The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into countless industries has been nothing short of phenomenal. AI is transforming how millions of people work, unlocking new levels of productivity, creativity and performance. While OpenAI’s ChatGPT started this wave, it’s the many alternatives to ChatGPT that should have every content marketer’s attention.
AI, particularly generative AI (genAI) has quickly moved from futuristic dream to current-day reality. No less than Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has said, “The development of AI is as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone. It will change the way people work, learn, travel, get health care, and communicate with each other.”
Meanwhile, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has said, “I’ve always thought of AI as the most profound technology humanity is working on. More profound than fire or electricity or anything that we’ve done in the past.”
Content marketers, meanwhile, are enthusiastic early adopters. According to the AI Marketing Benchmark Report by Influencer Marketing Hub, 61.4% of marketers use AI in some way, with the marketing sector ranking third in adopting AI technology.
As AI continues to revolutionize marketing, a growing number of genAI tools like ChatGPT promise to augment human capabilities and streamline content creation workflows. Learn more about the pros and cons of ChatGPT and the best AI marketing tools out there.
What Is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT, a language model developed by the AI research laboratory OpenAI, stands at the forefront of genAI and has caused tidal waves in the content marketing world.
ChatGPT originated with OpenAI researchers who wanted to create a genAI model capable of understanding and generating human-like text. This machine learning model was initially trained on a massive body of text derived from the internet through September 2021. (More recently, OpenAI is enabling the ability to access real-time information for paying customers,)
ChatGPT launched publicly in November 2022 and has been used by hundreds of millions of people. It’s the catalyst for the flurry of AI tools, many of which build on its foundation. Many high-profile companies use or are developing genAI-related technologies, including OpenAI investor Microsoft, Expedia, Duolingo, Coca-Cola and Salesforce.
ChatGPT works on an AI architecture called GPT, or Generative Pretrained Transformer. The “pretrained” part means it’s already been trained on a vast dataset of internet text. The “transformer” part refers to the machine learning model, which is designed to understand language context.
Benefits of ChatGPT
ChatGPT built on this foundation, enhancing the scale and scope of text generation. Some of its notable features include:
- Semantic coherence: ChatGPT can maintain a coherent flow of ideas throughout generated text.
- Creativity: It can produce unique, creative writing that resonates well with human readers.
- Contextual understanding: It can grasp the context of language relatively well and generate relevant content accordingly.
These features are powerful advantages for content marketing, helping workers brainstorm ideas and draft, edit and format content. ChatGPT has proven its relevance through massive user adoption, investor backing and — importantly — its ability to generate high-quality, human-like text. Its auto-completion capabilities make long-form content easier, especially for time-consuming, repetitive tasks.
Downsides of ChatGPT
However, using ChatGPT for content marketing has some key downsides that limit its viability:
- ChatGPT can be a security and intellectual property risk for organizations that don’t want to put sensitive, confidential or proprietary information into the cloud — or are barred from doing so by contractual agreements or legal restrictions.
- ChatGPT can’t create novel ideas or perspectives on a topic. It can only rework and repurpose information it’s been trained on. The content it produces may be sensible and grammatically correct but lack originality, for example.
- ChatGPT occasionally generates inaccurate or irrelevant information. Anyone using its output for business purposes would be wise to include a layer of human review and fact-checking. ChatGPT is prone to making up information that reads like it’s accurate — a phenomenon known as “hallucination.”
- Since ChatGPT generates content by pattern-matching and recombining parts of its training data, there’s a risk of outputs containing plagiarized or unattributed passages. This flaw could open up legal risks for companies relying on AI-generated content marketing. This risk also extends to many AI-based image generators.
- ChatGPT lacks a nuanced understanding of specific brand tone and style, which is crucial for aligning with your content marketing style guide and brand guidelines.
- ChatGPT is designed to be a generalist AI, not an expert on any particular topic. While it can discuss a wide range of subjects, the content it generates tends to be generic information, without the depth of insight or subject matter expertise that quality marketing content requires.
- ChatGPT struggles with analyzing data or trends to produce data-rich, original content like reports.
- ChatGPT-4 and other OpenAI services have extra costs for advanced features.
These pros and cons underscore the necessity of exploring alternative AI tools, especially for content marketing teams that need AI writing tools that meet compliance standards.
7 Alternatives to ChatGPT for Content Marketers
There are countless offerings out there promising the ability to use AI for content creation. Here are some of the best alternatives to ChatGPT for content marketing, along with key features and pricing.
Keep in mind that all of these platforms are rapidly evolving, and new entrants are likely to emerge.
Copy.ai
Copy.ai is one of several AI content marketing tools I use frequently. The platform describes itself as “a model-agnostic design offering you higher levels of flexibility and adaptability with access to GPT-4, Anthropic, and Azure.” It can generate content tailored to specific prompts and brand voices.
Features
Copy.ai provides a streamlined dashboard with numerous prompt templates for different types of content creation, such as blog posts, social media, email, product descriptions and more.
Three elements of the platform worth highlighting are Brand Voice, Infobase and Workflow.
- Brand Voice lets you enter content that represents your brand, label it, and choose that as an option anytime you create content. You can have multiple brand voices, which works well for an agency.
- Infobase is a place where you can store information about your company that you can reference and use to improve content generation quality. Most developers train AI models on public data, by contrast. Think of Infobase as a knowledge base for your brand guidelines, value propositions and positioning documents. Create a hashtag to associate with the information, and use it in Chat and Workflows to pull in the data.
- Workflows let you automate routine tasks. For example, you can have a workflow that allows you to scrape and summarize webpage content. It looks like this:
- Describe the workflow you want to create: “Create a workflow that scrapes [URL] and summarizes the main points.”
- Edit the workflow by continuing to talk to it or by manually editing a step in the side panel.
- Test the workflow by clicking on the “Test” button.
- When you are satisfied with the results, publish the workflow to use the “Table” view as an “API” or “Form.”
Pricing
Copy.ai offers several plans, including a free version limited to 2,000 words per month. There’s also a “pro” plan for $36 per month with unlimited words, along with multiple enterprise plans.
Recommendations for Use in Content Marketing
Overall, Copy.ai is an ideal option for those looking for an AI-powered service geared toward creating high-quality marketing copy quickly. Its ability to create workflows without any extra effort streamlines content creation. The Brand Voice feature enables it to mirror a company’s unique tone and voice.
Its automated suggestion feature also makes it a good choice for those with less time or fewer resources for topic and keyword research. They can still get data-driven insights related specifically to their target audiences.
Jasper
Jasper, previously known as Jarvis, is an AI copywriting tool that makes content generation quick and efficient. According to the AI Marketing Benchmark Report, it is the most popular AI marketing platform in use today.
Features
- Offers a variety of writing modes and tones, including brand voice.
- Has multiple-language capability.
- Keeps your private data from being trained on AI models.
- Includes a built-in plagiarism checker.
- Optimizes content for SEO.
- Enables aligned, integrated marketing campaigns.
- Integrates with tools like WordPress, Google Docs and Slack.
Limitations
Despite its multilingual feature, the tool may not adequately capture cultural nuances and context in its generated text. Also, Jasper’s outputs might require editing and proofreading, and it can be more expensive than similar tools.
Pricing
Jasper has multiple paid plans: $39 per month (paid annually) for Creator, $99 per month for Teams (three seats, paid annually) and an unlimited enterprise plan with custom pricing. It also offers a seven-day free trial.
Recommendation for Use in Content Marketing
For content marketing purposes specifically, I recommend using Jasper if you are looking for a comprehensive solution that provides automation across all aspects of your content creation process — from idea generation through publication. Jasper is especially helpful if you need features like multi-lanaguage capabilities.
Writer
Writer is an AI-powered content creation platform that helps marketers and businesses create high-quality content faster and more efficiently. It’s designed to simplify the entire content creation process, from automated topic suggestions to copywriting assistance, editing tools and integration with third-party services.
Features
Writer offers several features tailored to content marketing, such as a distinct family of large language models (LLMs), natural language processing (NLP) and copywriting assistance tools.
The “Ask Writer” feature, combined with prompt templates, allows users to make nearly any type of content creation request. Writer’s Snippets feature allows your brand to save core messaging or content templates for easy reference across the team.
It has a full array of editing tools for polishing drafts before publishing. It has a thorough brand style guide and plagiarism detection. Additionally, it integrates seamlessly with external services such as Google Docs, Salesforce and Dropbox for an effortless workflow.
Writer distinguishes itself from most competitors in that it is SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliant, which indicates the company emphasizes ethical guidelines and the needs of heavily regulated industries.
Limitations
Writer relies heavily on templates, although the “Ask Writer” tool is increasingly open-ended. Many features, such as customized templates, are only available for enterprise customers. Writer doesn’t offer pricing for individuals, as it’s positioned for larger teams and enterprises.
Pricing
Writer offers two pricing tiers: Teams of up to five users at $18 per user per month, and an enterprise plan with custom pricing. Both offer a 14-day free trial.
Recommendations for Use in Content Marketing
Due to its extensive feature list, I recommend Writer to brands with marketing teams looking for a comprehensive solution to automate the entire content creation process quickly and efficiently. However, it’s less well-suited to individual users who need extra customizability options to target audience-specific needs. (Editor’s note: Rep Cap, the publisher of Managing Editor, uses Writer.)
Claude
Like the other powerful AI content marketing tools on this list, Claude helps content creators and businesses generate content quickly and efficiently. It uses NLP technology to generate ideas, write copy and optimize content for SEO.
Features
Claude offers automated sentiment analysis, topic clustering, copywriting assistance tools and some editing capabilities. It integrates with external services, such as Salesforce and Dropbox. It can also read various document formats, such as Word docs and PDFs.
Claude’s interface is exceptionally streamlined. I find it one of the easiest to use. While not brand-specific, in my opinion, its output is often of a higher quality than ChatGPT. I find myself trending toward it more often for that reason.
Limitations
Claude may not be suitable for those looking for more customizability options than the platform offers. Additionally, it can’t see the internet, which means entering URLs will do you no good.
Pricing
Claude’s base offering is free to use. Claude Pro is a paid version that costs $20 per month in the U.S. and £18 monthly in the U.K. Claude Pro offers enhanced features and usage limits for the latest model, Claude 2.
Recommendations for Use in Content Marketing
I recommend Claude as a “utility player.” If you’re using ChatGPT or another AI, it doesn’t hurt to prompt Claude, too, so long as you understand its inability to see the web.
A few other AI tools worth mentioning include:
Writesonic
Writesonic is an AI content creation platform that offers a suite of tools for various content types, including ad copy, landing pages, articles and images. Other products include the ChatGPT-like Chatsonic. This tool builds upon ChatGPT-3.5 and GPT-4 but adds layers to improve the prompting experience.
Features
It supports a wide variety of content types, offers a free trial for testing and is available in multiple languages.
Limitations
The generated content often requires human editing, and the user interface could stand some improvement. Templates are limited.
Pricing
Writesonic offers several plans, including a free plan with a monthly limit of 10,000 words. The “freelancer” plan is $16 per month (paid annually) but only provides the use of ChatGPT-3.5. There’s also a business plan starting at $13 per month (paid annually) for one user. This plan scales to 15 users. Enterprise plans start at $1,000 per month.
Google Bard
Google Bard is an LLM from Google AI that you can use for a variety of tasks, including marketing. In some instances, I have found the responses it produces preferable to ChatGPT.
You can use Bard to write copy for various marketing materials, such as website pages, blog posts, social media posts and email campaigns. Because it is a Google product, you’d think search capability is a native feature. However, I have found that not to be the case in certain instances. In my experience, it didn’t provide the source URLs to accompany responses.
Bard is free to use.
Microsoft Copilot
According to Microsoft, Copilot is an AI writing assistant that helps users “visualize data, generate content, code programs and more.” It makes suggestions as you type based on its training on billions of public documents.
Copilot integrates directly into Microsoft programs like Word, Outlook and PowerPoint to help boost productivity. It excels at assisting with writing emails, reports, presentations and documentation.
For marketers, Copilot helps with:
- Drafting emails and other communications
- Data analysis and visualization
- Document creation
- Summarizing text
As a built-in tool in Microsoft 365, Copilot provides another intriguing option for AI writing assistance across diverse applications. Copilot doesn’t have a free plan; commercial customers must pay $30 per user per month.
Explore Alternatives to ChatGPT for Content Creation
AI in content marketing is the reality, and we need to learn how to use it effectively, efficiently and safely. Exploring different AI tools will expand your knowledge, fill your toolbox and supplement your brand’s unique content strategy and in-house knowledge. The alternatives listed here represent only a handful of the many genAI writing and editing tools available today.
ChatGPT, Copy.ai, Jasper, Writer, Claude and other alternatives to ChatGPT offer diverse functionalities, but each is suited to slightly different needs. Choose an AI tool that aligns best with your marketing strategy, and don’t feel you have to rely on a single solution.
As these AI tools for content marketing evolve, marketers will need to stay nimble, receptive to innovation and always willing to explore AI’s creative and assistive possibilities.
Want to see how we’re using AI on this website? Ask our chatbot about content marketing!
