the uncomfortable truth
AI is already making copywriters obsolete
AI isn't coming for copywriters' jobs in some hypothetical future. The question isn't whether this change will happen, but what you'll do now that it has.
Last Tuesday, a potential client asked me a question that left me momentarily speechless. “Why should I pay you £500 for content when I can get ChatGPT to write it for £20?”
It was a fair question. And one that content professionals everywhere are grappling with as AI tools transform our industry at breakneck speed.
The truth is, we’re experiencing an AI content paradox: clients simultaneously expect miracles from AI whilst dismissing AI-assisted work as requiring minimal skill. Neither assumption reflects reality, but both reshape how we work, charge and ultimately, how we value ourselves as professionals.
The expectation gap widens
When I started in content design, presenting wireframes and prototypes to clients taught me a valuable lesson about managing expectations. Show a polished-looking mockup using the GDS prototype toolkit too early, and clients panic, thinking you’ve built an entire service when you’ve barely started discovery.
With AI content, we face the opposite problem. Clients assume what took hours of skilled crafting was produced with a single prompt and minimal expertise. This creates a dangerous gap between perceived and actual value widening daily.
One government client recently asked why their internal team couldn’t simply “ChatGPT the entire content strategy.” When I explained that prompt engineering is a developing skill requiring a deep understanding of content principles, user needs and business objectives, they seemed genuinely surprised.
The hidden labour of AI-assisted content
The reality is that working with AI tools often requires more expertise, not less. Consider what actually happens when creating quality content with AI assistance:
- Understanding the strategic context requires the same deep research and stakeholder engagement
- Crafting effective prompts demands significant expertise and iterative refinement
- Evaluating outputs for accuracy, tone, accessibility and inclusivity requires professional judgement
- Editing and refining still form the majority of production time
- Legal and compliance checks become more crucial, not less
Yet this labour remains largely invisible to clients who’ve dabbled with generative AI tools enough to think they understand them, but haven’t experienced the frustration of trying to extract consistently professional outputs.
The wellbeing impact
There’s a concerning mental health dimension to this transition that few are discussing openly. As pricing pressures increase, many freelancers and agencies accept significantly more work to maintain their income level.
A content designer I’ve worked with for years recently confided that she’s now managing triple the project load she handled last year. “The work is still complex, but clients expect it faster and cheaper. I’m working nights now to keep my head above water.”
This isn’t sustainable. When we compress creative work into ever-tighter timeframes, quality inevitably suffers, regardless of what technological tools we employ. And so does our wellbeing.
Recalibrating our approach
As the industry adjusts to this new reality, I’ve been experimenting with different approaches to managing client expectations:
- I’ve shifted consultation conversations away from tools and toward outcomes. What’s important is whether the content achieves business objectives and meets user needs, not how it was produced.
- I’m increasingly transparent about my process, not announcing “I used AI” any more than I’d say “I used Microsoft Word,” but being honest when asked about my workflow.
- I’ve moved toward value-based rather than time-based pricing models, charging for the expertise that tells me what to prompt for, how to evaluate results and what works for specific audiences.
- Most importantly, I’m documenting my process thoroughly. When clients question rates, having a clear record of the real work involved – including prompt iterations, research time and editing – helps justify pricing.
Finding a sustainable path forward
The uncomfortable reality is that some clients will try to devalue our work regardless of technological shifts. They always have. But the good ones understand they’re paying for strategic thinking, experience and judgement, not just the ability to generate words quickly.
Perhaps the most important lesson is about boundaries. Defining what quality means in this new landscape and being willing to walk away from work that doesn’t allow for maintaining standards isn’t just about professional integrity. It’s about mental health and sustainability.
As one seasoned copywriter recently told me, “AI hasn’t changed the fundamental truth of our profession. Good content takes time, thought and care. The tools change, but the craft remains.”
I’ll start with the statement that most of my fellow ProCopywriters members will find heretical: AI has already made a significant portion of copywriters obsolete.
No, not all of us. Not yet. But if you’re writing formulaic landing pages, churning out product descriptions or crafting basic marketing emails, I’m afraid the canary in the coal mine stopped singing months ago.
What’s actually happening on the ground
For the past six months, I’ve been watching clients who once hired me for £500 per day now use ChatGPT to generate first drafts, then ask me to “just give it a quick polish” for a fraction of my previous rate. They’re not being malicious. They’re responding to market forces and capabilities that have genuinely shifted beneath our feet.
One marketing director at a FTSE 100 company recently told me: “We used to brief copywriters on campaigns, wait two weeks and pay thousands. Now we generate 80% of what we need in-house with AI and just bring in specialists for the final 20% of refinement.”
The truth is that clients aren’t comparing AI copy to professional human copy. They’re comparing AI copy plus minimal human editing to professional copy and finding that the former is good enough for many applications while being substantially cheaper and faster.
At the same time, AI tools are also getting better at mimicking human copywriting. New dual reasoning models, training AI tools on your previous output and defining what makes your writing style distinctive add to generated results that are almost indistinguishable from purely human content.
The hollowing out of the middle
What we’re witnessing isn’t a complete replacement of copywriters, but rather a hollowing out of the middle. We saw the same with photography, graphic design and web development in previous technological shifts.
The copywriting profession is splitting into three tiers:
- Those already replaced: Writers producing high-volume, formulaic content like basic product descriptions, simple landing pages, and routine emails
- Those in the danger zone: Mid-level copywriters who lack specialist knowledge or distinctive voice but charge professional rates
- Those still thriving: Writers with deep specialist expertise, strategic insight, or extraordinary creative talent
If you’re in category two, this article isn’t meant to frighten you, but to serve as an urgent wake-up call. The window for repositioning yourself is closing rapidly.
The “just edit AI content” trap
Many copywriters accept smaller projects “polishing” AI-generated content, believing this represents a new stable equilibrium. It doesn’t.
As AI systems improve, the gap between what they produce and what clients consider acceptable will continue to narrow. The edit requests will become more minor, the budgets will shrink further and eventually many clients will decide that internal staff with no writing background can handle these minimal tweaks.
If your value proposition has become “I can fix AI content,” you’ve already accepted a fundamentally diminished role, one that’s likely to shrink further with each model upgrade.
How to survive (and even thrive)
Despite this grim assessment, there are clear paths forward for copywriters who are willing to adapt:
Specialise deeply in complex domains
I’ve built my career working at the intersection of complex systems and human vulnerability, crafting content for government services, healthcare systems and crisis support. These domains require deep understanding of regulatory frameworks, ethical considerations and human psychology that current AI systems struggle to replicate.
The more specialised your knowledge – whether it’s in financial compliance, medical devices, or complex B2B services – the more insulated you are from immediate replacement.
Reframe your role as a strategic partner
The most successful copywriters today aren’t merely writers; they’re strategic partners who understand business objectives, audience psychology and broader marketing ecosystems.
When a client sees you as the person who helps them achieve business outcomes, not just someone who produces words, you become significantly harder to replace.
Embrace the human elements AI cannot replicate
Despite impressive advances, AI still lacks genuine lived experience, cultural intuition, and emotional intelligence. It cannot truly understand what it feels like to be a cancer patient seeking treatment information, a domestic abuse survivor reporting to police or a small business owner applying for crucial funding.
If your writing draws deeply on emotional resonance, cultural nuance and authentic human connection, you’re leveraging strengths that AI may never fully replicate.
Master the prompt, not just the polish
If clients are using AI, position yourself as someone who can help them use it effectively. The skill of crafting precise prompts that generate useful first drafts is valuable and will remain so.
Rather than reluctantly editing AI content after the fact, proactively help clients develop prompt strategies that align with their brand voice, compliance requirement and strategic objectives.
An end and a beginning
For decades, copywriting has been a relatively accessible profession with a low barrier to entry. People who could write reasonably well could establish careers producing serviceable commercial content. That era is ending.
What replaces it is a profession with higher barriers to entry, requiring deeper expertise, more strategic thinking and greater creative distinctiveness. It’s a field where you can no longer succeed by being merely good enough.
The uncomfortable truth is that AI isn’t coming for copywriters’ jobs in some hypothetical future. It’s already here, already working and already changing the economics of our profession. The question isn’t whether this change will happen, but what you’ll do now that it has.
Will you be one of the copywriters who adapts and evolves or one who gradually finds themselves with fewer clients, smaller budgets and diminishing relevance? The choice, for now, remains yours.
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Adrie van der Luijt
For over two decades, I've helped organisations transform complex information into clear, accessible content. Today, I work with public and private sector clients to develop AI-enhanced content strategies that maintain human-centred principles in an increasingly automated world.
