What’s your personal position on AI as a copywriter?
A few weeks ago, two lawyers filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Buried inside that brief were cases that didn’t exist.
Not misquoted cases. Not outdated cases. Cases that were completely fictitious.
Fabricated citations and false statements were presented to a federal judge with total confidence.
Any guesses on how this happened?
I’ll take AI hallucinations for 1000, Alex.
As you might guess, the federal court wasn’t impressed.
Both lawyers were fined $2,500 each. They were suspended from practicing at the appeals court for six months, and ordered to disclose AI use in every single filing for the next two years.
These lawyers weren’t interns or students or new to the field. These were licensed, seasoned attorneys. Professionals whose entire careers are built on the accuracy of their words. And even they fell into the trap of trusting a generative large language model more than their own judgment.
I’ve been thinking about this story (and many others like it) lately. Not only because what those lawyers did was wrong.
But because of what it reveals a very slippery slope that we are all at risk of falling down if we’re not careful.
I recently received a comment on one of my LinkedIn posts that made me realize I guess I haven’t been clear enough about where I stand when it comes to AI use.
Someone wrote this:
“It’s hard to keep up with your flip-flopping on AI. Sometimes you criticize it, and other times you promote it for copywriting.”
And, if you’re new around here or haven’t read much of my AI content, I totally get it.
You’ve heard me say things like…
- “AI can’t replace copywriters.”
- “AI-generated content sucks.”
- “AI is making marketers lazy.”
And then you see me release a free AI prompts guide.
You see me create an AI mini-course.
You see me promoting AI prompts & integrations inside some of my programs.
So which is it?! Am I anti-AI? Or am I pro-AI?
Have I changed my mind?
Today, I want to address that once and for all, in case there was any confusion and then I’m going to share with you the 3 things I will never use AI for.
My Position On AI
My position on AI has never changed. Not even a little bit.
I posted my first video on AI back on June 24, 2020 (6 freaking years ago and 2 whole years before ChatGPT launched to the public). And I still stand by what I said in that video wholeheartedly today.
AI is a tool, not a takeover and will never fully replace copywriters.
And, my opinion has not changed.
And let me be clear… I wish AI didn’t exist. Seriously. I wish it didn’t exist. I wish I could put the genie back in the bottle and we could all just go back to using our freaking brains to solve problems.
Tell me I’m not the only one!?!
But the fact is: the genie cannot be put back in the bottle. AI is here. We are never going back to a reality where it doesn’t exist.
According to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, 75% of knowledge workers are already using AI at work.
That’s three out of every four people. And that report is from 2024, so you can be certain that number is much higher now.
And yes, like you, I have very complicated emotions about it all.
Yup, I hate it, I criticize it for all the wrong ways it’s been used.
And I also see powerful use cases for it – both globally and day-to-day within your own business.
Like most complicated conversations, it’s nuanced and requires critical thinking to discern the right way to use it.
But unfortunately, most humans have the natural tendency to want to categorize people, ideas, and experiences into 2 distinct categories: Right or wrong, good or bad, success or failure, pro or anti, us or them.
The False Binary Problem
This sort of categorical thinking isn’t always bad. It’s how our brains process information efficiently. And, the problem arises when these categories become rigid or oversimplified.
Like in the case of being “pro AI” or “anti-AI”.
Pro-AI: Use AI for everything. Let it write. Let it think. And let it create. Let it make decisions for you.
Anti-AI. Reject AI entirely. Pretend it doesn’t exist. Never use it.
Now, of course, the reality for most is usually somewhere in the grey And it’s our responsibility as writers, creatives, and business owners to discern where we fall on that spectrum.
And create our own guidelines for how we will and will not use it. And communicate that with our customers clearly. Especially as we wait for legislation to catch up.
How I Use AI
I treat AI like a really fast, but kinda stupid assistant.
And, I don’t trust anything it says, but I use it to speed up internal back-end processes. It’s really good at spotting gaps or recognizing patterns. I mean, that’s what it does.
So, personally, I use it for things like…
- Drafting internal documents like SOPs, meeting summaries, and project briefs
- Outlining content, presentations or frameworks
- Brainstorming hooks, angles, story ideas or “copy concepts”
- Research (with heavy fact-checking)
- Repurposing content without changing my words (for example, repurposing this YouTube script into a blog post)
- Analyzing data
- Automate workflows and marketing admin (like setting up split tests)
- Search and source from internal knowledge bases
Notice what was NOT on that list?
- Write me a sales page
- Write me an email
- Write me a YouTube script
- Respond to my customer
- Create an image of me
- Make me a video
- Clone my voice
We have a clear AI policy at the Copy Posse. And it’s actually gotten more strict over time – not less.
My hard line in the sand is this. We will never use AI to create content, write copy, or communicate with our customers.
I call these the 3 Touchpoints of Trust because, if you think about it.
These are the only 3 ways to build trust with your audience.
Trust Touchpoint #1: Content
This is anything we publish online. From social media captions, to the scripts for YouTube videos like this, landing page copy, sales page copy, website copy, our courses and curriculum. And, anything we publish under our name was created and written by a human.
That doesn’t mean we don’t utilize AI to help brainstorm content.
It just means that the actual writing and prodution of our content is done by a human. Period.
And we will never use AI to create images, audio or video of me to try to convince my audience that it is me.
Because we believe that relying on AI to do your creative work or communicate with you is one of the fastest ways to become average. And average is a very dangerous place to be right now.
Trust Touchpoint #2: Communication
This is anything that we send to our audience.
And think of things like emails and Instagram DMs. Notice the distinction here – we might use a tool to automate — the sending of a message. Utilizing tools like Manychat on social media or setting up automation for an email to be sent at a specific time.
But once again, the words are always written by a human.
Trust Touchpoint #3: Customer Service
And, this includes any 1:1 DMs or email communications with our customers. When a student emails customer support, a real Copy Posse customer support person writes back to them.
And anywhere we do utilize AI within these touchpoints of trust, say to deliver faster support or resources to our audience, we are 100% transparent about it so they always know when they’re talking to a human vs AI.
For example, in my Launch Pad program, we created an AI assistant trained on all of my Launch Pad concepts and frameworks.
If my students have a quick question or need something quickly, they can ask the assistant and get an answer in 5 seconds, rather than waiting for a response from my team. But of course, emailing my team is always an option!
Plus, it’s transparent, it’s fast, it’s helpful
That’s how I use AI, and I know my AI policy is stricter than most.
But here’s the way I see it.
Trust is the one thing AI cannot manufacture. And if these are the only 3 ways to build trust with your audience, it’s a slippery slope to start replacing these touchpoints with AI.
Once you do that, what’s left?
Instead, use AI to streamline your backend systems, the processes that never interact with your audience “front of house”. And for the love of God, fact-check absolutely everything because AI is 100% lying to you.
And that brings me back to those two lawyers. Because I don’t think their mistake was using AI. Their mistake was stopping there and blindly trusting a machine. They let the tool do the thinking. They trusted the output without verifying it They submitted it to a federal court without applying their own critical thinking or judgment.
According to Microsoft’s latest AI research, as AI gets better at processing information and completing tasks. And, human value shifts toward something else entirely. Decision making, evaluation, creative thinking, and leadership.
In other words, the future doesn’t belong to the person with the best AI prompts.
So, the future belongs to the person with the best judgment. Or the person who knows which idea to pursue and which ideas to ignore. Which suggestions to implement, which risk to take, which direction to go In a world where everyone has access to the same AI tools, discernment becomes the ultimate differentiator.
So no, I’m not completely anti-AI. And no, I’m not completely pro-AI either. I’m not “flip-flopping” on my stance. I’m pro human. Also, I’m pro-creativity, I’m pro-critical thinking, And I’m pro-good judgment.
Until then. I’m Alex – Ciao for now.
