Are AI Tools a Lifesaver or Liability?

Efficient workflow management

AI tools can streamline workflow management within your firm. From scheduling appointments and managing calendars to delegating tasks and tracking progress, you can ask chatbots to optimize your firm’s internal operations and use AI-powered platforms that ensure seamless collaboration and efficient task allocation among your administrative staff and advisors.

Leveraging AI’s capabilities for content marketing

Business owners are brimming with excitement over the possibilities of using AI for content writing. The prospect of automating some of their marketing efforts brings the promise of increased productivity, time savings, and cost efficiency. With AI at their disposal, they envision engaging their target audience, building their brand, and achieving their marketing goals, without toiling over a keyboard or paying a premium to outsource quality content.

But while AI tools offer certain benefits, they also come with notable drawbacks that must be considered before completely relying on them for content creation. Before replacing your content production team with chatbots, here’s what you’ll want to consider.

Like hiring a helpful content assistant

One of the most helpful ways AI can assist in content generation is by eliminating the necessity for content marketers to start from scratch. This empowers content writers to concentrate their efforts on producing higher-quality content more efficiently.

Idea generation

One of the biggest challenges content marketers face is coming up with new ideas. Stumped about what to cover next on your blog? AI can help generate ideas for content topics, and the ideas aren’t just random. It can analyze popular trends and make sense of meeting notes, providing valuable insights.

So rather than asking an assistant or intern to scour the web for what’s trending or sort through message boards for burning questions to answer, ask AI. You may not be getting the most up-to-date information, since most chatbots can’t access real-time data, but you’ll have a starting point rather than a blank page.

Time and cost efficiency

AI-powered writing tools can also streamline your content-creation workflow, saving time and reducing costs. Specialized AI tools can automate repetitive tasks, such as proofreading, grammar checks, and even generating outlines and rough drafts, freeing up your team’s time for more skill-intensive and strategic activities.

One particularly time-consuming aspect of content production is optimizing copy to fit specific word or character counts. Do you need social share copy for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and a blurb for your email newsletter? AI can present a variety of teasers, intriguing invitations, and questions to engage your audience, persuade them to read your blog content, or take action – all at the right length to suit each channel, complete with keywords and hashtag suggestions.

But Is AI writing any good?

Despite the undeniable strengths of AI-generated content, its weaknesses can’t be ignored. If you’ve seen some decent output and you’re considering firing writers in favor of AI, you’ll be disappointed with the results.

Authenticity, brand voice, and style

When capturing your brand’s voice and delivering authentic content, AI-generated writing falls flat. The tools often produce text that comes across as canned and lacks the human touch needed to connect with an audience. Without the guidance of a skilled writer familiar with your brand, it will strike readers as inauthentic and out of touch.

Your successful and well-educated client base expects a higher level of writing quality and sophistication, which may not be fully met by AI. Chatbots lack the finesse, style, and literary sophistication that a skilled writer brings.

Contextual understanding and compliance awareness

AI struggles with the contextual understanding necessary for complying with industry-specific regulations. It doesn’t comprehend the compliance rules, such as the SEC guidelines for financial advisors, which govern what can and cannot be said in your content. Relying solely on AI-generated content will expose you to legal and reputational risks.

Most AI tools don’t have access to real-time data and may make inferences and draw conclusions based on outdated information. It won’t be able to recognize right from wrong and may miss critical insights that could mislead your audience.

AI hallucination

A significant concern when relying on AI for writing marketing content is the potential for something called “AI hallucination,” which is when a large-language model (LLM) tool, such as ChatGPT, generates false or inaccurate information. LLMs are trained on vast amounts of data, including both reliable and unreliable sources, which can lead to the generation of misleading or factually incorrect content. It presents this misinformation in a believable, confident manner, which could erode your credibility with your clients and prospects.

SEO and plagiarism concerns

If you’re not careful, AI-generated content will have negative implications for your website’s search engine optimization (SEO). Using output as a basic, rough draft or starting point for sections of a blog post is one thing, but directly copying and pasting complete content with the intent to pass it off as your own could lead to trouble. And chatbot-produced content lacks originality; it may be flagged as plagiarism or detected as AI-generated, impacting your search rankings and undermining your credibility.

As a financial advisor, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the information you provide to clients is crucial. Exercise caution and thorough verification when using AI-generated content. To achieve the highest quality content, I recommend an approach that combines the strengths of AI tools to support your process with the expertise of skilled writers.

Embrace the future but proceed with caution

AI tools can revolutionize operations and streamline everyday tasks in your practice. From client interactions and onboarding processes to workflow management and content marketing assistance, AI can boost your client experience as well as your own and that of your staff and vendors.

But it’s not a one-size-fits-all tool, and the need for careful human oversight can’t be overstated. Striking a balance between AI’s capabilities and the expertise of skilled professionals ensures a harmonious approach that maximizes AI’s potential to exceed the expectations of the most discerning clients.

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Crystal Lee Butler, MBA is the owner of Crystal Marketing Solutions, a full-service marketing agency dedicated to working specifically with independent financial advisors. Since 2011, she’s helped financial advisors cut through the noise to attract ideal clients and grow their businesses using proven strategies that we use with our clients every day. As your “Chief Marketing Officer,” our goal is to help you grow your business and put time back on your calendar so that you can focus on what you do best: serving your clients.

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