You Are Wasting Your Time Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Create Content

Introduction

AI tools for writing are getting hype these days. Many marketers assume that AI can generate blog posts, articles or website content in just a few minutes.

However, you are wasting your time if you think you can let AI handle your entire content creation process and still achieve SEO and traffic success.

We conducted tests, compared results and analyzed real-world data. Generally, AI-generated content lacks originality, depth and the human touch necessary to engage readers. Content marketing requires creative thinking and strategic thinking in order to be successful. AI can be used to generate ideas or drafts, but it cannot replace creative thinking or strategic planning.

AI vs. Human Content Creation:

Drafting, formatting and publishing an article with AI tools takes 16 minutes. Humans take around 69 minutes for the same process.

This initially appeared to be a success for artificial intelligence. In spite of this, speed must not be the only factor to consider.

Here’s the deal:

Artificial intelligence content is just a repackaging of what’s already online. People don’t find new opinions, fresh thoughts, or any unique knowledge from it that’s useful.

In terms of SEO performance, there was a clear difference. According to an internal study, human-written articles performed better in search rankings 94% of the time than those generated by artificial intelligence.

The Hidden Problems of AI-Generated Content

Most people are unaware that artificial intelligence does not generate original content. Information is gathered from the web and repackaged. The information is recycled from existing sources.

Can you guess what? Originality is highly valued by readers (and by search engines). We want to provide our audience with a new perspective, first-hand experience, and unique insight.

Human-written content also performed better in search results 94% of the time as compared to the content generated by artificial intelligence. The use of artificial intelligence may save you time, but it costs you valuable traffic and visibility.

Real Experiment: AI vs. Human Traffic Over Time

The results of the experiment were tested further on 65 different websites. We published 600 articles across these sites, a mixture of human-written and artificially generated content. Each article focused on keywords with similar difficulty levels and had a similar word count.

Here are the results.

After five months,

• AI-written posts average 52 organic visitors per month.
• Human-written posts average 283 organic visitors per month.

It is not a small difference. The traffic gap is five times greater.

Why Not Just Publish More AI Content?

How can you compensate for the reduced performance of AI content if it takes less time? Couldn’t you publish five or ten times more content to make up for it?

Low-quality, AI-generated content can negatively affect your search engine rankings. The domain authority of a website can be negatively affected by thin or generic content. When we trimmed and removed weak articles from our own content library, we observed an increase of 11 to 12 percent in traffic.

Your long-term SEO will not benefit from quantity without quality.

AI’s Real Value in Content Creation

AI cannot replace human writers fully, but when used strategically, it can enhance your content process.

Here’s how smart marketers leverage AI:

Idea Generation

Use AI to brainstorm topics, headlines or content outlines based on trending queries or competitor gaps.

Content Drafting

AI can help jumpstart writing by generating rough drafts or summaries, especially for data-heavy reports or FAQs.

Editing and Optimization

Tools like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor assist with grammar, readability, and tone adjustments.

SEO Research

AI-powered tools analyze search intent, suggest related keywords, and identify content gaps.

Repurposing Content

Turn long-form articles into social media posts, newsletters, or bullet-point summaries using AI summarization tools.

Using AI in this way makes it a productivity enhancer rather than a replacement.

The Smart Way to Use AI for Content

What does this mean for AI? Not at all. The problem is when you rely on it to write everything for you. Here’s how to use it:

Use AI for:

• Keyword research
• Topic discovery
• Outlining and structuring articles
• Quick data or stats lookups
• Generating content drafts (as a starting point only)

Don’t use AI for:

• Final article written without human editing
• Creating thought leadership content
• Publishing unedited AI copy

If you want to incorporate AI-generated content, here’s a simple framework:

1. Created a keyword plan by researching manually.
2. Make use of artificial intelligence to create a basic framework for content sections.
3. Add your own unique insights, data, and experiences to improve the content.
4. Edit to ensure tone, clarity, and details are correct.
5. Apply the E-E-A-T principles to each piece you work on.
6. Follow the top SEO practices to optimize content.
7. Publish content after thorough human review.

Remember: Editing matters more than AI-generated drafts.

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence cannot replace human creativity, judgment or expertise. It works well as a helpful tool, but it should never act as the main creator of content. Artificial intelligence might save you time at first. However, later it may prove to be detrimental by reducing website traffic, reducing engagement and obscuring your brand’s online presence.

Utilizing artificial intelligence in an effective manner will help you to develop meaningful, traffic-driving content.

Avoid publishing raw, uneditable AI content. Be intentional about it, revise and prioritize originality every time.