Will AI replace all our jobs?

Is AI due to take over all of our jobs? Well, one thing I know is that AI is going to change the way we all do business, but “AI is a tool. That’s it, full stop. The question becomes who is holding the tool.” Now, that was a direct quote that I love from a copywriting genius called Ann Handley, the author of Everybody Writes. So today, what I want to do is explore this by looking at the best way that marketing teams, entrepreneurs and businesses and business owners can best leverage and use AI tools like ChatGPT, using some real examples that I’ve been able to use in my business.

Hi, my name is Jordan McFadyen, and welcome to the Marketing Mindset podcast. This podcast challenges both you and me to reassess and to challenge our marketing strategies with new thoughts and new ideas, so that we can move away from random acts of marketing and start to help you build a more long-term marketing strategy.

Today, I want to discuss AI. It is well and truly here, and was quickly thrust into the spotlight with the introduction of ChatGPT recently. When that got released, it quickly became one of the most downloaded pieces of software on the internet. And to be fair, when it’s in the right hands, I’ll make that really clear, in the right hands, it can actually be a really powerful tool.

So I’m going to go back to that quote I shared at the top of this podcast from Ann Handley. She explained in her fortnightly email her point of view, and I actually really agree with what she said. “AI is like a power tool, sure. Maybe a diamond-toothed chainsaw capable of felling a redwood, but remember, it’s also just a tool. So the question becomes, who’s holding the tool? You can put a vibrating, live diamond-toothed chainsaw in my inexperienced, unpractised, ignorant hands, and within seconds, I’m going to lose control of it and catch my sleeve in the blade.” Now, Ann goes on, obviously, you can imagine what she says next, talking around missing limbs and everything like that.

But I think the point that she’s getting across is actually really true when it comes to AI, and how we can use it in our business, and how it is just a tool. Now, in terms of AI in general, I did want to give this topic a bit of thought first. Obviously, ChatGPT has been around for a while now, and a lot of AI tools have been around for even longer than that. So a lot of people do ask me around AI and what my feeling is, especially around the impact of marketing businesses like my own, or businesses like yours, service-based businesses, a lot of different industries, that it is going to change.

And honestly, AI is going to change the way that we all do business. But from the reading I’ve done, and from the playing that I’ve been able to do, I also think that it’s more a case of: if you don’t leverage this technology soon, you’re simply going to be left behind. Because I don’t believe AI is going anywhere. Is AI going to replace jobs? Well, no, as long as you adapt with the changes that AI brings.

And look, I think if we go back in history and have a bit of a look at some of the big historical changes in technology as well, and how that affected things. Let’s have a think of ATMs, first introduced in the 1970s. At that time, bank tellers, they thought they were gone burgers, all gone. But what that actually did was ATMs actually increased the number of jobs in the banking industry. And they allowed banks to open more branches and offer more services to customers overall.

The other one that comes to mind was barcode scanners. They got introduced back in the 1980s. At that time, people feared that it’s going to put cashiers and store clerks out of work. However, at that time, what it’s actually done is that technology is now just so common, and it’s actually made it easier for retailers to work, to serve customers, to track inventory. It’s allowed so many opportunities to those who were able to take it and use it to help power their business.

Let’s even think about online travel. Booking sites like Expedia and all those, they all got launched near the end of the 1990s. And again, at the time, people feared travel agents are going to be absolutely obsolete. And sure, there were some redundancies in that area, but you still see travel agents out now. And it’s because those that adapted to the new technology were then able to provide a valuable service to their customers. And people were still able to see the value, but they were able to use the tools that were now available to them.

So that’s the same when we think about all our industries, and marketers and copywriters, because I know copywriters have been in the spotlight as part of ChatGPT. So it’s that question of: is it going to make copywriters and marketers and these other service-based professionals redundant? And no, it’s not. I think that AI is going to replace people, though, that aren’t using AI.

How I see it is, again, it’s a tool, and it’s going to help you speed up your day-to-day process. It’s going to mean, potentially, that you can actually get more done in a day, with twice the output, when you’re using tools like this. When you think about it as well, when you’re saying that copywriters may lose their job just because we’ve got ChatGPT, it doesn’t mean that suddenly founders and CEOs are going to get rid of the entire team and suddenly want to sit on the computer all day using ChatGPT to run their business. They’re still going to need copywriters. They’re still going to need marketing professionals. They’re still going to need people, even though we have AI tools at our disposal now.

So the question I want to ask today is: how can we use this tool for ourselves? How can we actually use it and leverage it for our business? So first, I’m going to start with sharing a story of my 11-year-old son, because I think this is a real-world example. He had a recent school research project. Now, I’m not going to go into details, because I’m actually not too sure about the school rules in terms of whether we’re allowed to use ChatGPT and AI tools to kind of help with research papers. But I still thought that this was an interesting little task.

So essentially, he was tasked with choosing any recent natural disaster that he had to write this report on. The problem was, he came to me, he had no idea where to even begin. He had that writer’s block. And I think, as you’ll soon hear, that this is where ChatGPT and AI can be really helpful. So pretty soon, what I did was I introduced him to ChatGPT, to AI, just to see how this clever 11-year-old brain would actually then use this tool to solve that problem that he had, which was: what do I even write on?

So we got to work. He wrote to the AI interface: list 10 of the most recent natural disasters from around the world. Just like that, a list was created, and instantly that writer’s block was erased, and intrigue began to grow in my son. He noticed the Australian bushfires was one of the options that ChatGPT included. And with that, there was a sentence after every suggestion about what that natural disaster actually was. And what it did was it gave more context to my son, who was immediately drawn to the Australian bushfires, because he saw a statistic about how many animals were affected by the fire.

So then the next question: when did the Australian bushfires even occur? That answer provided just a little bit more context, and it gave him a little bit more intrigue, and it was able to continue. So without any further context, when he simply asked what even started the bushfires in the first place, the tool, what it then did was it knew exactly what he meant. And it gave him a real detailed description about what even kicked off the Australian bushfires. It gave him different ideas, and it even included the word “catastrophic”. Not knowing what the meaning of that word was, I then noticed that my son put that as his next question. It was simply: what is catastrophic?

And the thing is, not only was the AI tool able to define the word, but it also defined the word in the context of the Australian bushfires. And as it turns out, catastrophic is the official term to describe the highest fire danger warning. So essentially what I’m saying is, by using this tool, and with very little input from me at all, my son was able to get all the research he required to be able to start his research paper. The brainstorming block that he once had was gone. All that research was all complete. It was all done.

And this is so true. That example is so true also with content creators and marketers and business owners, that in the right hands, this tool is going to be really powerful. And it’s going to help you kickstart new ideas. It’s going to help provide research. It’s like a research tool, which is going to help us save time. It’s even going to help us save time on mundane jobs that we have on our day to day. But first, we have to remind ourselves this is a clever tool, but it’s not perfect. It can sometimes obviously generate incorrect or misleading content as well. So I will preface all of this by saying: always double check before you push publish, before you claim that something is gospel.

But in saying that, it’s a clever tool. There’s some great reasons you can use it. Brainstorming, as we’ve just said. Resumes. Writing letters. Article summaries: provide an article and say, can you summarise this? Conversational text. Thought starters on how to write your ad creative. But remember, it’s not so good for other things, like highly technical and specialised content. Sensitive and controversial content. Obviously, it can’t do personal opinions and creative writing. It’s terrible, and would never want to put it anywhere near any legal or financial documents. But when, again, in the right hands, it can be a really powerful tool.

So here’s a few examples of marketing ideas, and a few functions that I’ve been able to play around with on ChatGPT, and some ideas that you can even try out today. So let’s say that we’re going to release a new article or a new blog for your website. How to kick off? You can actually start with keyword research. While the tool isn’t going to give you really accurate data, what it is going to do, though, it’s going to provide some real cool high-level keyword research. Some ideas. You can add a topic into ChatGPT, and it’s going to suggest and spit out some keywords that you may want to use as part of your article.

Again, it’s not going to give you high-level data that you need to actually see how difficult a keyword is, or how popular a keyword is, how often it’s searched for. It’s not going to tell you those details, but it is going to use the data that it’s got available to them to at least start to give you a few thought starters on what keywords you could use within your article.

And then you can continue that conversation with the AI tool, and get the tool to then suggest making those keywords long-tail keywords. So that’s essentially taking it from a one or two-word keyword and putting them into more of the “how can I do this”, those long-tail sentences. And what this could do is it’s going to give you and your article some ideas that you can actually use, some of those topic ideas that you need, all based on the high-volume keywords. And just like that, you’ve got yourself a topic, and you’ve got yourself a potential title, and you’ve got yourself a potential piece of content, and some of the keywords that you need to be including within your actual article as well.

Now, what you can also do is you can also get into the article writing part of the process as well, and kind of get that kickstarter, that thought starter there. You can actually take those keywords that the tool’s given you and suggested, and ask it to actually give you an outline of an article based on what those keywords are. If you do that, you should then receive a really good summary, a detailed summary, of how your article should be introduced. They’ll then break it down into different subsections, and they’ll all clear it out with a bit of an outro at the end, just to wrap it up.

So just like that, you’ve been able to do your keyword research, get some ideas on some of the long-tail keywords. You’ve been able to get a bit of an article summary of how the article should be laid out, using those keywords as the base. And now you can actually ask the tool to now provide an interesting article headline, which again is going to use that target primary keyword. You can even ask the tool to write suggestions with a certain tone of voice, if you want to make sure it sounds professional, or make sure you sound casual or fun.

The headlines aren’t going to be perfect, I’ll say that again. But this tool is going to give you the layout, it’s going to give you some thought starters, and essentially it’s going to get you kicked off. Sometimes writer’s block, getting stuck at the computer when you know you’re going to get a piece of content out, can be the worst thing. This is going to help get you in motion, which is such a good tool.

Then you can actually ask the tool to provide you with an introduction. Let’s say you’re having a real struggle around, how do I kick this off? Literally ask it: can you write an article introduction using these keywords, and using all that research that you’ve done so far? Even, for example, using the headline that you thought you resonated with most, and that your audience is going to resonate with most. Obviously, once you’ve applied your human changes to it as well. Just like that, you’ve got yourself your article topic that includes your highly searched keywords, an article outline, a title, and the first introduction. It’s got you sorted.

Just like that, you’ve got the base of what you need to do to be able to actually create content. Now, you can go in there, armed with all your research, armed with all your blocks out of the way, and you can get into actually writing your content. This is where I would always say that this is where you need to take back over. Take the tools that AI has given you so far, and this is where you need to step back in and use your creativity, use your personality, and use all the tools that you have to be able to get your message across to your audience.

Again, this tool isn’t going to know who you’re talking to, so you need to make entirely sure that whatever you’re writing, and everything you’re putting together, is going to talk to your audience. You are writing for humans, your humans, your audience, and you’re not writing for robots from a robot. That’s the key here. We want to make sure that we’re using AI tools to help speed up this process, this brainstorming process, this research process, so that you can come in and actually write that article for your audience and your people.

But before you finish the chat with AI as well, you can even go that one step further and get them to help you promote the article. Ask it to suggest some catchy social media post copy, just to give you some thought starters of how you could actually then go out to market with this new article, with this new blog. So again, it does give you some great tools to be able to really kick in and start to build some thoughts, and to build some thought starters around how you can actually create content faster.

And to be honest, this whole example, and my son’s example, it really does help summarise my overall thoughts with ChatGPT and with AI. Again, I see it that AI and ChatGPT isn’t going to replace your job, but what I see it doing is it’s going to help speed up. It’s going to help you change your output. It’s going to help you get across some of those roadblocks that you have.

AI isn’t just ChatGPT as well. There are a lot of different tools that we can leverage and use in our day-to-day life or our working life, to make everything just that little bit better. For example, I use an AI tool on this podcast. What it does is it replaces mistakes that I make. There are also AI tools to help with your grammar, AI tools that can help edit your social media videos as well. It’s all around how you can use AI to help leverage your existing job, your existing role, and your existing business, to be able to work even better, even smarter. And it’s not going to go anywhere. So I honestly think that it’s time that we just need to embrace it.

Look, if you’ve enjoyed this podcast and some thoughts, and you’ve got your thoughts of your own, please get in touch with us. You can find us on our website, donebynine.com. And I thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Marketing Mindset podcast. And if you have enjoyed it, the best thing you can do to help us out, and to help this little podcast out, is to let us know by leaving a five-star review, or writing a review, or following the podcast for more future episodes as well.

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