Why I changed my mind about AI copy

If you hired me to write copy for you in December, I would have written every word by hand.

Now I will use AI to do most of the work.

3 things have changed since then:

1. AI copy got better

When ChatGPT came out in late 2022, it sucked at writing copy.

But AI writing has gotten way better since then.

It's only going to keep getting better.

2. People got better at training AI to write

I was convinced that AI writing stank until I saw what Stefan Georgi was doing with it.

He had a prompt that wrote an awesome VSL from scratch.

One of his students, Luke Mills, sends me emails that look and sound perfect. I would have no idea that AI was writing them if he hadn't said so.

So I bought one of Stefan Georgi's courses and played around with the prompts.

They work like a charm.

(I've even found some prompts I can use to write copy that doesn't sound like an AI wrote it.)

3. I stopped being stubborn and adapted to the future

This one was more of a mindset shift for me. 

"Copywriter" was a big part of my identity. It was tough to let go of that.

But, it's no fun being a dinosaur. You don't make any money when you're a dinosaur.

Nobody's really hiring "copywriters" anymore... UpWork is slim pickings these days.

Luckily, I've built plenty of other skills that are a lot more valuable than just "copywriting"...

And I realized I could help more businesses and make more money by selling those skills instead.

Plus, the fun part of marketing is the strategy. 

(Sometimes I enjoy the writing part... but recently I've started looking at it more as busywork. It's a grind. I would rather think about things from a 300-foot bird's eye perspective than spend hours analyzing every single word in an email.)

So these days I'm positioning myself more as an email promo guy, where copy is just part of what I do.

Now, a word of warning if you're thinking of using AI to do your own copy. 

There's an important caveat: you still have to know what good copy looks like.

You can't just roll with the first thing ChatGPT gives you — you have to recognize all the issues with it, and then either edit the copy manually or tell ChatGPT how to fix it.

(Ironically, the best way to build this skill is to write your own copy by hand.)

You also need to know the right way to train and prompt your AI — you can't just type "write me a sales page".

It's like cutting hair — just because you have a pair of scissors handy doesn't mean you should start snipping at your bangs. You have to know what you're doing.