I’ve been a professional copywriter for over a decade. In that time, I’ve worked for hundreds of clients, I got my PhD, I built a training company, and last year I had my first six-figure year.
All of it in the age of AI.
So when people ask me whether AI is coming for my job, I don’t give them the panicked look or the smug dismissal. I give them the truth, which is messier and more interesting than either.
Here’s what AI has actually done to my work as a copywriter – the good, the bad, and the bit that genuinely keeps me up at night.
AI Has Made Me a Worse Writer (but not in the way you might think)
I trained in rhetoric. I studied the craft of persuasion and the nuance of the written word from degree to masters to PhD. I published books. And I even went on to lecture on the topic.
I know how to use the rule of three, how to balance a sentence, how to land a parallel structure. These are techniques that writers have used for centuries because they work. They work because of how the human brain processes rhythm, pattern, emphasis, and semantic fields.
And now, if I use them, people think a robot wrote it.
AI was trained on good writing. It learned the patterns that effective communicators have used for generations and it replicated them at scale, without nuance, and without knowing why they work. Techniques I’ve honed over years now read as “clearly AI” to a generation of readers who’ve been inundated with machine-generated content.
This infuriates me like you wouldn’t believe.
I’ve genuinely had to adjust my writing style. This isn’t because the techniques stopped working, but because the perception has shifted. I find myself actively avoiding certain structures. The structures aren’t wrong – they’re almost too right. I’m second-guessing instincts that were hard-won.
That’s a real problem. AI has flooded the market with content, and it’s contaminated the reader’s ear. It’s trained people to be suspicious of the very things that make writing effective.
And if that doesn’t make you angry on behalf of every writer who spent years learning their craft, I don’t know what will.
AI Has Made Me Busier Than Ever
My first six-figure year happened because of AI, not in spite of it.
The logic is straightforward. AI has flooded every platform with content. LinkedIn is drowning in it. Websites are all the same now. Our inboxes are full to the brim with bland copy that nobody reads, because now that it’s quick and easy to write an email, everyone is doing it.
But they’re doing it badly, and ambitious brands have noticed.
The businesses I work with aren’t looking for cheap content at volume. They’re looking for a voice that stands out. They want copy that sounds like a person wrote it because a person did. They want the strategic thinking, the audience understanding, and the brand voice work that AI simply cannot do. (<- Oh look. The rule of three. Shouldn’t really do that any more. Urgh).
The demand for what I do hasn’t shrunk. It’s just shifted. The clients who value quality have become more willing to pay for it precisely because they can see what the alternative looks like. When everyone’s zigging with AI slop, the brands that zag with genuine human craft are the ones that stand out.
If you’re a business owner reading this and wondering whether to save money by using ChatGPT or Claude instead of hiring a copywriter – that’s your call. But know that your competitors are probably making the same decision. And when everyone’s content sounds the same, being the one that doesn’t is a competitive advantage worth paying for.
AI Has Made Me Faster
I’m not anti-AI. I’d be an idiot if I were.
The part of my job that used to eat hours – the research phase – has been utterly transformed. When I’m writing for a client in an industry I’m less familiar with, AI helps me get up to speed in a fraction of the time it used to take. Background reading that would have meant trawling through dozens of tabs now takes minutes. (Although, don’t get me wrong, I still somehow end up with dozens of tabs).
I use AI for first-pass research, for exploring angles I might not have considered, and for testing my understanding of a technical subject. It’s an extraordinary research assistant.
What I don’t use it for is the writing itself. The research gets me to the starting line. The writing is the race.
There’s an important distinction here that often gets lost in the AI conversation: using AI as a tool in your workflow is not the same as outsourcing your thinking to it.
A carpenter who uses a power drill isn’t cheating. But if the power drill designed your house, you’d probably have questions.
I’m more productive now than I’ve ever been, and AI is part of that. But productivity without craft is just efficient mediocrity.
AI Has Taken the Bottom of the Market (and that scares me)
AI really worries me, but I’m not worried about my own career.
AI has effectively eliminated the entry-level end of the copywriting market. The low-budget jobs – the £50 blog posts, the quick product descriptions, the starter-level content mill work – are all gone. Or if they’re not gone, they’re being done by AI at a price no human can compete with.
Those jobs are not my target market. They’re not where I operate now. But they were where I started.
Every experienced copywriter I know began with the low-budget work. That’s where you learn to hit a brief, write to a word count, adapt your voice, handle client feedback, run a business, and figure out what you’re actually good at. It’s arduous, often poorly paid, and absolutely essential to the development of a professional writer.
If that rung of the ladder has been kicked away, where do emerging copywriters start?
Alongside my copywriting work with Arcanum Copy, I train people through Arcanum Academy. I see talented individuals who want to build a career in writing and content. The path I took – starting small, building a portfolio, gradually working up to bigger clients and better rates – doesn’t exist in the same way for them.
The industry hasn’t reckoned with this yet. We’re all so busy debating whether AI will replace senior copywriters (it won’t) that we’ve barely noticed that it’s already replaced the proving ground where senior copywriters are made. The entry level is now higher, so newbies have to start off better.
I think this is where the real discussion should lie. People saying “copywriting is dead” are just plain wrong, but the ladder is no longer intact, so we need to talk about whether it will die out in the future if fewer newcomers can enter the field.
So, What’s the Verdict?
AI hasn’t killed copywriting. It’s reshaped it.
It’s made good writing seem suspicious. It’s made great copywriters more valuable. It’s made the research process faster and the creative process more important. And it’s dismantled the pathway that new writers need to enter the profession.
If you’re a business owner: invest in human writing where it matters. Your brand voice, your sales pages, your thought leadership – these are not places to cut corners.
If you’re an established copywriter: use AI where it makes you better, push back where it makes you worse, and for the love of all things, don’t pretend it doesn’t exist. You’ll just get left behind.
And if you’re an aspiring copywriter: I see you. The route in is harder than it used to be. The bar to entry is higher. But the destination – the ability to write strategically, persuasively, and with genuine human insight – has never been more in demand. And if you do feel a bit lost, reach out. I didn’t have much peer support when I started out, so I try to remedy that by mentoring others whenever I can.
My DMs are always open.
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LinkedIn: Eleanor Bryan Ph.D
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