post, because it just injects creativity into that content. So Wordtunw Spices you can actually add a spice, you can click the plus sign and go I’ll add an analogy, and it kind of looks at the previous paragraph, and it gives you options. So if you don’t like the first one, you can slide to the right and get different options. Sometimes the wording is perfect and there you go just insert. Sometimes it’s more food for thought, it inspires you to create another analogy and it just removes that writer’s block. It also helps with or you can also add in a fact, for example, and it will gather a fact or a stat to support what you have just written or a counter argument. So it’s great and i love it as a tool, and Wordtune Spice is more of a back and forth kind of sparring partner. I would say that, what have I mentioned? I think three things, and I would say the admin tasks as well. So where we are really seeing value is all of the things that you do as an agency beyond the actual service offering in a way summarising an email chain or summarising a call that you have had with a client, sending out those more functional comms and emails, that’s all going to factor into the agency profitability, isn’t it, that’s all time and time is money. So there’s all the areas around in our case, writing copy, or, or creating strategies for clients where it can potentially speed things up, which is where we are seeing as being really useful.
Jenny Plant 23:37
I think I agree with you, I think, just as you said, research, inspiration, getting over writer’s block, and how amazing that you can also get analogies and metaphors. Tell me about this inserting of facts or statistics, how accurate do these tools tend to be? Do you have to then double fact check them?
Konrad 23:59
Yes, I think reliability is a big thing for us to mention. Because, and I don’t know if most people will know, but, the people who are involved in this world know that it is not 100% reliable and OpenAI claimed that GPT4, which is the supposedly most accurate, most powerful, large language model available at the moment is between 70 and 80%, I believe. accurate. So while AI developers might think that’s brilliant, because in terms of the progress of the technology, well, we have come so far. If you think about it, that’s a huge amount of inaccuracy and also what they call hallucinations. If you have played around enough you will see that it makes stuff up in order to satisfy you. You know, you can ask, and the other day we asked about my other half Nitzan, tell us about Nitzan and it kind of, she is the managing director of The Creative Copywriting and it’s made up this whole backstory. So it literally made it up and so, yes, it hallucinates. It’s 70 to 80%. accurate. I’ll be honest, even if there was 5% inaccuracy, that might even be even more dangerous in a way, because then you might be relying on it to be 100% accurate, oh, it’s accurate enough and if you’re putting out content, and you’re supposed to be a thought leader, an expert, and it’s making things up that are inaccurate, that can be very, very damaging and dangerous for a brand, even even from a legal perspective, right. You would have seen that there have been court cases starting to emerge, right? People, individuals, and companies are trying to sue OpenAI because of these hallucinations, whereby it’s making stuff up, which is inaccurate, and it’s very risky, very dangerous. So that’s your point. Yes, you definitely should fact check. Currently, ChatGPT does not cite the source. But that’s going to change quite soon, I believe. Wordtune, which I keep mentioning, does cite the source. So it brings in the stat and cites the source and yes, it’s very important to go check it out much like you would, before the days of AI, you need to fact check. This is this important if you want to have a reputable authoritative brand.
Jenny Plant 23:59
You are right, I think because this is happening, moving so quickly, the rules are shifting as we go and like you, I was listening the other day about where have these large language models scraped the data from? Well, a lot has come from the internet, a lot of which has been copyrighted. So they have picked all that up from all these different places and are regurgitating it. So what’s going to happen there? You know, could there be lawsuits in the future, when the copywriting agents or sort of authorities catch up with it? Do you think that if you do generate something using Generative AI you should mention it in the copy? If you’ve got any thoughts around that? Because I’ve seen that mentioned a couple of times?
Konrad 27:15
That’s a good question and I have seen you know, I can’t remember the name of that publication that has started just for certain topics, are using Generative AI- ChatGPT to create without even editing? And they have mentioned using it. From an ethical standpoint? I don’t know. I’m not sure. The question is how much are you using it? I think that’s what it comes down to, in a sense, because, we have always used tools, as humans, like, it’s one of the things that makes us human. And like I said, I think the future of copyright and content creation will be more collaborative. So if I answered that question that said, Yes, I do think you should, you should mention it. The question is, where do you draw the line? Right? If we use Wordtuned Spices, just to unblock writer’s block, or add a few bits and pieces here and there, then I’d say, No, probably not. Or if you’ve used it as a sparring partner, or maybe even creating some structure or first draft generating, which you have heavily edited? I’d say no, maybe if it’s pure AI content, you might and maybe you should, and maybe by doing so, it’s going to help you in in a court of law firm down the road, if you are taken to court based on copyright infringement. So I’m not sure, I don’t know how I feel about that. But what do you think?
Jenny Plant 28:58
I am on the fence? I don’t know. And I think you’re right, because, you know, if you’re using it for inspiration, but not to write the whole thing, then I would say no, but like you if it was 100% written by AI first of all, at the moment, everything that they spit out, it’s not up to what I would feel comfortable putting my name behind it anyway. But I know that’s going to change in the future. I know it’s going to get better and better. And obviously, the big brands are talking about having their own dedicated large language models, which will have their own data and their own tone and etc, etc. But until that time, we are using what’s out there. Regarding favourite tools and you have mentioned Wordtune Spices a couple of times. Do you have any other go-to tools that you and your team use quite a lot?
Konrad 29:47
I think I mentioned Fireflies which is for summarising as well. So FireflIes for that research, summarising, transcribing, that’s useful and we like that. Wordtune, as I said for that human AI, collaboration, co-creating copy, and use Frase for SEO. So Phrase is an AI backed tool that is great for structuring kind of outlines essentially like SEO content outlines. And there is another tool that we believe has a very powerful and interesting use-case, which we have been in discussions with as well. So they are called Writer and if you can imagine, you know them?,
Jenny Plant 30:45
Yes, I’ve seen it it’s very good.
Konrad 30:47
Yes and I think you can do a lot in Writer, we have been testing it. It is one of the tools that we are testing and the thing we find extremely interesting, whether the technology is there with them yet or not, we believe, possibly not right now, I don’t want to say anything too, too strong. But imagine like controlling the voice of an entire organisation. So currently we work with again, some big huge brands like AECOM, 60,000, staff members for example and when it comes to the daily comms of all of the people within that organisation, sales reps, customer service people etc. Writing social posts, writing emails, as a tone of voice agency, the only way we can currently help solve the challenge of keeping consistency across tone of voice and making sure people are not slipping up when it comes to their CSR messaging and stuff like that. The only way we can really do it currently pre AI, was through create tone of voice guidelines and training, two things that we offer. They’re great, brilliant, it’s very important to create tone of voice guidelines but the reality is they sit in the marketing department folder somewhere, so are the salespeople using it everyday No, they’re not. And training you do it once off great and then people forget how to write and what they should be kind of adhering to. So Writer have come up with this brilliant use-case, or application even, for their large language model, which is a specific one built on business writing. That’s essentially like a Grammarly if you know Grammarly?, lmagine a Grammarly for a whole organisation whereby you’re getting recommendations, not just based on typos and grammars, but based on not writing on-tone, not getting that sustainability messaging, right, etc. We find that very interesting. That’s why we immediately reached out and said, Hey, let’s talk because we work with and we build tones of voice, and we work with big organisations, and we are looking at potentially becoming implementers, the ones that could almost like sell it and implement it, manage it, create the guidelines use our 13 Lenses as well, our framework, as well as creating the brand, tone and guidelines, etc. And then looking at analytics as well and it’s just, we find that very exciting because suddenly it’s like expanding our value proposition to an area in a territory that we hadn’t really thought we could get to in the past and meaning that we could offer more value as an agency,
Jenny Plant 33:39
How would that work out commercially? Sort of getting straight to the point like Writer.com, you’ve got the skills, the experience, the know how, you’ve got your signature process? They’ve got a tool, you approach them, you’re helping them develop it, but then what’s in it for you? Does that mean you become an authorised user?
Konrad 33:59
Yes, so, I guess, it’s like the early days of being a HubSpot agency partner, so their subscription, which will probably come as no shock to everyone, that is software as a service, so there’s an implementation fee for the company and an ongoing fee. The way it works is that we would get a percentage of that, but way beyond that, we would look at charging for all the time for managing, implementing, building the strategy, the tone of voice etc and reviewing analytics and I guess we will become sort of managers of your organization’s tone of voice in that sense. So yes, I suppose there’s two ways of pulling in revenue, via just the the commission that we would make and then actually charging for our time almost in a consultancy sense. And so yes, you know, very interesting ,we have been testing it, right now, from what we have tested, it didn’t quite deliver on certain points, I’m sure it’s going to improve. Again, the application is very interesting, because whether it’s right or for another lab, there’s something there. We are just at the moment, dabbling in different areas, having the right conversations. What I will say, because I know I’ve mentioned moving quickly and embracing things and building into your value proposition. I want to say that it is important to move quickly, but smartly, I think that right now, there are hundreds of, if not 1000s, probably hundreds, let’s say, of different tools out there being developed using GPT4 and other LLM’s, for very specific different little applications. I know lots of agencies and individuals like going after all of them and testing all of them. I think there’s a bit of risk there and the risk is that we think that, well, we were pretty sure that the giants like Microsoft and Google very soon, and then based on teaser videos out, are going to be building in the functionality of most of these kind of scattered applications into the workspaces that we already use. So you know, you have seen Google Workspace’s recent video where they give a little teaser as to ooh you’re going to have a little buddy, basically like GPT that you can ask questions that will give you answers, you can get it to summarise email threads, you’ll be able, when you’re in Google Docs, it will be like Wordtune Spices, it will give you the options to add things in. So I would be cautious about spreading yourself too thin, with all of these different tools. Because we’re around the corner from a lot of these, you know, the big guys, basically the giants bringing in a lot of that functionality to where we already do most of our work. So I think that’s important to keep in mind.
Jenny Plant 37:09
I’m 100% agreeing with you, I think it’s a Microsoft Co-pilot going to be launched. And that’s going to wipe out a lot of these tools. Because let’s face it, there’s a rush at the moment for all software tools to incorporate AI quickly and obviously, with the giants, as you say it’s just going to obliterate a lot of those companies. So it will be interesting to watch. What other pieces of advice do you have for agencies? Because I think that was really good advice. Any advice from your side that for agencies that are really nervous about this thinking? Oh, my God, you know, I’m going to go out of business.
Konrad 37:46
Yes well, we have all thought it probably at a certain point. My advice is, perhaps, in a sense, follow in our footsteps, if you haven’t already, first step is acknowledgement, acknowledge that this is happening, Don’t bury your head in the sand. I wrote a LinkedIn post a couple of months ago about how my dad was a graphic designer and used to design by hand, draw big logos on pieces of paper, and then scan it in and reduce the size and who is an illustrator, etc. Home computers came along, Adobe Photoshop, and he just wasn’t interested and he had to completely pivot. Because, he was slow, didn’t embrace it. So
first step, acknowledge it is happening, we are in the AI revolution, and it’s going to change every industry, not just agencies, like every industry, and where you are using the computer, it’s going to change the nature of it. It might well change the nature of demand for agency services. But, I think the advice is to embrace it, use case-test, understand the strengths and limitations and in relation to what you offer. Look at basically preparing for a human AI collaborative future, that’s what we should be preparing for, because it’s coming,, again, while it might seem a bit scary, because you might have these processes and ways of doing things that have been the same for 10 or 20 years or more and there are huge opportunities on the table like I said, the Dot-Com revolution are the ones that were fast and the first agencies and individuals to be building websites,
like Spencer for example, they did very well out of it. I think that if you can work fast and smart, embrace the technology and build it into your value proposition, because it really will need to be, you won’t get left behind and you may in fact find yourself racing ahead and having an advantage over competitors. An extra piece of advice is that with all of that, you need to consider is the change management factor. We have had some challenges in terms of change management because naturally Nitzan and I have been like AI, AI, AI, right? Talking about it consuming loads of content and like spurting it out. I’ll be honest, hold my hands up and say at the beginning, probably not with as much tact as we should have, or as I should have, because we’ve got, you know, copywriters within the agency that first maybe felt naturally quite threatened and they were just getting drips, bits and pieces of, of the information. So we quickly realised that we needed to have a presentation and really outline things. It was called “Why AI?” And we broke it down and really explained thoroughly what our goal is, we reassured them that first of all, we are doing this for very good reason, we think this is necessary to future proof, our agency and future proof their jobs, we think is necessary. But also, this is our philosophy, this is what we believe, we believe it’s collaborative, that’s what we’re pushing for and try to reassure them that our main goal is to make sure that we all have jobs, we will grow and that we are future proofing everyone’s careers.I think that’s really important and like I said before, that we are not going to be removing the enjoyment from their work, we have created a system to do that. Because you don’t want to have disgruntled team members that are fearful and looking to follow other careers. You know, it’s really important if you are embracing AI, which I think you need to, to have your whole team on board and everyone focused on that Northstar. In it together and really understanding why and to be on board with it.
Jenny Plant 41:58
I’m glad you shared that because naturally you are an entrepreneur, or you both are entrepreneurial. And it is natural that you are going to be looking to the future and what’s next and new things. I think that’s a really sound piece of advice. Be very aware of bringing everybody on the journey with you, because everyone’s going to be at different levels, aren’t they? And some people don’t well, a lot of people don’t like change. In fact, the majority of people don’t like change, it can be scary. So I think what you did there was a brilliant initiative, “Why AI?”, bring it on the journey. This is what we see as a vision and actually, I would have thought that a lot of people felt very reassured that you are at the forefront of it. Because you are right, the questions are going to pop up from clients. It’s going to happen very quickly. But you’re prepared. You are on the front foot rather than being left behind yourself.
Konrad 42:47
Yeah, exactly. exactly.
Jenny Plant 42:49
So Konrad, thank you so much for this, you have shared so many insights and I listened to your podcast with Marcus Kalki and you did the same thing, you gave this really great structured process for following. So I just wanted to say thank you for that. Is there anything else that you feel passionate about around AI that we haven’t talked about that you want to share before we close?
Konrad 43:15
You know what? I think one thing we may not have done is addressed a couple of the limitations of AI, which I think as a copywriting agency CEO, I need to do, right?. I think it’s important. We talked about reliability, which is definitely a limitation. I would like to add that’s very, very important. Is that the way, again, I am not an AI expert in terms of the technology. I’m a copywriting, content strategy expert and AI informed and I feel like I can speak from a voice of authority when it comes to the relationship between AI and copywriting at the moment. Generative AI like large language models are incapable of original and creative thoughts. That’s one of the limitations, the way they work, as much as they create the illusion that they understand you, they don’t. The way it works is that the predictive model is basically picking the next word, based on that it’s the most probable next word in that sentence. Sometimes 100% most likely, sometimes 80 or 70% most likely in order to introduce variability so it doesn’t end up with the same thing every time. But by by doing so, I’ve lost I lost my train of thought there.
Jenny Plant 44:40
Now it doesn’t have original thoughts. I love it.
Konrad 44:43
There we go. It doesn’t have original, creative thought. So, yes, it’s based on the data it’s been fed with, which is in the case of GPT 3.5 and 4, it’s like it is one model to rule them all. So it’s been fed on the internet. everything that’s out there and the prompt that you feed it with, so then it’s just basically adding one word at a time, the most probable thing, and by doing so, what it’s doing is most likely to lead you to a place where you don’t want to get to with with copywriting. One of the key things that that we try to avoid is cliches. Cliche copy just comes across as generic, it doesn’t grab attention, it doesn’t grip you, it doesn’t differentiate you, all the things you really need to do to convert and to stand out in a busy saturated marketplace. So essentially, it’s averaging the internet, it’s feeding you this generic sounding copy and content and that’s something we found time and time again, when just prompting it, even when we have tried prompting it with very long prompts, short prompts, etc. It produces the same answers, pretty much the same thing. We ran an experiment where, like I said, we created these three different prompts from different accounts. One was really intricate, one was a one liner, one was in the middle, but basically asking for the same kind of thing, write an article about content strategy, best practices, what’s cutting it, I think it’s cutting edge content strategy techniques, and it basically just regurgitated the same article with slightly different wording, you could change the tone of voice, but essentially, it’s the same tips. So again, if you imagine how many 1000s of other people are asking for the same thing and while the tone might be slightly different using slightly different words, it’s creating basically the same content, which means that the already very, very saturated world of content is getting more saturated, way more saturated and will do and it’s also levelling the playing field. If everyone’s using AI, everyone’s at that same level. So what it means is that, again, I might be biased, real creative copywriting, real differentiation, real life critical and original thought will be even more needed than it was in the past. Because we are hit with a tidal wave of sameness, copycat saturation, because that’s really how it works. Even if you asked ChatGPT, it will admit that it is not capable of creative and original thought. So I guess I’ll leave you with that. I tell you what, I’ll leave you with a quote, which came from someone who just commented on my post the other day, I’m going to try and remember it word for word is brilliant. He said, “The best way to use AI for copywriting is by being a really good copywriter. Otherwise garbage in garbage out. And that’s the truth of it”
Jenny Plant 47:50
It’s so true and I’m so glad that you explained that because I think I’m with you, you pick up a piece of copy that’s written by a brand, like Oatly, for example and it’s just knocks every other copy out of the water, doesn’t it? It’s just oozing personality and everything I’ve read that you write Konrad and anyone listening should follow Konrad on LinkedIn, because your copywriting is off the charts good. It’s so engaging. I always read to the end, it’s just so , well there’s that absolute skill around it. So I just want to say big thank you for coming on and talking about it because it is this hot topic at the moment. I think what you have done is demystify it for a lot of people and calmed everyone down a little bit, but also provided some tips for approaching it in the right way, in a measured way. So thank you so much. If there’s anyone listening, Konrad that needs copywriting and wants to work with an agency, can you share the best way of reaching you?
Konrad 47:52
Yes, sure. Well, firstly, you can connect with me on LinkedIn, follow and/or connect, so it’s Konrad Sanders. Hopefully there’ll be a link down somewhere. And our website is Creative-Copywriter.net. So you can check out our online portfolio and have a dig around. I’m sure you will enjoy the website. And then yes, reach out through the contact form.
Jenny Plant 49:13
Lovely. Thank you so much. Again, this has been an absolute joy. Thank you.
Konrad 49:17
I have loved it. Thanks a lot.
