AI Content Creation: Types, Tools, and Benefits [2024]

Let’s get this out of the way: AI isn’t going to replace content creators.

It’s a valid fear, and a major point of contention. Debates around AI and content creation are often polarized. 

In one corner, content writers say that AI tools siphon originality from the content creation process. In the other, content marketers and content managers claim that AI garners real results while down on time spent on content creation. 

Both have valid points. And as with any tool, success depends on how and when you use AI in your content creation process. 

We believe that pairing AI and human creativity makes it faster and easier than ever to create content at scale. So we looked into real-life examples and tools to see how experts are using AI in content creation. 

What Will Happen to Marketing in the Age of AI? | Jessica Apotheker | TED

Recently we discussed the benefits of using AI to streamline the content creation process in our previous article on using AI in content marketing. 

But what does the day-to-day process look like? In this blog post, we’ll show walk through:

• Different types of AI content, plus how and when to use them,
• How content creators are using AI in their day-to-day work,
• AI content creation tools for saving time, improving content quality, and increasing efficiency. 

TL;DR: AI in content creation

• ‌AI can offer different viewpoints on a subject, analyze data rapidly, and identify the latest trends in specific fields.
• AI-assisted content involves human creativity and insights alongside AI tools. AI and human creativity combined make content creation faster and easier. 
• AI-generated content is content created by AI models without any human involvement.
• While AI has its benefits in content creation, it lacks a human touch, emotional depth, and creativity.
• We list our picks for the to AI tools for text, visuals, audio, and video content creation.
•  When using AI for content creation, give your content originality and personality to make it stand out.

What is AI content creation?

Simply put, AI is a tool that makes content creation more efficient. 

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 72% of B2B marketers use generative AI tools. About 51% of marketers use AI to brainstorm new topics, while 45% use the tools to research headlines and keywords and write drafts. 

Here are the unique advantages that AI brings to the conversation:

• Diverse perspectives: AI content creation tools have machine learning algorithms that provide various perspectives on a topic. In practice, leveraging AI shortens the pre-production process (which typically involves heavy research) and allows content creators to focus on producing the content.
• Data analysis: AI shines when handling data. It can analyze large volumes of data, draw relevant insights, and translate them into actionable content strategies. From a business POV, AI identifies the latest trends in customer preferences and behavior, tracks business performances, and improves content quality. 
• Trendspotting: AI tools can identify trending topics in your niche, ensuring your content is always relevant. This technology allows businesses ‌improve search engine rankings by suggesting phrases or relevant keywords for their target audience. 

How does AI content creation work?

There are two ways you can use AI for content creation:

• With AI-assisted content, artificial intelligence helps you to create content–but the human is in the driver’s seat, so to speak.
• AI-generated content is created by artificial intelligence without any humans involved.

Both approaches offer unique advantages in the content creation process. Let’s break these down a bit more.

AI-assisted content

With AI content production, you use AI tools or models to assist you with content creation. 

As a content creator, you’re still responsible for finishing the content–for example, fact-checking, error-checking, and removing those dreaded AI buzzwords. 

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In this model, AI is just one tool in your toolbox––it automates tasks like data analysis and can offer insights such as content ideas, keyword suggestions, and trends.

After gathering the necessary information, content creators edit, refine, and customize the content to meet the interests and needs of their target audience—or, in our words, to add the all-important human touch.

Here at Wordbrew, we’ve pioneered an AI approach which we’ve called the hybrid content creation method.

When you connect your brand data to the platform, you can use Wordbrew’s ready-to-use templates to speed up the creation of briefs and outlines, transforming them into content drafts. All drafts then go through a series of thorough quality assurance checks with subject matter experts for brand guidelines, voice, and accuracy.

And there you have it––a piece of content crafted with the hybrid method!

Read more: Learn the art of storytelling that sells

AI-generated content

AI-generated content, on the other hand, is just that: content generated by an AI model. Think autopilot.

AI algorithms use machine learning techniques to create content based on specific guidelines or input data. This process could include creating article drafts, social media posts, or even generating responses in a chatbot scenario. 

While this allows for high-volume, quick content creation, it comes at the cost of nuance, depth, and creativity a human touch provides.

For example, here’s what ChatGPT had to say about AI-generated content:

AI-generated content refers to text, images, audio, or video created by artificial intelligence algorithms. These algorithms, often based on machine learning models, can produce content that mimics human creativity and expression.

It’s a bit dry, don’t you think?

While AI-generated content is a great way to start, you likely won’t see positive results in the long term. In fact, it could even penalize you. 

While Google isn’t actively attacking AI-generated content, its standards only award high-quality, useful articles. Google defines useful through the acronym E-E-A-T, meaning:

• Experience: Actual experience with the product or process.
• Expertise: Thorough understanding of the topic, either by author credentials or research. 
• Authoritativeness: Data-backed insights that make the article thorough and accurate.
• Trustworthiness: A transparent, objective approach to the content. 

How to streamline your content creation with AI

Wondering how you can incorporate AI into your content strategy? 

Here are six ways to use AI for content creation in your day-to-day:

1. Research

Research forms the backbone of any piece of content—and it’s often the most time-consuming process. 

Thankfully, screening past data is where AI shines. With proper prompts, AI models can scan through large volumes of data and return relevant information. AI helps you cut the lengthy research process and proceed to the next content creation stage.

2. Busting writer’s block

A blank page can be daunting when your creative spark is missing. AI can sift through large volumes of data, offering trends, content ideas, outlines, and even prompts that may spark that creativity and overcome the dreaded writer’s block. 

3. Drafting assistant

Writing first drafts can also be time-consuming, involving a lengthy research process and organizing your thoughts. AI-powered tools can do this in seconds. 

Pro tip: With a hybrid content creation process, the initial content generated by AI tools does not have to be perfect. Writers and marketers can always add additional text prompts and parameters until they get the content they’re looking for. They thoroughly rework each piece for style, tone of voice, and originality, so your content will always be on brand.

4. Content repurposing and automation 

Generative AI is great for helping you repurpose existing content for different channels or social media. With proper implementation, repurposing content is a key part of your content marketing strategy for driving traffic into your sales funnel. In fact, according to a recent report from Semrush, 68% of businesses using AI report a higher ROI on their content marketing and SEO.

As a bonus, AI models make it easy to automate tasks and cut down on manual work, so you can engage with your audience quickly and have more time to concentrate on other important tasks.

5. Personalization

Personalization with AI involves machine learning algorithms to understand individual preferences and behaviors. There’s a long list of complicated technical theories, but it boils down to the following:

• Data collection.
• Data analysis.
• User profiling.
• Content recommendations.
• Dynamic content generation.
• A/B testing and optimization. 

The Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques embedded within AI tools help the model understand the content. This results in personalized responses, recommendations, and dynamic content based on user queries and feedback. 

6. SEO and keyword research

In the pre-production phase, AI tools can analyze competitors’ content strategies, identify search trends, and understand user behavior and intent. Then, in the post-production phase (when we’re editing and refining), AI tools can use the data we’ve collected to recommend high-traffic keywords, long-tail keywords, and keyword variations to improve content authority. 

AI content creation tools that will make your job easier

AI content creation tools are a powerful way to save time and create high-quality content. Here’s our quick rundown of AI content creation tools and what they can help you accomplish.

AI content creation tools

ChatGPT is a widely used, free AI tool that creates human-like text content and conversations based on user prompts. 

AI-powered content creation tools like Copy.ai and Jasper.ai are becoming increasingly popular with digital marketers and content creators. These platforms provide a key features to make the content creation process easier.

Wordbrew’s hybrid content creation platform uses AI to analyze your brand data and create a first draft that aligns with your brand guidelines. 

Then, our subject matter experts carefully evaluate it, make any necessary adjustments, and improve the piece. Wordbrew’s network of over 300 seasoned subject matter experts also personalize your content, adding relevant insights for your industry and audience.

AI tools like Grammarly and Wordtune identify grammar errors, provide real-time editing suggestions, and offer improved copywriting tips for writing assistance.

AI image generators

DALL-E uses image generation to create original images from the user’s written prompts, which you can use for blog posts, social media graphics, and more.

By entering detailed text prompts, Midjourney’s image generation tool can help users create high-quality images for social media graphics, logo concepts, project visualizations, and more.

AI-powered platforms Beautiful.ai and Canva can help you create presentations, custom images, and graphics with customizable designs.

AI video content creation

Synthesia generates videos from text using AI-generated human avatars. You can create professional-quality videos with narration and customizable AI avatars within minutes—great for making quick help video content or how-to tutorials at scale.

Murf uses AI to generate human-like voices for voiceovers, voice-enabled applications, podcasts, and more.

Descript and Opus Clip are popular AI video editing tools. Descript focuses on video script generation and video editing, streamlining content creation efforts. Opus Clip extracts short clips from long-form videos, generating short clips tailored for social media and YouTube videos.

AI social media content creation

AI tools like Lately repurpose content for social media–give it your long-form copy, text, audio or video, and the AI will create multiple social media posts. 

Social media platforms like Sprinklr, Sprout Social and Hootsuite make it easy to create social media content using AI. These AI social media tools offer key features for scheduling posts, creating graphics, seeing what’s trending, and getting ideas for new content. 

They even help social media marketers stay on top of your posting schedule, find the best times to post, and automate customer inquiries.

What to look for in content creation tools

Here are a few factors to consider when evaluating AI tools:

• Content type: What kind of content do you need to create? Look for tools that specialize in the areas you need:
  • Text formats (blog posts, articles, social media posts).
  • Visuals (graphics, images, video editing, video production).
  • Audio (voiceovers).
• Content quality: Do you need basic content to get started, or highly polished and creative content?
• Workflow integration: Does the tool integrate with your existing content management system (CMS) or other workflow tools?
• Budget: AI content creation tools can range from free trials to premium subscriptions.

When evaluating key features, be sure to keep these in mind:

• Ease of use: Is the interface user-friendly and intuitive? Can you get started quickly without extensive training?
• Content quality and originality: Can the tool create content that is accurate, original, and interesting for your specific audience?
• Content control: How much control do you have over the content generation process? Can you set the tone of voice, style, and keywords for the AI to follow?
• Supported languages: Do you need to generate content in multiple languages?
• Customer service: If you run into problems, does the tool offer good customer service?
• Free trials: Some AI-powered tools offer free 30-day trials, letting you test them out before committing.
• Security and privacy: How does the tool handle your data? Are there strong security measures in place to protect your information?

Online reviews and comparisons can also help you compare features, pricing, and user feedback.

Are there challenges in using AI for content creation?

Despite AI’s progress, it still has a long way to go to match humans’ nuanced thinking and adaptability. This is where human subject matter experts shine, bringing their unique personalities and brand voices to the table. 

Your brand voice is what gives your business its unique personality, tone, and style that connects with your audience. Content marketers want to infuse your brand voice with originality to make it genuinely resonate.

AI has difficulty developing original and creative ideas, so adding a human touch can strike a great balance between efficiency and creativity. This balance is the key to the hybrid model: keeping your brand’s unique voice while maintaining process efficiency.

The future is AI-powered content creation

By combining AI with the expertise of content professionals, we can create a content strategy that drives engagement and conversions like never before. 

Engaging content carefully balances using AI and tapping into human skills, giving your brand a stronger, more unique voice and building better relationships with your audience.

The end result? Content that’s more than just plain information—it’s a powerful tool for growing your brand and building customer loyalty.

Ready to see how AI content creation can benefit your business? By combining AI with expert human insights, Wordbrew saves clients up to 70% on content creation time. Let’s talk!