Entrepreneurs Utilizing AI Publish 42% Extra Content material [+ New Research Report]

We surveyed 879 entrepreneurs to grasp how generative AI is altering content material advertising: the workflows, the prices, the outcomes…and the dangers.

On this article, we’re wanting particularly at AI’s influence on content material creation. How widespread is AI content material use? What instruments do individuals use? How usually do individuals edit their outputs?

• AI use for content material advertising is extraordinarily prevalent: 87% of respondents use AI to assist create content material.
• AI use permits corporations to publish 42% extra content material every month: the median month-to-month publishing frequency utilizing AI was 17 articles, in comparison with 12 for these not utilizing AI.
• ChatGPT is the most typical AI mannequin for content material creation, utilized by 44% of respondents, adopted by Gemini (15%) and Claude (10%). In whole, 94 distinct AI instruments have been referenced.
• 97% of corporations edit and evaluation AI content material. Solely 4% of respondents publish “pure” AI-generated content material. 80% of respondents manually evaluation AI content material for accuracy.
• Weblog posts are the most typical kind of AI-generated content material (87%). Brainstorming (76%), outlining (73%), and content material updates (67%) are the highest AI-assisted duties.

AI use is extraordinarily widespread in content material advertising.

Out of 879 responses, 769 (87%) reported utilizing AI to create or assist create content material. Simply 111 reported that they didn’t use AI (13%).

If this appears stunning, it’s price contemplating that AI is now a local a part of Google Docs, Google Sheets, Gmail, Slack, LinkedIn, you title it. It’s exhausting to keep away from.

AI use was most prevalent at small (10–49 workers) and enterprise (1,000+ workers) corporations, and least widespread at micro (1–9 workers) corporations:

AI use was most typical in advertising groups of two–10 individuals, however even at massive advertising groups of over 100 individuals, 89% of respondents mentioned that they used AI:

What the specialists suppose

“We’re discovering that organizations of all sizes are extraordinarily all in favour of leveraging AI of their advertising initiatives. In actual fact, smaller organizations benefit from being extra nimble and fast-paced with their integrations”.

“On the enterprise stage, there’s a increased stage of concern round information sharing inside LLMs. A number of shoppers of ours have explicitly forbid sharing of firm info with LLMs as a consequence of issues of the way it could finally be used.”

AI permits corporations to considerably enhance their content material creation.

The median publishing frequency for corporations utilizing AI was 17 articles per thirty days. For corporations not utilizing AI, the median was 12 articles per thirty days, or 42% decrease:

Firm dimension may also influence publishing frequency (greater corporations usually publish greater than smaller corporations), so it’s useful to take a look at the distinction in publishing frequency by firm dimension.

The information recommend that AI is having the most important influence on micro (1–9 worker) and small (10–49 worker) corporations, whereas enterprise corporations really publish extra with out AI workflows.

Given the quantity of authorized evaluation and compliance that occurs within the largest corporations, this isn’t essentially stunning:

Right here’s how publication frequency was distributed among the many responses. Though excessive publication frequencies have been reported even for non-AI customers, the acute values have been rather more widespread amongst AI customers, with a number of corporations utilizing AI to assist publish 100, 150, and even 250 items of content material per month:

Right here’s a histogram displaying the distribution of publishing frequencies, with the 1% most excessive outlier values excluded for legibility:

What the specialists suppose

“Content material writers can simply double or triple the quantity of selling content material they’re creating by utilizing AI instruments. AI-assisted writing is especially useful for multi-channel campaigns that require creating totally different content material codecs for various channels.”

“AI isn’t changing human creativity in content material advertising—it’s amplifying it by permitting groups to do extra. Essentially the most profitable organizations aren’t selecting between AI and human expertise, however are combining each to create extra content material that resonates with their viewers. This hybrid method is what we’ve been utilizing at Campfire Labs to discover a aggressive benefit.”

“In an AI-dominant world, the dimensions of content material will develop exponentially. From a value standpoint, engines like google must be extra even handed about how they allocate spend on every web site’s crawl sources—a.okay.a. crawl finances. The expectation that giant websites are higher than small websites must change.
Don’t simply write content material as a result of you may. Don’t create a programmatic scaled search engine marketing effort if there’s no actual person purpose to have scaled pages.”

Generative AI is used primarily for writing weblog posts.

Our analysis discovered that weblog posts have been the most typical content material kind created by AI (87% of respondents), adopted by web site copy and touchdown pages (64%), and social media posts (63%).

Longer, extra advanced content material codecs like whitepapers (15%) and ebooks (17%) have been the least widespread content material codecs created by AI. 

What the specialists suppose

“Producing weblog content material is—for the overwhelming majority of corporations—the least difficult content material kind on their area. Hardly any branding train takes place on weblog content material. Normally, nobody is worried about sustaining a model’s tone on the weblog. As a substitute, they’re most frequently centered on publishing content material “to rank”. It’s content material that requires minimal professional enter (or, a minimum of, used to). Just about, key phrases and a title and you will get going. It’s content material that retains on giving: It may be promoted on social, newsletters and many others. And it’s content material that, if it ranks, it’ll carry on bringing new guests and potential prospects. 

“However, web site copy, social posts or publication copy require you to be you. You’ll be able to’t de-prioritize branding right here, and getting it proper with AI is commonly a problem.”

Unsurprisingly then, most AI-assisted duties relate to weblog publish creation.

When requested how AI was utilized in totally different components of the content material advertising and search engine marketing workflow, 76% of respondents mentioned that they used AI to brainstorm subject concepts. 73% reported utilizing AI to create content material outlines, and 67% used it for bettering their content material.

On the different finish of the spectrum, creating photos (19%), localizing or translating content material (22%), and key phrase clustering (23%) have been the least in style use circumstances.

What the specialists suppose

“AI is nice for ideation, analysis, and planning. It could drastically enhance the time to finish search engine marketing duties that beforehand needed to be achieved manually.”

“With many AI instruments providing internet search and deep analysis options, it’s a lot sooner and simpler to analysis, define and write longform content material like weblog posts and in-depth articles. That’s the fantastic thing about AI-powered writing, AI helps you throughout each stage of the writing course of, from conducting preliminary analysis to creating remaining enhancing.”

“For those who’re not utilizing AI in the beginning and the tip of your content material creation course of, you’re lacking out. Brainstorming, arising with totally different angles, after which proofreading or structural enhancing are issues that LLMs are fairly good at.

However I’m very sceptical with what ‘optimizing content material for natural search’ means. If it means offering key phrases and asking it to include them in your content material, I believe you’ll be in for a nasty shock sooner or later. The largest optimization you will get from AI is for logic and readability. Positive, present related queries and key phrases in the beginning. However concentrate on optimizing the construction, masking gaps your rivals don’t, formatting content material appropriately and extra.”

ChatGPT was essentially the most generally used AI device for content material creation, by a major margin.

44% of respondents reported utilizing ChatGPT, adopted by Gemini at 15%, and Claude at 10%.

What the specialists suppose

“Whereas ChatGPT is a well-liked device for content material creation, the standard of the content material it generates will range relying on the mannequin you’re utilizing and the standard of the prompts you’re offering. Primarily based by myself utilization, I discover that Claude, Gemini and Perlexity generally generate higher high quality content material even when utilizing easy prompts. So for those who’re not pleased with ChatGPT’s output, I like to recommend attempting these different instruments.”

In whole, a staggering 94 totally different instruments have been talked about within the survey. These have been the 20 hottest instruments talked about:

I’ve at all times questioned whether or not I’m dropping out by utilizing gpt4o or Claude, as an alternative of a “wrapper” that mixes a number of APIs into one interface. In line with our analysis, in all probability not.

77% of the AI instruments listed by respondents fall into the “LLM” class: that’s, they’re particular LLM fashions or mannequin suppliers, like Claude from Anthropic or gpt-4o from OpenAI.

Solely 23% of the listed instruments are thought of “wrappers”: software program instruments that use one or a number of LLM fashions with further options added, like SurferSEO or Jasper.

What the specialists suppose

“With LLM suppliers like OpenAI and Anthropic in a race to deploy new fashions and new options, most corporations appear properly served by utilizing LLM fashions themselves, with no need for specialised wrappers. When groups construct customized workflows on prime of APIs, it’s potential to create very subtle workflows utilizing simply the fundamental LLM fashions.”

Google has softened its stance on AI disclosure (they suggest disclosing “when it might be moderately anticipated”—so it’s removed from necessary). With that in thoughts, it’s not stunning that only a few corporations hassle to reveal AI use.

Of these corporations that use AI, solely 16% select to reveal the usage of AI of their content material. The remaining 84% select to not disclose AI use:

Disclosure was most typical at micro (1–9 workers) and enterprise (1,000+ workers) corporations. Enterprise corporations specifically are more likely to have guidelines and laws that make disclosure obligatory:

It’s additionally barely reassuring that the businesses which are the heaviest of AI content material are additionally the almost certainly to reveal its use, with 26% of corporations publishing majority “pure” AI content material disclosing its use:

Typically talking, only a few corporations publish solely “pure” AI content material.

Solely 4% of respondents reported that over 75% of the content material they printed was pure AI content material, with none enhancing or further enter. In distinction, 50% of respondents reported that none of the content material they printed was pure AI content material.

What the specialists suppose

“Whereas there’s a temptation to make use of the outputs of AI straight in your web site’s content material, entrepreneurs want to withstand this. We’ve seen from the March 2024 core replace simply how damaging AI-only content material could be. As a substitute entrepreneurs can make the most of AI for preliminary outputs—however have their groups evaluation the content material to really make it helpful for customers.”

“It’s extraordinarily harmful to publish strictly AI written content material. Whereas Google says they don’t take a stance in opposition to AI content material, it’s very clear that solely AI written content material is detected by Google and the location and content material is finally punished for it. There’s loads of analysis and examples of this occurring.”

Virtually everybody critiques or edits AI content material, in some type.

97% of respondents have some form of evaluation course of for AI content material. Handbook evaluation was the most typical technique (80%), adopted by working with material specialists (35%), and dealing with an editor (30%). 14% of respondents ask AI to evaluation AI content material for accuracy.

What the specialists suppose

“Hallucination is a reality of life for LLMs, however the rising use of RAG and grounding—utilizing third-party sources to examine and validate LLM output—is beginning to eat away at this downside. AI content material won’t ever be completely correct, however neither is human-written content material.”

Wish to find out how AI content material performs, or how a lot corporations spend on AI content material?

You’ll be able to obtain and skim our full PDF report right here (no e mail required): The State of AI in Content material Advertising and marketing.