Will AI Kill Content Creation? Plus, May 2023 Portfolio Reports

With the rise of AI technology, many people are worried that software (or machines) will replace human creativity, leading to the demise of content creation businesses. While AI has already shown its potential in creating content, it’s important to understand the limitations and opportunities of this technology.

AI can generate content faster than humans but still relies on human data input. As a result, there are doubts about whether AI can truly replace human content creators or will change how content is produced as internet browsing patterns evolve.

In this article, we will explore the impact of AI on content-creation businesses. After all, many businesses now rely on AI assistance for content creation in some form or another. We will examine the current state of AI technology, its potential for content creation, and the challenges and opportunities it presents for businesses. We’ll also use our portfolio data to make our own (hopefully well-educated) guesses about how things will look in the future.

The Rise of AI in Content Creation

As technology advances, the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made its way into the world of content creation. With AI, you can automate tasks, generate text, and create designs, among other things.

Depending on the AI platform being used, there are some significant limitations in how it works. ChatGPT can work great, but sometimes it makes stuff up. Does it sound good? Yup. But is it 100% accurate all the time? Nope.

Other AI platforms tend to build off ChatGPT, so they have the same limitations. I’m sure other options will come around sooner or later – and they’ll all have their own issues.

In this section, we will discuss the evolution of AI in content creation and the advantages it brings to the industry.

The Evolution of AI in Content Creation

AI has been around, but it’s only recently that it has made its way into the content creation industry.

In the past, AI was primarily used for research and development, but now it’s being used to create content you might not even know was generated by a machine. <– An AI wrote this sentence, though I edited it.

With the help of OpenAI and similar technologies, AI has become more accessible to businesses of all sizes.

The Advantages of AI in Content Creation

AI has several advantages in content creation that make it a valuable tool for businesses. Here are some of the benefits:

• Efficiency: AI can automate repetitive tasks, such as research, data analysis, and content creation. This can save you time and money, allowing you to focus on other important aspects of your business.
• Accuracy: AI can analyze large amounts of data to provide accurate insights and predictions. This can help you make informed decisions about your marketing and content strategies.
• Creativity: AI can generate text, images, and even video content. With Generative AI and ChatGPT, you can create unique and engaging content.
• Consistency: AI can ensure your content is consistent across all channels and platforms. This can help you maintain your brand identity and improve your marketing efforts.
• Personalization: AI can analyze data to create personalized content for your audience. This can help you improve engagement and build stronger relationships with your customers.

AI has become an important tool for content creation businesses, as some creators use it. We can’t ignore that fact. As the technology continues to evolve, we should expect to see even more advancements in the industry.

AI Plagiarizing Existing Online Content

AI technology is becoming more advanced by the day, leading to concerns about whether it will eventually kill content-creation businesses. There are two main concerns for AI-generated plagiarism.

1. AI could plagiarize existing online content, which could be published across multiple sites. (To be fair – There are already dozens of copycat sites everywhere. Sometimes they spin the content; other times, it’s copied and pasted.)
2. AI-assisted search engines could plagiarize content from websites and give it as a search answer – leading to decreased traffic for content creators. This is a real concern, and it’s already happening (source).

Both of these can greatly impact content creation businesses, so let’s look at those.

The Impact of AI on Content Creation Businesses

As AI technology advances, it is natural to wonder about its impact on content creation businesses.

In this section, we will explore the various ways AI affects the industry.

AI’s Impact on Ad Revenue

One of the biggest concerns for content creation businesses is AI’s impact on ad revenue.

How would it impact ad revenue?

Websites (mine included) rely on ad revenue as part of the income stream. We get ad revenue when people visit this site (whether they click on the ads or not). If people don’t visit our sites, our ad revenue will drop significantly (due to the traffic dropping).

If the various search engines adopt an AI assistant that scrapes our sites for information to give to searchers – and they don’t encourage readers to visit our sites – then the fear of an ad revenue drop is a very real concern. This is true whether the AI assistant cites our sites as a source or not.

The drop in traffic will directly impact ad revenue, impacting the creator’s bottom line and ability to continue creating content.

If this happens, I wouldn’t be surprised if many creators pull their content from the internet – leading to poorer overall internet search answers and a lessened internet experience.

AI’s Effect on Jobs in Content Creation

With AI’s ability to create content, there is a fear that businesses will no longer need to hire human writers, editors, or other team members.

While AI can assist with tasks such as editing and content research, it cannot replace human creativity and expertise. Instead, it can help content creators be more efficient and productive, allowing them to focus on higher-level tasks.

However, it is important to note that AI-generated content is not always of high quality and may not be able to replace human writers, editors, or creators entirely.

The Role of AI in Content Marketing

AI can also play a significant role in content marketing. With AI’s ability to analyze data and patterns, businesses can use it to optimize their content for search engines and social media platforms. This can lead to better content and higher engagement with customers.

The Benefits of AI for Content Creation Businesses

Despite the limitations of AI, there are still many benefits it can offer content creation businesses. For example, AI can help with tasks such as generating first drafts, creating audio and video content, and even customer service. It can also assist with tasks such as managing content and marketing teams, making businesses more efficient and productive.

In conclusion, AI can be a valuable tool that allows businesses to be more productive and efficient while relying on human creativity and expertise.

The Future of Content Creation with AI

As AI and machine learning continue to advance, it’s natural to wonder what the future holds for content creation. Will AI kill content creation businesses? Or will it simply change the way we work and collaborate?

Let’s explore the possibilities.

The Limitations of AI in Content Creation

While AI has made great strides in generating text, images, and code, it still has limitations. AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on, and it struggles with creative tasks that require human intuition and emotion.

For example, AI may be able to generate a news article based on a set of facts, but it may not be able to capture the nuance and tone of a human writer.

AI-generated content that focuses on sounding real also doesn’t always get the facts right. There was a recent case of a lawyer using ChatGPT to submit a brief. Only, ChatGPT made up some good-sounding previous cases for precedent to make the lawyer’s case more solid.

But since those previous cases didn’t actually exist? That was a problem!

The Role of Human Writers in the Age of AI

Despite its limitations, AI can be a powerful tool for human writers. AI can help writers with research, fact-checking, and even generating ideas.

For example, OpenAI’s GPT-3 can help writers generate text that matches a particular style or tone.

Human writers can also use AI to automate tasks like social media marketing and content distribution, allowing them to focus on more creative work.

The Potential for Collaboration between AI and Human Writers

Perhaps the most exciting possibility for content creation with AI is a collaboration between human writers and AI. AI can help writers generate ideas, provide feedback, and suggest edits.

This collaboration can lead to more efficient and effective content creation, with AI handling the more mundane tasks while human writers focus on the creative work.

Of course, collaboration between AI and human writers is not without its challenges. It requires a deep understanding of AI and content creation and a willingness to experiment and iterate. But for those willing to embrace the possibilities, the future of content creation with AI is bright.

For example, Grammarly is an AI-based grammar feedback system. It’s improved over the years, but I still have to know my grammar rules for when it’s wrong. Because as good as it is – it’s still wrong occasionally.

What Does the Future Hold for AI and Content Creators?

Nobody knows the future of AI or content creation, especially where the two mix. Everything is still speculation at this point.

There are a lot of educated guesses, though, by a lot of smart people. I’ve been keeping tabs on it and trying to come to my own conclusions.

I’ve got some thoughts on this – but for them to make sense, we first have to go into the portfolio reports. So, let’s do that first. Then, I’ll explain what I think will happen (or at least could happen).

May 2023 Portfolio Report

It’s so nice to have positive month-to-month numbers again. The year-over-year numbers are negative, but they’re all less negative than last month. Same with the year-to-date numbers.

If you want to see last month’s numbers, you can check them out here.

In any case, on to the data and timeline recap:

• I started blogging in 2013.
• I joined Income School’s Project 24 in 2019.
• Going from $0 to $1000 monthly took me 26 months from implementing the Income School style strategy.
• Going from $1000 to $2000 for the first time took another 4 months.
• Getting to above $2000 monthly consistently took another 3 months.
• Months since I first hit $2,000/month: 17 and counting

The gross income number has been over the place for 17 months since I hit $2,000 monthly. It’s been well under $2,000 per month for some time. That’s part of why I decided to pivot my portfolio business. Since then, all the numbers have been improving. I don’t think the pivot was the only reason for the recovery, but it’s definitely helped.

May 2023 Site Report

I’ve been reworking all my sites over the last few months to be easier to navigate, more user-friendly, and better organized. It’s been a process, but that’s definitely helped my recovery. I’d say I’ve got 7 of 8 content sites about 80% of the way to where I want the organization to be in the end. The last site still needs a lot of work, but I had to prioritize the sites, and it ended up last.

On all sites, I’ve also resumed activity on Pinterest. I’d taken a long break from Pinterest, because I wasn’t seeing a positive ROI for my time there for a while. It’s been long enough that I’m giving it another go. So far, all indications say this will be a net positive, but it’s a long game effort.

This is important for later, I promise.

I’m not going to give any specifics on traffic or income, but I will say this: things are looking up. I gave you some portfolio-based percentages earlier, so overall things are on the up and up.

So – What Will Happen with AI and Content Creation?

First, a reminder that we don’t know how the future will play out. All sorts of variables could play out completely differently than we think they will. So nobody knows for sure if AI will kill content creation, and I don’t think it will do anything drastic in the immediate future.

Looking at my portfolio, you can see that content creation isn’t currently dead. Could it be dying? Sure. But it’s not dead yet. Instead, I think it’s on the cusp of evolving. Again.

Let’s take another step back and look at Pinterest from a creator’s perspective. This is mostly anecdotal, but a lot of other creators and users have agreed with my assessment, so I feel like it’s a valid view.

A while back, Pinterest seemingly went from co-existing with creators to focusing on keeping people on the platform. Guess what happened? Creators got less traffic, so they moved away from creating content to share on Pinterest. That meant users didn’t have as much new content – and they began to step away. Thankfully, they realized their error and began shifting back to a better coexistence. It’s still far from perfect, but creators are back to creating content for Pinterest again. And they’re listening again. So it’s a win.

In any case, if Google (or any other big search engine who’s going to use AI) begins scraping sites for information to give as a search result – creators will be watching to see what traffic they get. And what ad revenue looks like.

If either of those drop significantly, I can see a lot of creators scrubbing their information from the internet, or at least stop publishing new data. Scrubbed data will only exist on the wayback machine.

So, while the search engine could potentially keep the old data, they won’t get new data. Search results quality will plummet, and people will look for a new search option.

Note: search enginse may try to tell us creators that providing a small citation or link back on AI search results means they aren’t copying our information, but rather presenting us as the experts. That’s nice and all, but if the traffic and ad rates plummet? Creators won’t care about being an unpaid expert. They’ll mobilize for change.

So what do I think will happen?

• If search engines have sufficient foresight, they’ll figure out a way to keep creators happy and publishing – while also helping searchers find what they want. I still think things will evolve in this scenario – but the evolution will be slower and more controlled.
• If search engines can’t keep the balance, or they get too focused on one thing, we’re in for a wild ride and an evolution that will be painful for creators and internet users. If this happens, it could radically change how we use the internet. And it could mean that some big companies get replaced by smaller ones.

In reality, I think what will happen will fall somewhere between these two end-case scenarios. Exactly where – I don’t know. But as a creator, you better believe I’ll be watching what happens – and trying to make the best decisions I can to help my audience while making sure the bills get paid.

Speaking of paying the bills – here are some of my recommended resources, should you want to see what I use, become a creator, or just see what I recommend.