Relying on AI for your storytelling? When generative AI tools like ChatGPT first came out, content writers panicked, with people telling them their careers would be gone overnight. And many a not so wise business started to rely solely on AI to create their content. But here’s the thing, while AI is bloody brilliant for cutting research time down (though you can’t 100% trust it for that either), it will never (or at least not in the near future) be able to do storytelling well enough to get you great results. Here are a few reasons why…
Storytelling no-no number 1) AI lacks empathy and emotion
We’ve said it a thousand times – people connect with people, not businesses…and not AI. It simply lacks human emotion and empathy – two key elements needed for engaging with your audience and creating a trusting, loyal relationship.
The whole point of telling a story is to elicit some sort of emotion, right? But AI doesn’t feel any emotions. It doesn’t have any lived experiences. It doesn’t know what it means to be overjoyed, shattered, crushed, completely in love, or sick to the back teeth of something like you or me. Human experience is everything when it comes to storytelling, though, so without any of that, AI content is…well… a bit crap.
If you’ve felt or experienced something, and you have the skills to get that story out into the world, the chances of someone else resonating with that are high. Whereas, if your story is lacking lived experience or emotion, it immediately loses authenticity. And that’s much clearer to readers than you may think. After all, when we use storytelling in marketing, we want readers to take some sort of action at the end of it. But if you’ve failed to make that connection (or, rather, AI has failed to make that connection), your reader is far less likely to do whatever it is you want them to.
Storytelling no-no number 2) AI only knows what’s gone before
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT are constantly learning, feeding off online content that’s gone before. Learning off what other people have actually spent time researching and creating. It’s great at spewing out similar content to what’s already out there, but not so good at creating completely new ideas. Ideas that will make your brand stand out from the crowd.
I mean, I don’t know about you, but if I read another article that starts with “In today’s fast-paced/ digital world…”, I might have to yank my eyes out of their sockets. In a way, that’s a good thing (not me yanking my eye sockets out; I probably won’t actually do that) because it means that if you get creative and tell a story that can really evoke emotion, you’ll grab attention and seriously set yourself apart from the AI-reliant competition.
Storytelling no-no number 3) AI means more work in the long-run
If you’re insistent on using generative AI to create your content (and we’d seriously urge you not to), you really do need to put in the work when it comes to editing your story. While it may look like the tool has provided a well-structured piece of content, it tends to be quite dull, repetitive, and even inaccurate at times, meaning you really need to go through it with a fine toothed comb to select only what you need. I mean, it was spat out in a matter of seconds. You can’t expect it to be a masterpiece, can you?
You’ll also need to fact-check, and add in the emotion that it will undoubtedly be missing. The human emotion that your audience needs in order to really tune into what you’re telling them. In essence, you (or someone on your team) will end up still having to put a lot of time into getting your content right before it’s fit for purpose.
Your audience deserves more than AI storytelling
If your audience is giving you their time, give them something they can really benefit from. Simply put, if storytelling is part of your marketing strategy, take the time to consider their interests, their needs, and what will actually help them. Provide value, and you’ll see results. Don’t give them bland; give them bloody brilliant.
Ready to create content that really resonates? Check out KAYBE’s webinar – Content Personalisation Perfection – where we’ll go into detail on how to make storytelling work for your business.
