June 29, 2023

April 3, 2025

11 Ways To Use AI In Content Marketing Without Sacrificing Quality

CONTENTS

Hiba Amin

Hey ya'll! I'm Hiba and I live and breathe content. I've had the privilege of leading content teams, as well as been in the trenches as a marketing team of one at several tech companies. I also have a dog so hopefully that wins me some brownie points here.

Content marketing these days feels like being a one-person band — playing the drums with your feet, strumming guitar with your hands, and somehow still expected to hit those perfect high notes. Sound familiar? With deadlines looming, metrics to hit, and quality to maintain, it's no wonder we're all eyeing AI tools with equal parts hope and suspicion.

Let's be real — you've probably seen those doom-and-gloom LinkedIn posts declaring content marketers obsolete in the age of artificial intelligence.

The real question isn't whether you should use AI, but how to leverage it without losing that human touch your audience craves.

Generative AI inspires a lot of mixed feelings for content marketers. When you’re doom scrolling on LinkedIn, it sounds like our natural foe. But there’s also no denying the benefits of increased efficiency, especially with a shaky economy forcing everyone to do more with less.

The good news?

AI doesn’t have the technical capacity to replace you. It can, however, function like your trusty content assistant and boost your productivity. All it needs is the right prompts.

‍Meg's Take on AI's Role in Content Marketing highlights how to effectively use AI without losing the human touch in your content.

1. Using AI in content marketing the right way

Content marketers spend a lot of time on content creation.

The raw numbers behind content creation are staggering. Take a look at where your time actually goes — it's a wake-up call that explains why AI writing tools have become essential weapons in the modern marketer's arsenal.

B2B content marketers spend an average of 33 hours (around 82% of their work hours) on content production.
The average B2B blog post is 1,460 words and takes 4 hours and 38 minutes to write
The average B2C blog post is 1,300 words and takes just under 4 hours to write

This doesn’t even account for the additional time you’ve put in across your entire content creation process, including:

Brainstorming ideas
Conducting keyword research
Writing great content briefs and outlines
Editing content
Publishing content
And all of the repurposing that comes after you hit publish

Not to mention all of the time you’ve spent forming a deep, nuanced understanding of your audience—their pain points, what they’re trying to accomplish, what happens if they fail, their challenges, and a million other insights that ensure your content provides real value in a way that actually resonates.

That’s where a lot of people go wrong with AI.

The difference between good and great content isn't just words on a page — it's that secret sauce of audience insight that no dataset can fully capture.

Can it generate a marketing strategy or bang out a blog post in seconds? Yes. Will that post effectively prompt readers to take a particular action? Doubtful. At least not without you.

AI algorithms can process vast quantities of data, but still lack the capacity to understand a lot of context, nuance, and subtlety surrounding human language. Before you incorporate AI into your content workflow, it’s important to recognize this limitation.

So what's the sweet spot? Think of AI as your productivity multiplier rather than your replacement. It's not about handing over the content marketing strategy to ChatGPT — it's about strategic implementation.

While AI can’t understand your customers on a deeper level, it can enable you to create effective content by:

Automating repetitive tasks that eat into your high-value work time
Getting the ball rolling with different aspects of content production, so you don’t have to start from scratch every time

Pro tip: Stashing your go-to prompts in a single doc will help improve your process even further. It’s also handy to create a cheat sheet with brand guidelines, positioning documents, value proposition, and other information you’ll frequently reference when prompt writing. You can do this directly in Copy AI’s Infobase, which lets you create re-usable “blocks” of information and insert them directly in the chat tool. You can also use Brand Voice to upload content examples that represent your brand voice—which AI can then analyze and use as a reference when generating new outputs.

2. Using AI for content topic research

If you’ve ever spent hours fishing for the right stat, you’ll know that content topic research is usually far more intensive than a simple Google search. Asking your AI content assistant to generate a list of stats is low-hanging fruit—especially since you can tailor your prompts to request highly specific topics and scenarios.

Before including any stat in your content, make sure you check for:

Accuracy: AI can make mistakes, just like the rest of us. And just like you would with a human writer, check their sources.
Source usability: AI can scrape the entire Internet, including inactive or archived web pages that are no longer accessible.
Opportunities to expand: You may find additional research or supplementary stats that add more context to the original stat shared.

Pro tip: You can also expedite your fact checking and reduce obsolete information by asking for the date of every stat.

✍️ PROMPT: Compile a minimum of 10 recent and relevant statistics related to [topic], including the source and date of each statistic

👉 Use this prompt in Copy.ai

Pro tip: Keep track of the stats in a spreadsheet, including whether or not they’ve been fact checked or require modification. This will also be helpful for future research, since AI may repeat stats from previous outputs, depending on the topic. It will also expedite your content creation process with future pieces!

3. Using AI for case studies

Another aspect of content creation that takes forever? Collecting real-world examples and case studies to beef up your arguments or demonstrate authority on a particular topic.

Case studies bring your points to life — and AI can help draft them faster than ever.

This is especially true with B2B content. According to a recent study, 54% of decision makers spend more than one hour per week reading thought leadership content, but 71% say less than half of that content contains valuable insights. Subject authority is also important in SEO, both in terms of appeasing Google’s algorithm and encouraging backlinks from other sources.

Although AI can’t stand in for subject matter experts, it can generate case studies for you to reference.

Pro tip: Even if you’re only planning to sprinkle in a couple examples, prompt the AI to write a paragraph or an entire blog post surrounding each use case—the additional context will make it easier to determine which examples you’ll want to incorporate.

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4. Using AI for ideation and brainstorming

Sometimes the hardest part isn't the writing — it's figuring out what to write about in the first place. This is where AI can be your content planning wingman.

No bad ideas is basically considered Brainstorming 101—for good reason. Even the most outlandish or uninspired suggestion can inspire someone to think of a brilliant alternative. When it comes to content ideation and brainstorming, consider AI like a newbie on your team who may not understand the topic as much as you, but is still eager to participate.

✍️ PROMPT: Create a list of 10 potential topics for an eBook on generative AI in content marketing

👉 Use this prompt in Copy.ai

5. Using AI for content writing and editing

Can AI actually write good content? The answer is both yes and no. Think of it like having a talented but inexperienced intern. They can create impressive first drafts, but you'll want to add your magic touch before hitting publish.

There’s no denying the backlash against AI content writing—just look at the Hollywood writers strike and human-written content verification tools like ZeroGPT. However, there’s a big difference between flooding the Internet with lifeless, generic content, and thoughtfully incorporating AI in your content workflow to improve efficiency, so you can add your magic touch.

The key is achieving the right balance. A hybrid approach is always best—using generative AI where it makes sense and following best practices to get the most mileage possible, but not solely relying on it. There’s no shortage of ways to involve your AI assistant in the content writing and editing process:

Generating content outlines with AI

AI builds the bones of content—typically a content outline—but you’re the one who actually writes it. One advantage with this approach is that AI’s involvement is restricted to organizational tasks on the “backend”. No one will actually see the output but you.

This gives you the ability to flesh out the structure way faster than creating an outline from scratch, but you also don’t need to worry about combing through an AI-written blog post or landing page afterwards to make it sound more human.

✍️ PROMPT: Generate an outline for a blog post about caffeine consumption among content marketers, highlighting why coffee is important

👉 Use this prompt in Copy.ai

Generating the first draft with AI

Writer's block? It happens to the best of us. Sometimes you just need something — anything — on the page to get the creativity flowing. AI can create that initial draft, giving you clay to mold rather than having to make it from scratch.

An alternative method is prompting AI to generate an entire blog post or landing page, which you then whip into shape through edits, fact checks, and sectional rewrites. The biggest time saver here is bypassing the Blank Screen Syndrome. You’ll technically have a complete piece of content, but it will be a rough, primitive, and generic draft that sends readers running in the opposite direction if published as-is.

If you go this route, it’s important to keep an eye out for inconsistencies in tone, voice, and flow. Specifying tone in the prompt can certainly help cut down on your editing time, but if you rewrite one section and don’t touch another, the end result can be choppy and jarring.

You may find a sufficient edit actually takes longer than writing the entire thing yourself. But it could also drastically speed up your process—it all depends on how you work!

Building individual content components with AI

Stuck on a particular section? Maybe you've nailed the body but that introduction just won't cooperate. AI can help with those specific sticking points, allowing you to maintain momentum rather than getting bogged down.

There’s no rule that your trusty assistant has to create a completed asset. You can also prompt it to generate specific components, like:

Title
Introduction
Headings
Standalone paragraphs
Call-to-actions

This approach is especially useful if you get stuck or have one section that’s tripping you up.

Pro tip: Copy and paste the generated output directly in your working document (I.e. Google Docs) and “mark it” by italicizing or changing the text color. This way, you don’t have to stop in the middle of writing to fact check or edit the AI-written content, but still have a way of remembering to go back and refine it afterwards.

Generating landing pages with AI

Landing pages are content marketing's high-stakes poker game — and AI can help you stack the deck in your favor with optimization focused approaches.

It’s easy for content marketers to develop tunnel vision and disproportionately focus on blog posts, but it’s good to develop a process that incorporates other types of content too.

Gen AI can also be an incredible assistant when it comes to building landing pages. I mean, who hasn’t spent hours toiling over the perfect headline?

If you’re using Copy.ai, you can scale landing page production by combining effective prompts with reusable snippets of brand information (another great use case for Infobase!)

✍️ PROMPT: Create a list of 5 persuasive headlines for [Product], each of which should highlight the platform's benefit in a clear and concise manner. Follow these guidelines:

1. Use a friendly and professional tone that resonates with the target audience.

2. Keep the headlines within 20 words to ensure maximum impact.

3. Focus on the benefits that [Product] offers, such [Selling Point 1], [Selling Point 2], and [Selling Point 3].

4. Use power words and emotional triggers to make the headlines more compelling.

5. Use language that is easy to understand, avoiding jargon and technical terms.

Once you have created the list, select the most impactful headlines and refine them to ensure they accurately represent Copy.ai's value proposition and unique selling points.

👉 Use this prompt in Copy.ai

Editing your work with AI

Who doesn't want a second set of eyes on their work? But what if that second set could analyze your content against search engine requirements, readability metrics, and brand guidelines — all in real-time? That's the power of AI editing.

AI can’t fully comprehend human language like you can—but it's still surprisingly capable as a second set of eyeballs. That’s right. You can also use your AI content assistant to edit your own work. As Michael Scott from The Office would say, how the turntables.

We’re not just talking about spelling and grammar either. AI can review for tone, readability, SEO, even plagiarism. Some editing prompts to add to your list:

Analyze my content for readability and suggest improvements.
Suggest ways to simplify complex sentences in my content.
Suggest ways to improve the transition between paragraphs in my content.
Identify and suggest improvements for inconsistent tone and voice in my content.
Analyze my content for keyword density and suggest improvements.
Suggest ways to optimize my content for featured snippets."
Identify and suggest improvements for meta descriptions and title tags in my content.
Suggest ways to simplify technical jargon in my content.
Identify and suggest improvements for unclear or confusing statements in my content.
Identify and suggest improvements for content that may be flagged as plagiarized.

Just don’t forget to include the actual content in your prompt—and have a human edit afterwards.

Pro tip: If you ever get stuck writing prompts, ask your AI content assistant for ideas. Generative AI is capable of creating prompts for itself (see list above ☝️). You can also take advantage of Copy.ai’s Prompt Improve tool, which makes automated suggestions to help improve your prompts right there in the chat.

6. AI for Content Distribution and Promotion

Creating amazing content is only half the battle — if no one sees it, does it really exist? Distribution is where many marketing efforts fall flat, but AI can turn this potential weakness into a data-driven strength.

According to Mckinsey, 50% of work activities can be automated. For content marketers, distribution and promotion probably falls into this category more than anything else. If you’re promoting a piece of content that already exists, AI has more to work with—a more thorough input always yields better results.

Pro tip: Check out Prompt School to learn more about prompt writing best practices, and how much information to include.

Generating answers for Quora questions

Want to establish yourself as a thought leader but can't seem to find the time? Platforms like Quora offer fantastic opportunities to showcase your expertise, and AI can help you craft thoughtful responses at scale.

With over 300 million users, Quora is an incredible way to drive traffic to your website by showcasing your authority and expertise. Sifting through questions and answers, however, can definitely be a time consuming activity. Don’t just limit your AI assistant to crafting responses—you can also use it for research, brainstorming, and editing. A few more prompts to test:

Suggest answers to the most common questions related to [TOPIC]
Generate ideas for Quora topics relevant to [PRODUCT]
Analyze my Quora answer for readability and suggest improvements. [ANSWER]

Beyond The Basics: The Future of AI in Content Marketing

The competition between AI marketing tools like OpenAI, Jasper, and HubSpot is driving rapid innovation for content creators everywhere. As AI-powered solutions continue to evolve, we're seeing unprecedented integration across podcasts, webinars, and other content formats.

The best AI tools don't just help with content generation and content ideas—they're becoming essential for maintaining high-quality content that aligns with your broader content strategy while improving search engine optimization rankings.

The debate around AI-generated content continues, but forward-thinking marketers are finding the sweet spot: using AI content creation to handle repetitive tasks while preserving the human creativity that audiences crave.

From intelligent chatbots to sophisticated content analysis, the use of AI in marketing extends far beyond basic text generation. The key is creating relevant content that resonates with your audience, regardless of which marketing tools you employ.

As Copy.ai and other platforms continue developing more nuanced algorithms, the quality gap between human and AI-powered content narrows—but the most successful content strategies will always leverage the unique strengths of both.

Final Thoughts

So where does this leave us as content marketing continues to transform at breakneck speed? Is AI the enemy or your new best friend? The truth lies somewhere in between — and finding that balance is key to staying ahead of marketing trends while maintaining the authenticity your audience craves.

The future of AI in content marketing isn't about replacing human creativity — it's about enhancing it. When used strategically, AI tools become the wind beneath your creative wings, handling the repetitive tasks and providing templates that free you to focus on what truly matters: connecting with your audience in meaningful ways.

Copy.ai stands out as a powerful GTM AI Platform that transforms how marketing teams approach content creation. It streamlines your process at every stage of the funnel, letting you focus on strategic thinking instead of getting bogged down in execution.

With the right AI tools supporting your go-to-market efforts, you'll see improvements in both efficiency and quality across your entire content operation.

Ready to level up your content marketing game? Check out these resources:

Remember — AI isn't here to take your job. It's here to make you better at it. The marketers who thrive will be those who embrace these tools as partners rather than viewing them as threats. Now go forth and create something amazing — with a little help from your AI friend.

Generative AI won’t compromise the quality of your work. On the contrary—when used correctly, it will free up more time to focus on developing world class content, by taking those pesky, time consuming tasks off your plate. No matter what those ominous LinkedIn posts say, AI can’t do what you do. It can, however, equip you to work your magic more efficiently.