If you haven’t already heard: AI is coming for writers. It’s conquered the supermarket and made checkout workers obsolete, and now it’s taking over the writing world.
Well, not quite. Much like in supermarkets, people are still needed to operate AI writing software, but the idea is that it can write content for you with just a brief prod in the right direction. Think of all the times you’ve heard “unexpected item in bagging area”!
Most of these tools are only just starting out, so they’re pretty buggy and require a lot of human oversight. Still, AI blog-writing software tools like ChatGPT are creepily lifelike and a unique way to use technology.
Because AI writing software is free, it’s often viewed by businesses as a more affordable option than human writers, who require salaries, paid holidays, sick days and other benefits. AI seemingly takes the hassle of creating content — but does it actually live up to the hype?
While we’ve already outlined how AI software compares to our writing team and how it won’t ever truly replace SEO agencies, UK Linkology hasn’t shown how AI is actually beneficial for writing content. Our team uses some AI writing tools, to save time with keyword research and proofreading, and we felt now was the time to explore the products on the market and how they can be used to your advantage when writing. Or how our professional writers can use them to create your content for you.
Here are some of the best AI-writing software products on the market and how they stack up against each other and our team of expert writers.
ChatGPT
Everyone’s heard of ChatGPT, the large language model that’s taken the internet by storm. People, from ordinary students and marketers to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Ryan Reynolds, have tried using ChatGPT to write speeches, essays and other content, with varying degrees of success.
Launched in 2022 by OpenAI, the tool has been in production since 2015 and has a database of information dating back to 2021.
Here are the pros and cons of using ChatGPT for AI content writing:
Pros:
- Can provide title ideas and basic insight
- Useful AI script-writing software for coding
- Explains complex topics clearly
- Free to use
Cons:
- Database only contains data from up to 2021
- Writing style is repetitive
- Accuracy isn’t always 100%
- Words are often repeated, and the writing style is robotic
- Search engines can easily identify and penalise AI-generated content
While it has its uses, ChatGPT is far from the replacement for human writers that some fear it is. It needs to be used in conjunction with thinking, breathing people.
ChatGPT is the only AI software for writing that UK Linkology doesn’t use regularly for its content. That’s because our writers already have the skills to come up with subheadings and can write better content than the tool currently can.
Still, if you’re a business leader and you want some quick content ideas or headlines for social media posts, then ChatGPT could be a useful solution. However, as you’ll need to edit and review the content and provide in-depth prompts, this can be more time-consuming than simply asking a creative member of your team to undertake these tasks for you. Also, if you’re outsourcing your content creation to a team like ours, you can get this support from us as part of your order.
Surfer SEO
Surfer SEO is a keyword research tool that aims to help with every aspect of SEO content writing, from research through to auditing existing pieces and writing content.
Unlike ChatGPT, Surfer SEO isn’t designed to write content for you but instead uses its AI software to review content on the top of results pages for a specific term and help you emulate it. The tool has several functions, including content audits, keyword research and, the most useful, its content editor.
The content editor is the one unique tool that makes Surfer SEO different from all the other keyword and SEO audit tools out there.
All you have to do is type in your main target keywords, choose the region you want to target, select whether you want to crawl mobile or desktop search results and create a content editor.
Then you’ll have an editor to write your content into. The tool checks out the top results for your target keywords and gives you a “content score”, which will improve as you write and add keywords, paragraphs, headings and other important elements.
The keywords you need to target and how often you should use them throughout your text are dictated by the top-ranking relevant results on the first page of Google for your main target keywords.
You can adjust everything from the competing content that you compare your work against to the word count and more.
So you can create relevant content that will meet your specifications and competes with the content that’s currently ranking for your target keywords.
Not only does Surfer SEO gather all the keywords and features of your main competitors for the top search rankings, but it also offers prompts.
A newer feature is the ability to add titles to a piece. Just click the “add titles” button in the editor, and Surfer SEO will add in titles that are based on the ones used by the content you’re comparing yours against.
These titles aren’t always perfect and sometimes read strangely or don’t match each other, but they can be a useful starting point for those who are dealing with writer’s block.
Here are the pros and cons of using Surfer SEO to help you write your content:
Pros:
- Simple and easy to use
- Multiple features for almost every aspect of content creation
- Compares your content with your competitors’ to allow you to emulate their ranking success
- Clear editor makes writing and checking your content simple
- You can integrate other tools, such as Grammarly, into it to make it easier
- The editor can be exported and sent to outsourced writers who don’t need an account
- Has Natural Language Processing function
- Tool is constantly being updated, meaning that you can get a lot from your subscription
Cons:
- Can only be used in browser
- Not all the features, such as the content planner, are out of the beta testing stage, and many don’t work as effectively as other tools
- Title and subheading suggestions can be mismatched and unusable
- Surfer SEO is not free, unlike other AI-writing software products
Surfer SEO is one of the tools UK Linkology uses when delivering pieces for our content writing service. We use the tool to identify important keywords and get inspiration, although we don’t use the titles it suggests.
Our team like Surfer SEO because it helps us easily see the keywords we need to include and how often. That means we can ensure that our clients get the online visibility and rankings they need.
Grammarly
Grammarly is an AI-driven writing assistant that’s designed to offer proofreading and plagiarism detection.
While it isn’t technically AI content-writing software, the tool allows users to check their grammar, spelling and writing style, and offers helpful hints and suggestions.
These are the pros and cons of using Grammarly as an AI writing tool:
Pros:
- Comes as a free version with the option to pay for more features
- Proofreads work and offers suggestions to make it more concise
- Settings allow you to change the region and ensure the tool meets your needs
- Integrates with most office software products, including Word, Excel, Outlook, Salesforce and more
- Can also appear on social media to help proofread posts
- Has an in-browser version
- Is easy to use
Cons:
- Not always 100% accurate
- The plagiarism detector isn’t the best on the market
- The free version is limited
Grammarly is a popular writing tool because the AI works alongside the writer to help them check for spelling and grammar mistakes. It also automates processes such as updating all spellings to a specific type so content is always uniform.
Our staff save time and can ensure that our clients all get the grammatically correct content they expect from our writing service.
Comparing Popular AI Writing Tools: A Quick Conclusion
Every AI writing tool has its pros and cons and unique features that make it stand out from the crowd.
As CNET has proved, AI can’t be used without human support, and work that’s written entirely by a writing chatbot often requires extensive fact-checking and revision. While AI-writing software can be useful for saving time and putting together briefs, it’s not infallible.
If you want, you can use AI tools to write your own content, but if you’re a busy business owner or you’re not confident in your writing abilities, then this might be more time-consuming than seeking help from professional writers. AI content-writing software can’t do it by itself, but a professional writing service like ours can give you the best of both worlds.
Our human writers make the most of the best AI writing tools, like Surfer SEO and Grammarly, and can show you how they used these tools to create the perfect piece of content to fit your brief. You can schedule a call to find out more about our services or use our digital dashboard to buy content today. Our services are easy to use and combine the best of human expertise with AI tech.
