This article was updated 4th December 2024
Read time: 8 minutes
Artificial intelligence (AI) adoption has skyrocketed in the last two years. Three out of five workers currently use generative AI or intend to use it at work, and 76% of marketers have already adopted it to create content and write copy.
Yet AI content creation still poses serious concerns. According to Salesforce’s Generative AI Snapshot Research Series – an ongoing research study of over 4,000 full-time employees – 54% worry generative AI outputs are inaccurate, and 59% worry about bias.
For marketers, inaccurate narratives and biased storytelling are serious causes for concern. Quite simply, AI-generated content has the power to erode brand trust, destroy credibility and diminish your chances of demand generation and lead capture.
10 AI content creation risks
If you're considering using it yourself, here are 10 AI content risks that you shouldn’t ignore.
1. AI content creation and copyright concerns
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT scrape millions of web pages. They look at news articles, books, Wikipedia entries and blog posts and use this information to generate output. When it comes to copyright infringement and content ownership, we have to ask: Is AI content creation even legal?
The New York Times doesn’t think so. Earlier this year, lawyers for the newspaper sued both ChatGPT creator OpenAI and Microsoft to protect its intellectual property rights.
“A successful copyright lawsuit has the potential of really bankrupting a company since we're talking about millions and millions of instances of infringement.”
Daniel Gervais, Director of Vanderbilt Law School’s Intellectual Property Program
As it stands, copyright disputes are typically handled on a case-by-case basis. But with such growing investment (and interest) in generative AI tools, governments need to find balanced outcomes that benefit owners and users of copyright works.
In the meantime, businesses will struggle to use generative AI tools for content creation and call it their own. There's no guarantee that AI-generated content won’t infringe on the copyright of other written materials. And until the law catches up, businesses must exercise caution with generative AI to avoid penalties.
2. Missing the mark with tone of voice
Copyright concerns aside, generative AI tools can create content for you (we’ve all messed around with ChatGPT). But if you’re unsure how to use these tools, it’s easy to miss the mark regarding your brand’s unique tone of voice. And as we all know, your brand’s voice is the reason your business can:
- Grab attention
- Stand out in the marketplace
- Retain interest
- Build trust
- Improve brand loyalty
- Win advocates for your brand
Suppose your business relies on ideal customer profiles and buyer personas (like every good business should). In that case, AI content creation can be a fast track to saying little in a generic tone of voice - and that attracts nobody.
Recommended reading: How to build an ideal customer profile for better lead generation results [+ free template]
3. Its output can be inconsistent in quality and tone of voice
Just as AI can miss the mark with replicating your brand's voice, it can also impact the consistency of your content if you rely on it too heavily.
The quality of output from artificial intelligence tools often varies greatly from one piece to the next, which could dilute the finer details that give your brand its unique identity.
Many AI tools can be trained to adopt specific phrases and styles of language, but this can often take so much expense and training that it negates the main benefit of AI content in the first place - efficiency.
4. It can put off your audience
The promise of automation and rapid content creation is understandably a tempting prospect for marketers, but anyone considering using generative AI should also know that it could actually put off your customers.
Brands need to show transparency if their AI tools make use of personal data - otherwise, they risk damaging their relationships with their audience and potential customers.
In some fields, feeding this information to an AI tool can also fall foul of data regulation. For marketers in these areas, it's best to air on the side of caution or avoid using generative AI altogether.
5. A lack of original thinking and thought leadership
Thought leadership is the backbone of content marketing. In fact, 54% of decision-makers (and nearly half of the C-Suite) say they spend more than one hour per week reading and reviewing thought leadership content.
Yet because generative AI tools learn from other content, they cannot factor in a unique perspective or original thinking. Instead, they recycle pre-existing ideas, and that offers little value to your audience. And if you’re not providing your audience value, they won’t stick around.
Recommended reading: 8 content mistakes that are scaring away your leads
6. It gets things wrong
It's particularly remarkable to have witnessed AI's meteoric rise considering how often its output can be factually incorrect.
A good rule of thumb with an AI tool is that it's only as good as the data it's working on, and while significant advances have been made to improve the reliability of this technology since it first exploded onto the scene, such as cross-validation, it still has significant limitations. In fact, one study found that generative AI tools could agree with false statements up to a quarter of the time.
Yes, AI can be an extremely useful tool for marketers to generate content, but anyone using it should exercise caution and thoroughly review its output before publishing it.
From providing misleading information to fabricated data, these ‘AI hallucinations’ have the potential to damage consumer trust and brand reputation if they're not identified.
7. It impedes your chances in Google’s search rankings
The cornerstone of Google’s search engine algorithm is experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (otherwise known as “E-E-A-T”). Google uses this framework to determine the quality of all content it places on its search engine results pages.
So, if 54% of people worry generative AI outputs are inaccurate, how can you expect Google to trust the value of AI content creation in its search engine?
The only way to avoid this is to create high-quality content that offers your audience a value-adding point of view. Only then can you begin showing up in search and growing your organic interest.
8. It lacks personalisation
In a B2B marketplace where personalised, tailored interactions are what 72% of customers expect, the generic output of AI content risks putting your brand at odds with the demands of your audience.
Generative AI doesn't consider things like context or search intent in its output, limiting its ability to produce something truly relevant and tailored to a reader's specific needs and preferences.
This, along with its lack of original thinking (and the fact it will pull from many of the same sources as other brands who use it), could make you fall behind your competitors using human writers.
9. It's at risk of bias
AI's dependence on high-quality data also presents another pitfall for marketing teams - the risk of bias.
If the data generative AI is accessing consists of biases, the tool will reflect these in its output. For example, an analysis in 2023 of over 5,000 images generated by AI found that it simultaneously amplified both gender and racial stereotypes.
In the context of content creation, this may not seem like a major consideration. However, these issues also extend to text generators like ChatGPT. Should biases go unnoticed in content output, your brand could be exposed to significant reputational risk and damage.
10. It's a security risk
As people's understanding of generative AI evolves, one emerging risk is the potential for this tool to be used in the event of a cyberattack.
If a cybercriminal wanted to attack your business, it could use AI to generate fake content, bypass your security measures or even stage social engineering attacks.
This risk is magnified when the systems that generate AI content themselves could become targets for cybercrime, putting both your data and your brand in jeopardy.
AI content creation is improving
While generative AI is popular among marketers, many still have their doubts. To combat some of the above limitations, innovations in AI technology are being introduced into content creation tools, including:
- Private language models: Private language models (PLMs) are one advancement in generative AI that could address concerns around the data privacy of this technology. With PLMs, companies can feed generative AI local data, thus avoiding any concerns around ethics, plagiarism and infringement.
- Prompt engineering: Work has been done to improve the training process for generative AI. Prompt engineering - where a tool is trained on a specific set of data to improve its performance in a particular area - has helped speed up this process. For marketers, this could make it easier to get the tool incorporating your tone of voice.
- Predictive AI: Predictive AI is seen as the next frontier for AI technology, and it has the potential to turn content creation on its head. Rather than solely working on existing data, predictive AI uses machine learning to forecast future outcomes. For content creators, this could mean being able to anticipate audience trends and behaviours and create timely, relevant content with the personalised edge generative AI often misses.
Not convinced by AI content creation? Try our Content Concierge
There can be no doubt that generative AI tools bring many benefits to the content creation process. They’re wonderful sounding boards, idea generators and synonym creators. But, as Steve Jobs once said, “Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.”
To give your B2B audience something worth engaging with, you need to create original content that prioritises quality, trust and expertise.
That’s where we come in. We’ve joined forces with Articulate Marketing to combine our in-depth data-driven insights with their extensive experience writing for the B2B technology sector. The result? Targeted, expert content that drives intent and boosts your pool of qualified leads.
