“Will ChatGPT take your job?” A copywriter’s response

“Aren’t you worried ChatGPT is going to take your job?”

That’s the question I’ve been asked an awful lot recently, and honestly? I’m not too worried. Let me tell you why.

I say this kindly, ChatGPT is all smokes and mirrors right now. For those who aren’t natural wordsmiths, it’s easy to get swept up in the hype.

I mean, who wouldn’t be impressed with this shiny new toy? Free content for next-to-no effort? For small business owners especially, I can completely see the appeal, and I’m not denying that it’s a brilliant tool when used right.

But here’s where, in my eyes, it gets tricky.

Let me paint a picture. I was recently trying to make a very important purchase — a bouncy castle for our wedding (yes, very serious stuff). What should have been simple, turned into an absolute saga. Site after site looked pretty much the same. I’m talking identical layouts, copycat branding, duplicated content, generic Americanised copy, and poetic language that made no real sense.

I could spot the AI-written copy from a mile off. It all felt incredibly robotic and impersonal. I found myself genuinely perplexed by the info that sat in front of me. I couldn’t figure out who was legit, how the hire process worked, or if any of them would actually turn up on the day. I mean, £275 for a bouncy castle isn’t exactly a small amount of money to part with.

I’m not kidding, we ended up spending around three weeks Googling and asking around trying to track a trusted company down. In the end, we chose the only bouncy castle supplier with clear, straightforward copy and a website that looked real. And do you know what? That clarity is what converted us into a sale. The others might’ve been decent and trustworthy for all we knew, but their websites didn’t reflect that at all.

So, here’s my honest opinion: ChatGPT is a powerful tool, but it’s not a magic wand. When used without a proper strategy or human input, it can damage trust — especially when every site winds up sounding the same. The SEO issues, the duplicate content, the confusing user experience... it all contributes to creating an untrustworthy site.

As a freelance copywriter (and I’m sure other copywriters will attest), I see ChatGPT as an excellent editing resource. It saves a lot of time, and it helps me to perfect my work. But I do worry that the internet is now overflowing with content that doesn’t make much sense, and we’ve ended up in a bit of a catch-22.

Yes, ChatGPT will get smarter. But the people feeding it the right prompts, structuring the messaging, and injecting the human voice? That’s where the real value lies. Copywriters know how to get the best out of these tools, and more importantly, we know how to connect with other humans.