With businesses using AI for everything, what makes them still decide to hire human writers?
When we chatted with real business owners, they shared that they need that human connection and perspective that can understand their customers.
According to a Goldman Sachs survey, 68% of small businesses say they are already using AI, with another 9% planning to begin using it within the next year.
And just last month, Anthropic released the findings of its study on the theoretical impact of AI on different labor markets in the future. You probably saw this graph floating around… showing the sectors with jobs that AI could “theoretically” cover.
The most exposed roles are in computer programming (75% coverage), customer service (70%), data entry (67%), and financial analysis.
And look, I get it. This mass adoption of AI has helped create a perfect storm of anxiety and widespread fear about AI taking our jobs.
And ironically, about 60% of white-collar tech workers believe their jobs and entire teams could be replaced by AI within the next three to five years, yet they still use AI at least once per day.
I know all of this can feel kinda horrifying when you think about your future, your job security, and your livelihood.
But I gotta be totally honest with you.
If you’re looking for reasons to buy into this doom and gloom narrative, you will find them.
Because the truth is, what I’m actually seeing is the opposite.
And when I talk to real business owners and copywriters about this issue. They are telling me the opposite.
And most importantly, there is data that shows what is actually happening with AI is the complete opposite.
Business owners aren’t done hiring humans.
And while some are choosing to replace humans with AI, the vast majority are not.
In fact, according to the same Goldman Sachs survey on AI adoption, about 80% of small businesses using AI said it is enhancing– not replacing – their workforce.
And get this, nearly 40% of them are actually creating new roles and more jobs because of AI.
Even Anthropic’s Economic Index, which is based on an analysis of over 4 million conversations, shows that the majority of AI conversations are currently augmenting workers, not fully replacing them.
Now, while there has been a massive surge in businesses using AI to create content and write, I believe that the pendulum is already swinging back to humans in a big big way.
Originality.AI recently did a study showing that over 50% of long-form content on LinkedIn is now written by AI.
With a 107% in post length. Ugh. So just more shitty content. Great.
But don’t let these headlines scare you into thinking copywriting and human forms of art and creativity are dead or dying.
Because context matters. People are already sick and skeptical of AI content.
And brands and marketers are going to great lengths to prove to get ahead of growing consumer skepticism by labeling content that doesn’t use AI.
The truth is that AI is making human voices, perspectives, opinions, and insights more valuable than before.
And there has never been a better time to level up your creative writing, critical thinking and storytelling skills.
Welcome to Blog Post #3 of my AI & The Future Of Writing series.
In this post, I’m sharing real conversations I’ve had recently with real business owners and real writers about why businesses are still choosing to hire human copywriters.
And how you can position yourself as a copywriter in this age of AI everything.
This message needs to be heard by every writer, every marketer, and every creative far and wide.
So do me a favor, to help spread this message by sending it to a creative you know.
If you missed Blog Post #1 or Blog Post #2 of this series – where I talk about my 3 rules for winning with AI as a writer in 2026 and the writing jobs that AI will NEVER be able to replace.
And don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter so you can be the first to know the newest Copy Posse news.
Now let’s get into it…
Human Over AI Conversation
This entire series was sparked by a conversation I had with my high-level mastermind members inside my private mastermind, REIGN.
When a business owner in the group posed this sincerely curious question to the copywriters and marketers in the group.
“What is your competitive advantage? Why should people hire you for 5-6 figures versus utilizing AI?”
The question sparked an amazing conversation in which the copywriters, marketers, CMOs and other business owners of the group chimed in with their perspectives.
Many of these people btw, are working for some of the biggest names in the industry.
If these businesses wanted to, they could fire their human copywriters, invest in training AI, and then take all the money they save from payroll and throw all that money into AI written ads that direct traffic to AI written sales funnels.
And yet they still choose to work with these humans.
Which begs the question… Why?
If a business can pay a fraction of the price for an AI tool and spit out a landing page in 5 seconds flat. Why would they ever pay more money for a human writer to do it?
Well, the insights my mastermind members shared were so good. And I’m going to share the entire conversation with you in a minute. Including what I had to say about all of this.
But first, I thought this conversation was so valuable that I decided to take it to LinkedIn. So I could hear from even more business owners and copywriters.
I asked, “If AI can “write” a landing page in 10 seconds, then why are businesses still hiring copywriters/marketers? I’m gathering intel for an upcoming video and I want your take. What made you (or your clients) choose a HUMAN over AI? What frustrates you most about using AI for content? And what would you NEVER outsource to AI?”
And here are some of the responses…
“With 9+ years as a content strategist I can confidently say AI writes fast but it never learned what to leave OUT. The job was never writing. It was knowing what to cut, what to say first and what the buyer needs to hear before they even know they need it.”
Yes. I loved this answer and it actually reminded me of this article I read recently in AI for Leaders.
This article talks about how storytellers are becoming a premium in the tech world – with companies actively seeking them out.
And paying big, big bucks for the humans who fill them.
I love the way this article explains it…
“The reason is simple. AI makes it easier to build products, ship features, and publish content at speed. It does not, however, increase people’s appetite for more information. It fills the market with more garbage, which raises the value of PEOPLE who can explain what deserves attention.
That shifts the scarce skill from production to interpretation. A team can release ten features in a day, but customers still need context, relevance, and a clear reason to care.
This is why the premium role is not really “writer” in the narrow sense. It is the person who understands the product, the business, and the customer, then connects all three.”
And that friends is something only a human can do.
Another commenter on LinkedIn says…
“It still takes time to write a prompt that works.. And some business owners don’t have time for that either! That’s why I still get hired”.
Exactly. Everyone is talking about how AI can replace writers. And no one is stopping to ask the question… but who is running the AI?
Because yes, someone still has to dedicate time to learning how to use it effectively, training it, prompting it, analyzing what it creates, tweaking, editing, and revising.
The reason 90% of business owners hire copywriters and marketers is because they don’t have the time to dedicate to learning the art of persuasion and perfecting their marketing strategies themselves.
If they didn’t have the time to do that before. They still aren’t going to have the time to do it now either.
Which means they still need to hire someone to do it for them – whether that involves AI or not.
Another LinkedIn commenter says…
“Freelancer turned agency copywriter here. Here’s what we’ve experienced for choosing humans over AI: The AI can write all sorts of stuff. And some of it may even be better than hot garbage. But it’s the human that has the lived experience to identify WHAT’S ACTUALLY GOOD and what will actually get results. It’s human insight that can tease out nuanced ideas and distill them into a meaningful asset. RE: what is most frustrating about AI for content – with prompting, training, editing, context, and hallucinations, it’s the same amount of work to just WRITE THE DANG THING. Helpful for brainstorming but in testing, i’ve found the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze.”
Yes and I love this point especially – it’s the human who has the lived experience to identify what’s actually good.
AI Has No Soul
Here’s the thing about AI.
No matter how impressed our human brains might be by AI’s sheer speed. The truth is that AI is just a giant prediction machine.
It has no soul. No consciousness. No lived human experience.
It can mimic those things. But that’s all it’s doing. It’s mimicking human behavior based on what it’s training and its data says should come next.
I love this quote from Neil Patel. AI doesn’t create originality. It creates the statistical average of the Internet.
Ew…. tell me one business that wants to be statistically average.
It’s our soul, our consciousness, our lived human experience that helps us to understand each other on some level that is beyond description.
AI will never be able to really nail “that thing” that makes us human relate to other humans.
It’s one soul to another soul. One lived experience to another. And the heart – the feeling – behind those things can’t be analyzed or replicated by machines.
I loved this LinkedIn comment as well…
“Has a client last month who tried AI for their email launch. Got a response rate of almost zero. One rewrite later, completely different result. The worlds were similar but the understanding behind them wasn’t”.
Yes! AI will always leave you feeling like something is missing.
And that’s because it is missing.
We might not be able to put our finger on exactly what is missing or why it “feels off”.
But every single one of us knows that something is missing. Something just doesn’t quite fit or feel right.
That “something” will always need a human’s touch to make it feel… well… human.
And the business owners who did jump on the AI-hype train 2 years ago quickly learned this lesson the hard way.
Take a look at this article from ABC News…
“Companies that ditched their copywriters may be experiencing the “detrimental consequences” of having too much faith in AI.
Freelancers report old clients getting back in touch and admitting the bot’s copy wasn’t up to scratch.
‘I’ve noticed a swing back to copywriters.’An MIT study published last month suggested AI won’t replace as many jobs as predicted by studies in 2023.”
And that brings us back to the original question at hand.
Why do businesses still hire copywriters over hiring AI?
Here’s what my mastermind members have to say about it…
“I would say the done for you aspect of it. Even though many people will use AI, they still have to know the right questions to ask, as well as still edit the AI outputs in most cases. Also, as a copywriter, I bring my marketing strategies and experience, along with non-predictive writing skills. Again, you can get AI to help with the strategies but not if you don’t have a clue what to ask it.”
“No matter how many prompts and info you give AI, it still cannot capture the humanness of it all. Having the machine is great but you need someone to operate it and drive and fix it when it’s broken or doesn’t give you the results you want. Companies that are more interested in saving a few bucks will absolutely go with AI versus pay a copywriter… but the ones who choose to invest in their business end up creating trust with customers because everyone is sooooo sick of AI.”
“I started using cowork for project management this weekend and within a day it’s running so seamlessly but when I try to use it for content I want to throw it at the wall… I just don’t find it can write me good content. So at the moment I am viewing it as saving me time in other places that come easily which means I can take on more strategy and have margin there and then hire someone for the copywriting.”
“I’ve had so many conversations with business owners who feel more confused than ever about what they should be doing with copy – on a discovery call last week a client called her email strategy a black box. Shes sending them but has no idea if they’re making a difference and why they’re not converting. She doesn’t have the time or expertise to figure out why, and she’s too close to what she does. But she also knows she can’t grow and hit her targets if she doesn’t increase her conversions. Another client told me he hired me because their copy is too ‘high stakes’ to be leaving to AI – they’re putting a ton of ad spend behind these campaigns so they need to know they’ll have ROI. and you do that b y hiring an expert who’s done it over and over again in other businesses.”
“Copywriters spend all day analysing copy across multiple niches and clients… so we see these AI patterns play out everywhere… a business owner only writing their own copy with AI doesn’t see this and so they think the copy is great not realising that its the same thing everywhere.”
You heard it here folks…
So, as a copywriter, what is your competitive advantage?
Why should a business owner hire you over using AI?
Quality control, strategy, and ownership.
As a copywriter, knowing what is good marketing and bad marketing is your expertise. You do this all day, everyday.
It’s your job to spot a copy that sucks – and most importantly – know how to fix it, tweak, and make it convert.
As a copywriter, you’ve been trained on how an entire marketing funnel works together – you understand the big picture strategy and how all the pieces fit together to guide a campaign and a customer through the buying journey.
As a copywriter, you can help you clients get fast results with AI – but they need you to turn the words AI spits out into a message that connects with their audience.
All of this takes time, expertise, and a human who knows what they’re doing.
There you have it.
Undeniable proof. Straight from the mouths of real business owners, real copywriters, real CMOs, and what the real actual data has to say.
Human copywriters aren’t being replaced. The ones who take the time to level up their skills, their marketing strategy, their creativity are about to have the best season of their careers.
What do you think about this conversation? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
Until next time, I’m Alex – ciao for now!
