Dispelling the Five Biggest Myths About AI in Content Creation

While the industry and consumers have been won over by certain advantages of AI - from completing your search queries to recommending different products you might be interested in - many, particularly publishers, remain skeptical when it comes to AI-driven content creation. In fact, for publishing, AI is a tool that can be leveraged to push their content to the next level, while simultaneously saving valuable resources, time and money.

To dispel some of the most common misconceptions around how AI can and should be leveraged for content creation, Connatix worked with Adweek on the report, “AI in Creative Content Creation: Myth vs. Reality” and below are the five biggest takeaways:

Myth #1: AI will replace or eliminate content jobs
Reality: AI helps content creators do their jobs better

AI should be considered an extra hand, one you completely control to help with information or data gathering, production of text, audio or video, and distribution. For data or news gathering, AI can eliminate the grunt work of combing through massive amounts of data and flagging important patterns or events. AI can also help with more granular tasks like grammar and fact-checking, freeing people up to focus on the more creative side of the business. For the distribution of content, AI can help personalize marketing materials for various audiences, create different homepage experiences based on user preferences, and help with monetization and subscription signups.

Myth #2: AI is expensive and only feasible for large organizations
Reality: There are AI solutions that fit most budgets and are easy to implement

AI solutions exist for organizations of all sizes, and many functions can operate almost entirely independently. To determine what AI solution is right for you, you should first identify your costliest or most time-consuming areas - perhaps copyediting or outsourced video production. Then, make these cost reductions your focus when you go for executive buy-in. Come up with specific dollar or time amounts that could be saved by AI and ways those dollars could be reinvested in the organization.

Myth #3: AI will create unwinnable ethics conundrums
Reality: There will be ethics questions, but answering them makes AI stronger

AI systems are only as ethical as the humans behind them, so anyone involved should have a basic understanding of how the technology works, especially around data inputs. AI algorithms are only as good or unbiased as the data they ingest, so publishers must be vigilant about the data they are feeding in. Stay updated on academic and industry research from places like the Nieman Lab, the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and the Knight Foundation, as all are working to understand the complex challenges of AI use.

Myth #4: AI in video is all about deepfakes
Reality: AI is a time-saving, cost-cutting tool for any video production

Unless you have an evil genius in your midst, deepfakes shouldn’t impact your content operations. AI exists to make better videos faster and cheaper; for example, by categorizing content for advertisers, automating metadata tagging and maximizing revenue by contextualizing ad placements. Synthetic video, or video that is automatically produced or created with assistance from AI, is more of an outlier right now, but has huge potential to generate time and cost savings. For example, a local news anchor could leverage AI to create a handful of versions of a report in different languages, for different markets or with different focuses. While some of the underlying technology might be similar to deepfakes, the difference is in the intent, so start small, educate yourself and slowly scale up your strategy.

Myth #5: AI will lower the quality of content
Reality: AI will improve the quality of content

AI won’t leave your articles sounding algorithmic or let you make bad editorial decisions if you find the right technology to incorporate. The Financial Times deployed its “JanetBot” in 2017 to balance the ratio of images of men and women on its homepage. For Quartz, it helped when a whistleblower leaked 200,000 pages of documents and the team built a machine-learning model to sort through the pages to locate the most valuable information. On the video side, technology companies are creating products that dynamically update content and pull daily updates on professional sports teams or NYSE fluctuations, like the Connatix-produced videos in our Marketplace. By templatizing and automatically updating recurring content, publishers can save money on pricey production and free up time for long-form stories.

For more examples of how content creators can leverage AI across the publishing landscape, download our report with Adweek, “AI in Creative Content Creation: Myth vs. Reality.”