I tested an AI (Artificial Intelligence) tool to help me write the previous six blog posts. This one is the final post in that AI Series.
Here’s what to expect:
- (The below notice and disclaimer)
- Who this post is written for
- What it’s not for
- Why I was looking for an AI tool
- How I found You.com
- My first impression
- Why use AI for content creation
- My dislikes
- What I like
- Final thought
If this is your first visit, you’ll notice this “AI disclaimer” in each of the series’ posts:
Disclaimer: AI helped me write part of this post! Thanks, You.com, for creating YouWrite, an easy-to-use and effective AI blogging tool! In the meantime, read my 5-part Innovation Series or the first post in this AI series.)
Who This Post IS For
Content Creators, AI naysayers, and anyone interested in this AI revolution that we’ve found ourselves in.
What this post is NOT for
This post isn’t meant to provide a framework for using AI, a list of best practices, or anything like that. In general, it is intended for those who want to gain perspective or insights about using AI as a tool for blogging.
First, why I was looking for an AI tool
Before writing this AI series, I didn’t intentionally seek out an AI tool in hopes of it becoming my virtual assistant, content creator, or anything along those lines. Nor was I looking for something to generate blog posts without thought or effort.
I was looking for a tool to help generate ideas.
My road to (AI tool) discovery
A couple of years ago, I took a course called “Strategic Marketing in a Global Workplace.” During that time, I was working on a competitive marketing project based on the Internet industry. While researching, I stumbled upon a few things regarding how businesses could adopt technologies (like AI) that could negatively impact privacy rights and consumer protection if implemented without governance, thought, or understanding.
If you’re still getting familiar with my blog, I write about Industry 4.0, and when not doing that, I’m a citizen developer business architect working in digital transformation to use tech for good. To stay on track, I’m an avid supporter and practitioner of privacy rights and consumer protection. Relating that back to AI, I initially set out to find a search engine that values data privacy and personalization.
That’s how I stumbled upon You.com!
When I first signed up, the tool didn’t exist. However, they had the option to join their public beta release waitlist!
Then, when I initially signed up for the service, I also agreed to receive their newsletter. From there, I discovered that they’re not only a search engine but developers creating privacy-first integrated tools that help improve productivity.
After their public beta release in November 2021, I created an account and explored it a bit. It was easy to use, but I couldn’t find any tools they were working on. Then, in March 2022, I received one of their new letters titled “This email was written with the help of AI.”
My First Impression
In general, YouWrite is super easy to use, and at its core, it’s meant to help generate topics, ideas, and more!
Of course, when learning any new tool, trial, and error is expected. To my surprise, though, YouWrite was easy to understand. From the get-go, I started to see some potential benefits that AI could offer, especially for bloggers and content creators like myself, who sometimes frequently suffer from writer’s block and whatnot.
I could ALSO see where companies could easily mistake the tool and use it to replace content creators, and I’ll cover that in another post.
Why use an AI tool for content creation?
Well, creating (worthwhile) content can be challenging! Think about the last time you had to develop a new idea with related, easily digestible content for a target audience. Anyway, that’s where YouWrite comes in, and it can help with (not a complete list):
- Coming up with blog post topics – One of the most complex parts of blogging is creating ideas for posts. YouWrite can give you prompts and exercises to inspire new content ideas.
- Actually writing about the said topic(s). YouWrite helps by giving you prompts to inspire new content ideas.
- Giving you a list of headlines or blog post titles to write about. Ultimately, YouWrite can help you develop catchy headlines.
- Writing structure – once you have an idea, it’s essential to structure the content in a way that makes sense (P.S. I have content licenses with an EdTech startup for this very thing, so reach out if you need help). YouWrite can give you different options on how to do this effectively.
- Also, Grammarly is a great writing tool (with AI capabilities) too!
Likes and Dislikes
YouWrite Dislikes:
- Missing citations and/or sources missing.
- Spelling and grammatical errors (hence why I mentioned Grammarly).
- The writing style doesn’t sound “human” — YouChat is another one of their AI tools that you can chat with!
- 1000 characters & 10 requests (in the free version) limit
- YouWrite cannot be used in Private Mode.
With all of that, it becomes more accurate as you “teach” (by typing in words, commands, ideas, and formatting preferences into YouWrite). Aside from that, remember that’s how AI tools work — the technology depends on data input (pssst: data isn’t tech, btw) and is not meant to replace people or jobs. Of course, some companies will fail to realize that and will most likely upend entire industries, but we can dive into that another time.
What I liked
First and foremost, despite my dislikes, and based only on this post’s perspective, it seems that YouWrite doesn’t need to improve those things since I’m really using it solely as an “idea generator.” After all, humans have gotten this far as a society through creative thinking and problem-solving.
Right, RIGHT?!
Handing it off to a machine could open a door that should stay closed, especially without adequate legislation and governance.
- Easy to use
- The user interface is solid.
- Settings are easy to figure out.
- They have their own app store.
- There are paid and free versions.
Overall, it’s a neat AI writing tool!
If you ever dreamed of living in the future, the future of business, or working with AI, here we are!
The only part we should have remembered was figuring out how to use all the different AI tools and ensuring everyone else did/does the same. Nonetheless, the possibilities of using artificial intelligence are vast, if not neverending.
