ai in creative writing

AI Creative Writing: Can AI Really Write Novels?

Can ai write a short story or novel take a closer look at ai creative writing and learn about key challenges and considerations for generating stories..

Artificial intelligence has made advances by leaps and bounds in terms of AI writing , leading to a rise in courses on how aspiring authors can use the technology in the writing process or even write entire novels. 

The real question is: Can AI handle creative writing? Can it really write a novel from start to finish?

Before you hand over the keys of your next bestseller to AI, it’s important to understand what AI creative writing can and can’t do.

Key Takeaways

• AI can rapidly generate text segments similar to what may appear in a story.
• However, AI can’t incorporate personal experience or emotions to add nuance that keeps readers turning pages.
• As LLM's capabilities expand to 128,000 tokens (approximately 250 pages), their capacity to generate longer sections of text for stories increases.
• Using AI to generate books poses copyright considerations as the U.S. Copyright Office advises that copyright only currently applies to a “ product of human creativity. ”
• Many genres pose specific challenges, such as world-building in science-fiction and the human experience in literary fiction.

AI Creative Writing: a Brief Overview

AI is trained on huge swaths of data, including websites, books, and more. Through its training, AI can learn to pull out patterns, styles, and concepts.

However, is AI able to create content that looks and reads like a novel? 

If you prompt an AI chatbot like ChatGPT to write a scene that might appear in a novel, it can typically generate a quick section of text that is similar to a passage from a book.

Yet, AI doesn’t understand emotions or tie in personal experiences the same way a human author can. 

For this reason, it can’t delve into the nuance and subtlety that create those layers of emotion that pull at our heartstrings or keep us turning pages . Sure, AI can write dialogue, but without extensive and specific prompting, it can’t create a deep, intertwined emotional story arc.

Can AI Write Short Stories or Full-Length Novels?

Does the length of creative writing impact AI capabilities? Let’s review using AI for short stories vs. AI for novels.

AI and short stories

You can prompt AI to write a short story, and tools like GPT 4o-mini will quickly generate a brief draft.

So, can AI create a short story? Yes. However, it won’t have the same impactful narrative inspired by human perspectives.

Similarly, it may even be prompted to generate individual chapters.

AI and novels

Can AI generate a full-length novel? It depends.

The actual length of a full-length novel can vary , and not all LLMs are equipped with the capacity to process that number of words or characters.

In their guide on context windows, IBM highlights that the LLM industry standard at the moment is 32,000 tokens. However, this is changing. Companies are looking to create and refine models that can handle 128,000 tokens, which is similar to the length of a novel that has 250 pages.

However, although the capacity for handling longer context windows may increase, creating a full-length novel adds layers of complexity that are best when human-written .

Great novels weave together:

• An intriguing plot.
• A unique setting.
• Memorable characters.
• Deep themes that keep readers engaged.

AI-generated novels can lose coherence, go off on a variety of trajectories, and leave gaping plot holes and loose ends. 

AI Creative Writing Challenges

There are a number of challenges that AI creative writing faces.

AI comes up short in creativity

When it comes to AI creative writing, it’s limited to its training .

Instead of trying to create new ideas, AI borrows a mix of themes or ideas it has encountered from its training. 

In terms of writing stories, its ‘plots’ become easily predictable — which doesn’t provide a great reader experience.

Additionally, if it generates any duplicate content, it could result in plagiarism or intellectual property issues.

Plot development

One of the biggest challenges that AI creative writing struggles with is creating and maintaining a coherent plot. 

Advanced models like ChatGPT can understand the basics of storytelling (when prompted) and grasp how to generate some key aspects of a story like a setting, conflict, and resolution. 

However, its novel-writing skills take a dive when weaving together the storyline layers that make an immersive novel like:

• Different subplots.
• Creating an understandable, logical progression from one chapter (or book) to the next.
• Expanding character progression to create compelling characters that react to plot twists and turns.

Character development

Human writers often spend weeks or sometimes months developing rich, varied characters with backstories, motivations, flaws and fears. 

Creating characters with this kind of depth makes a story resonate with readers. 

Readers can relate to human-crafted characters because they, too, know what it feels like to go through life similarly or encounter those types of obstacles. 

AI, on the other hand, can create interesting personas, but it struggles to maintain them.

Where AI is helpful, is in creating basic character sketches or brainstorming ideas . Then, a human writer can fill out the initial ideas to fully develop the character for the story.

AI and copyright considerations 

Further, according to current US policies, you can’t copyright AI-generated content. 

The United States Copyright Office , published a guide on content with AI material which notes, “ copyright can protect only material that is the product of human creativity. ”

So, generating a book wouldn’t provide the same protections under copyright as an original human-written work. Read more about who owns AI content .

Genre-Specific Challenges

What challenges do specific genres pose for AI creative writing? Let’s take a look at some of the genre-specific details that AI would have to master to truly generate a compelling storyline.

• AI struggles with hallucinations and can generate incorrect information. The same could potentially occur when generating a novel that relies on structured world-building.
• Literary fiction: Literary fiction often dives deep into stories that capture a very human perspective and experience and are rooted in psychology. What’s more, AI could incorporate clichés, making the copy feel robotic and formulaic.

Incorporating AI Into The Human Creative Writing Process

Although AI isn’t proficient at writing immersive novels on its own, there are areas where AI can contribute to the human creative writing process and save you a great deal of time. 

Consider using AI to brainstorm novel ideas

AI is great as a brainstorming partner that can suggest different character traits, various storyline arcs, or plot twists based on the prompts you give it. 

So, when you’re exploring different ideas that can make your novel come together, AI can offer helpful suggestions that help you beat writer’s block and open up new possibilities for you to explore.

Optimize your editorial process with AI

Some AI-based tools like a grammar checker can help review your text and make sure it’s grammatically correct.

This can help you improve the piece overall. However, it’s important to note that some features of AI editing tools that rewrite or rephrase text can impact AI detection scores .

Final Thoughts 

The bottom line is that AI is best as a support to original human writing when it comes to drafting a novel from start to finish.

There are areas where it can excel, including helping you overcome writer’s block, streamlining research , or even helping you diversify character’s personalities or voices.

AI can’t replace human creative writing, but it can help you take your writing ideas further. 

Looking for more ways to improve the content you publish? Try the Originality.ai Readability Checker to improve the clarity of your writing and make sure that it’s tailored to your ideal audience.

Sherice Jacob

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This is how AI is impacting – and shaping – the creative industries, according to experts at Davos

Generative AI has transformed the world of work for the creative industries. Image:  WEF

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Stay up to date:, artificial intelligence.

• Generative AI tools exploded into the mainstream in 2023, prompting Hollywood strikes as creative industries tried to navigate a potentially augmented future.
• Artists, musicians and content creators joined discussions at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos on how to navigate a creative future with AI.
• Here are some of the key quotes from sessions at Davos.

A dolphin with a baseball hat.

Happiness in a bowl.

A pocketful of hope.

These are just some of more than 4,000 prompts that have generated images. But not AI-generated images – they’re the work of New-York based artist Pablo Delcan, whose art experiment calls itself ‘the very first non-AI generative art model’.

On his website Prompt-Brush , which launched in January, Delcan invites people to send him a message with a prompt, and he will “generate a drawing with black ink and send it to you”.

“This project seeks to contribute to the conversation about the value of the human experience in the creative process, emphasizing the significance of personal interpretation and process,” explains the website.

“It juxtaposes the human element with the AI, exploring both its merits and its role.”

Have you read?

Is ai making you suffer from fobo here's what can help, why there will be plenty of jobs in the future — even with artificial intelligence, how ai can accelerate students’ holistic development and make teaching more fulfilling, humans and ai.

In the past few years, artificial intelligence has hit mainstream consciousness as generative AI writing tools like ChatGPT and Claude.ai, and image generators like Midjourney and DALL-E became better and more broadly available. And people, companies, artists, musicians and even Hollywood studios, worked out how – or how not – to work with them.

In August 2022, Théâtre D’opéra Spatial, an artwork made using Midjourney, controversially won an art competition in the US for its creator Jason Allen, for example.

The proliferation of creative AI tools has ushered in urgent discussions over ethics, regulation and guardrails. The potential benefits of generative AI – such as augmented creativity and productivity gains – being weighed against the pitfalls, such as data privacy, copyright infringement and inaccuracy.

This has also been accompanied by the rise of FOBO – or the ‘fear of becoming obsolete’ – with more than a fifth of workers in the US worrying they might lose their jobs to emerging technology.

But research by the World Economic Forum shows AI will not only augment existing jobs, but will create others in entirely new fields .

AI ‘as a driving force for the economy and society’ was one of the key themes at the Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos in January 2024, where artists, musicians and content creators joined discussions on how to navigate a creative future with AI.

Generative AI and Hollywood

In May 2023, the Writers Guild of America went on strike over pay, with concerns about AI coming to the fore .

In June, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was released in cinemas, showing 80-year-old Harrison Ford ‘de-aged’ with the help of an AI program .

And in July, members of the US actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA (the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) went on strike for 118 days, with protections over AI being used to replace actors as the major sticking point.

Speaking at the Davos session Workers in Focus , SAG-AFTRA’S Chief Negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, said AI “was a really important issue in our negotiations”.

“Our members are going to be on the tip of the spear in this area, especially voice actors, because the technical requirements of using generative AI with voice only are easier, and that makes it faster and simpler to implement.

“It’s going to have a significant impact and presence on the creative industries in general and the television, film and videogames industries.”

The SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild strikes combined cost the industry more than $6.5 billion , but now an agreement has been reached, Crabtree-Ireland hopes other companies and industries can learn from it.

“It’s so important for us to remember that the decisions about the implementation of AI are not being made by AI, they’re being made by humans. It doesn't have to just be corporate executives, these are decisions we should all make together, workers and society should have an important role in participating in that decision-making.”

“The creative industries are one example of an area where, if we don't have that kind of human-centred approach to the implementation of AI, we run the risk of losing the heart and soul of the creative industries, their whole raison d'être.”

Generative AI and the music industry

Legendary producer Nile Rodgers was at Davos to receive the Crystal Award for his contribution to music, his commitment to fighting systemic racism, inequality and injustice, and for championing young voices.

In an interview for Radio Davos, he said his view of AI was formed over a lunch discussion with the author Deepak Chopra, who told him: “Technology can be beautiful and diabolical, just like people”.

Although he hasn’t yet used generative AI in his creative process, he said he “assumes” he will in future, adding: “Any tool that allows an artist to create is an amazing thing…”.

But he stipulated that he “certainly wouldn't use it to imitate somebody else”.

An entire Davos session was dedicated to the subject of AI’s impact on the creative industries. Gen AI: Boon or Bane for Creativity? featured YouTube CEO Neal Mohan and Daren Tang, the Director-General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Tang used to be a semi-professional jazz pianist while training at law school and said while he understood the challenges for musicians and creators around AI, “musicians have always embraced technology and used whatever tools they can to find new forms of expression”.

In April 2023, the Canadian singer Grimes said she would split royalties with any musician creating AI-generated tracks using her voice – and launched AI software Elf.Tech that allows other people to sing with her voice.

In November 2023, The Beatles released the single “Now and Then”, 45 years after the first bars were written, with John Lennon’s vocals ‘extricated’ from a demo cassette using AI .

“Musicians are already beginning to react to AI and use AI as a way of enhancing, augmenting, their creative capabilities,” said Tang. “And I think this is just the beginning.”

Mohan views AI as a “revolution” that will help to “democratize” the creative process – and thinks it’s purely there to augment human creativity.

“Our mantra at YouTube is that AI should not be a replacement for human creativity. It should be a tool used to enhance all of our creativity.”

In August 2023, the platform launched its AI Music incubator , a collaboration between YouTube and Google DeepMind , which allows artists to experiment with new AI tools, giving prompts to create different sounds.

“It's like a supercharger for their creativity and what artists tell me every single time is, ‘Wow, I can create this music that a week ago I wouldn't have even thought humanly possible’.”

Wherever AI takes the creative industries from here, Tang said much greater collaboration was needed between artists and regulators to agree on best practice around AI: “We will probably need some form of regulatory convergence or interoperability”.

In response to the uncertainties surrounding generative AI and the need for robust AI governance frameworks to ensure responsible and beneficial outcomes for all, the Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) has launched the AI Governance Alliance .

The Alliance will unite industry leaders, governments, academic institutions, and civil society organizations to champion responsible global design and release of transparent and inclusive AI systems.

And he reminded the Davos audience that 2.6 billion people still do not have access to the internet. Of those that do, 90% don’t have the computing power to use AI, Tang said.

“In our excitement about AI, we need to make sure we bring those people on board … With music becoming more diverse, we have to make sure we are much more inclusive.”

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World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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The future of creative writing with AI technology

As a writer, have you ever wondered what the future of creative writing holds? Will we eventually see robots producing best-selling novels, or will artificial intelligence (AI) simply help humans become more efficient and imaginative writers? While some may argue that AI could never replicate the creativity and emotional depth of human writing, others believe that the technology is rapidly advancing and could revolutionize the field of creative writing. according to a survey: t he AI writing assistant software market is expected to grow at a rate (CAGR) of 26.94% from 2023 to 2030, reaching a market size of $6.464 billion by 2030

In this article, we'll explore the intersection of AI and creative writing, and consider both the promises and potential pitfalls of this exciting new technology. From chatbots that can help generate plotlines to programs that can analyze the emotional resonance of a piece of writing, the future of creative writing with AI technology is full of possibility. So, let's dive in and explore what the future holds for writers and readers alike.

The role of AI in generating story ideas and plotlines

One of the most exciting potential applications of AI in creative writing is its ability to generate story ideas and plotlines. With the help of machine learning algorithms and natural language processing, AI can analyze vast amounts of text data to identify patterns, themes, and plot structures. By doing so, it can generate new ideas for stories and plotlines that may not have occurred to a human writer.

One way that AI can generate story ideas is through the use of chatbots. These conversational agents can interact with users in natural language, asking questions and providing prompts to inspire new ideas. For example, a chatbot might ask a writer about their favorite genre or a character they find interesting, and then suggest plotlines or themes based on the writer's responses.

Another way that AI can generate plotlines is by analyzing existing stories and identifying patterns that can be used to create new ones. For example, an AI program might analyze a set of mystery novels to identify common plot structures or themes, and then use that information to generate a new mystery story that incorporates those elements.

While AI-generated story ideas and plotlines may not always be perfect, they have the potential to inspire human writers and provide new directions for creative exploration. In some cases, AI-generated ideas may even lead to unexpected breakthroughs or innovative approaches to storytelling. However, it's important to note that AI should be seen as a tool to assist writers, rather than a replacement for human creativity and imagination. Ultimately, the role of AI in generating story ideas and plotlines is to augment and enhance human creativity, not replace it.

AI tools for creative writing

Jasper: Recognized as the ultimate AI writing assistant in the market, Jasper stands out for its unrivaled features and exceptional quality. Seamlessly analyzing seed words, it effortlessly generates well-crafted phrases, coherent paragraphs, or comprehensive documents that align with the desired subject matter and tone of voice. One of its most remarkable capabilities is its lightning-fast ability to produce a 1,500-word article within a matter of seconds, making it an invaluable asset for any writer or content creator.

Copy.ai: Designed specifically for copywriting, Copy.ai is a game-changer in the world of AI writing tools. Its intuitive interface and powerful algorithms make writing compelling copy and publishing blog posts an effortless and efficient process. Whether you need captivating ad copy, engaging social media posts, or persuasive website content, Copy.ai empowers you to create high-quality, conversion-focused content with ease.

Anyword: Anyword is an indispensable AI writing tool that revolutionizes the writing process. With its advanced capabilities, it enables users to generate long-form content that captivates readers and delivers a memorable impact. Additionally, Anyword's intelligent algorithms can create engaging headlines that grab attention and drive click-through rates. By minimizing writing errors and maximizing production time, Anyword empowers writers to enhance their productivity and achieve outstanding results.

Sudowrite: Aspiring fiction writers can rely on Sudowrite to unleash their creativity. This AI writing tool is specifically designed to assist and inspire fiction authors. Sudowrite offers a range of features tailored to the needs of storytellers, from character development and plot suggestion to immersive world-building. With Sudowrite by their side, writers can bring their fictional worlds to life and embark on captivating storytelling adventures.

AIcontentfy: AIcontentfy is a versatile AI content tool that caters to a wide range of writing needs. From creating engaging blog posts to crafting captivating social media captions and compelling website copy, AIcontentfy delivers high-quality content for various purposes. By suggesting relevant topics and keywords based on writers' interests and previous content, AIcontentfy sparks fresh ideas and ignites inspiration, ensuring that writers can consistently produce engaging and impactful written content.

The potential for AI to improve the editing and revision process

Another exciting potential application of AI in creative writing is its ability to improve the editing and revision process. Writing is an iterative process, and the editing and revision stages are crucial for refining and improving a piece of writing. With the help of AI, writers can streamline this process and improve the quality of their work.

One way that AI can improve the editing and revision process is through automated proofreading and grammar checking. AI algorithms can analyze text for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and other common errors that can detract from the readability and impact of a piece of writing. This can save writers time and effort in the editing process, allowing them to focus on refining their ideas and improving the structure and flow of their writing. Additionally, services like  EssayService university paper writing service  can further enhance the quality of academic writing by providing expert assistance and feedback.

Another way that AI can improve the revision process is through the use of natural language processing and sentiment analysis. By analyzing the language and emotional tone of a piece of writing, AI can provide suggestions for improving the clarity, coherence, and emotional resonance of a piece. For example, an AI program might suggest changes to the wording of a sentence or paragraph to make it more impactful or suggest alternative phrasing to make a point more clearly.

While AI can be a powerful tool for improving the editing and revision process, it's important to note that it's not a replacement for human judgment and creativity. Ultimately, the writer is still responsible for making the final decisions about their work. However, by using AI to streamline the editing and revision process, writers can focus on the creative aspects of their work and produce higher-quality writing in less time.

The impact of AI on the publishing industry and the job market for writers

The rise of AI in creative writing has had a significant impact on the publishing industry and the job market for writers. While the use of AI in writing is still in its early stages, it has the potential to fundamentally change the way that we think about the writing process and the role of writers in society.

One of the most obvious impacts of AI on the publishing industry is in the area of content creation . With the ability to generate high-quality writing at scale, AI has the potential to disrupt the traditional publishing model, which has historically relied on a small number of highly skilled writers to produce content. In the future, it's possible that AI-generated content could become the norm, leading to a decrease in demand for human writers and a shift in the balance of power between writers and publishers.

However, it's important to note that AI is not necessarily a threat to human writers. While the technology may be able to generate high-quality writing, it cannot replicate the creativity, empathy, and emotional depth that are the hallmarks of great literature. As such, human writers will likely continue to play a vital role in the publishing industry, albeit in different ways than they have in the past.

One potential area where human writers may find new opportunities is in the area of curation and editing. With so much content being produced by AI, there will be an increased need for skilled editors and curators who can sift through the vast amount of content and identify the pieces that are most worthy of publication.

Overall, the impact of AI on the publishing industry and the job market for writers is complex and multifaceted. While the technology has the potential to disrupt the industry in significant ways, it's important to remember that human creativity and talent will always be a valuable commodity, and that AI is just one tool among many that writers can use to enhance their craft.

Examples of successful AI-generated writing and its reception by readers

As the use of AI in creative writing continues to gain traction, there have been several notable examples of successful AI-generated writing. These range from short stories and poetry to full-length novels, and they have been met with a range of reactions from readers and critics alike.

One of the most famous examples of AI-generated writing is "The Day a Computer Writes a Novel," a short story written by a Japanese AI program called Hikaru-Ai. The story was entered into a literary competition in Japan and received high marks from the judges, who praised its structure, plot, and character development. While the story was not published in a traditional literary journal, its success was a clear indication of the potential for AI to generate high-quality writing.

Another notable example of AI-generated writing is "Sunspring," a short film written entirely by an AI program called Benjamin. The film was created as part of a competition and received widespread attention for its surreal and disjointed narrative. While some viewers found the film confusing or unengaging, others praised it for its experimental approach to storytelling and its willingness to push the boundaries of what is possible with AI-generated content.

More recently, a number of AI-generated novels have been published, including "1 the Road" by Belamy AI and "The Day I Became the Universe" by AIVA. While these novels have received mixed reviews from readers and critics, they represent an important milestone in the development of AI-generated writing and demonstrate the potential for AI to generate long-form narratives that are engaging and thought-provoking.

Overall, the reception of AI-generated writing by readers has been mixed. While some have praised the quality and innovation of the writing, others have expressed skepticism about the ability of AI to replicate the complexity and emotional depth of human writing. However, there is no doubt that AI-generated writing is becoming increasingly sophisticated and that it has the potential to play an important role in the future of creative writing.

The limitations of AI technology in replicating human creativity and emotion

AI technology has made impressive strides in recent years, particularly in the realm of creative writing. However, there are still significant limitations to what AI can accomplish when it comes to replicating human creativity and emotion.

One of the main challenges for AI in creative writing is its inability to truly understand human emotion and experience. While AI can analyze large datasets and identify patterns, it lacks the human experience and intuition needed to fully capture the nuances of human emotion and behavior. As a result, AI-generated writing can often feel mechanical or flat, lacking the depth and richness of human-created content.

Another limitation of AI technology is its inability to generate truly original ideas. While AI can use machine learning algorithms to analyze existing texts and generate new content based on that analysis, it cannot generate truly original ideas in the same way that a human writer can. This can lead to a lack of true innovation in AI-generated writing, with much of the content feeling derivative or formulaic.

Furthermore, AI technology is limited by its reliance on data. While AI can use large datasets to generate new content, it cannot create content that is entirely disconnected from existing data. This means that AI-generated content may be limited by the biases and assumptions inherent in the data it is trained on, potentially leading to problematic or biased content.

Finally, AI technology is limited by its lack of consciousness or self-awareness. While AI can simulate human behavior and thought patterns to some extent, it lacks the subjective experience and self-awareness that is fundamental to human creativity. This means that AI-generated writing may lack the depth and introspection that is often a hallmark of human-created content.

Overall, while AI technology has made impressive strides in recent years, there are still significant limitations to its ability to replicate human creativity and emotion. As AI technology continues to evolve, it will be important for developers and users to keep these limitations in mind and to find ways to balance the benefits of AI-generated content with the unique qualities of human creativity.

The use of AI in developing personalized content for individual readers

One of the most promising applications of AI in creative writing is its ability to develop personalized content for individual readers. By analyzing a reader's preferences and reading history, AI algorithms can generate content that is tailored to their interests and reading level.

This approach to content generation has the potential to revolutionize the way we consume and interact with written material. Instead of passively consuming content that has been developed for a broad audience, readers can receive content that is uniquely suited to their individual tastes and needs.

AI algorithms can analyze a reader's reading history to identify patterns in their interests and preferences. For example, if a reader has shown a preference for science fiction novels or historical non-fiction, AI algorithms can generate content that is similar in genre or style. This approach can help to surface content that the reader might not have discovered on their own, and can provide a more personalized reading experience.

In addition, AI algorithms can also adapt content to a reader's reading level. By analyzing factors such as sentence structure, vocabulary, and complexity, AI algorithms can adjust the level of difficulty of the content to match the reader's skill level. This can be particularly useful for young readers or for adults who are learning a new language or subject area.

Overall, the use of AI in developing personalized content for individual readers has the potential to revolutionize the way we consume and interact with written material. By tailoring content to a reader's interests and needs, AI algorithms can provide a more engaging and personalized reading experience, and can help to surface content that might otherwise go undiscovered. As AI technology continues to evolve, it will be exciting to see how it can be used to further enhance the way we consume and interact with written material.

The role of AI in enabling new forms of writing, such as interactive and immersive storytelling

AI is not only revolutionizing the way we write and consume written content but also enabling entirely new forms of writing, such as interactive and immersive storytelling. With the help of AI, writers can create experiences that allow readers to actively participate in the story, making the experience more engaging and immersive.

Interactive storytelling, in particular, is an area where AI is making significant strides. With the help of AI algorithms, writers can create branching narratives that allow readers to make choices that influence the direction and outcome of the story. This approach can create a sense of agency and immersion that traditional storytelling often lacks.

In addition to interactive storytelling, AI is also enabling new forms of immersive storytelling, such as virtual and augmented reality experiences. With the help of AI, these experiences can be personalized to the individual reader, creating a sense of presence and immersion that traditional storytelling cannot match.

Overall, the role of AI in enabling new forms of writing is an exciting development that is pushing the boundaries of what we consider to be "writing." With the help of AI algorithms, writers can create experiences that are more engaging, interactive, and immersive, allowing readers to become active participants in the story. As AI technology continues to evolve, it will be fascinating to see how writers use it to further enhance and expand the possibilities of storytelling.

The future of AI in creative writing and its potential implications for the field

The future of AI in creative writing is a topic of much speculation and excitement, with many experts predicting that AI will continue to play an increasingly important role in the field. As AI technology continues to evolve, it has the potential to transform the way we write, consume, and interact with written content, and to open up new possibilities for creativity, innovation, and collaboration.

One of the most significant implications of AI for creative writing is its potential to democratize the field, making it more accessible to a wider range of individuals. With the help of AI, individuals with little or no formal writing training can create high-quality written content that is engaging, informative, and entertaining. This can be particularly important in fields such as journalism or content creation, where the ability to write well is often a prerequisite for success.

AI also has the potential to enhance collaboration and creativity in the writing process. With the help of AI algorithms, writers can receive real-time feedback on their work, making it easier to identify areas for improvement and to refine their ideas. Additionally, AI can help writers generate new ideas and explore different creative directions, leading to more innovative and engaging written content.

However, the growing role of AI in creative writing also raises important ethical and societal questions. For example, what happens when AI-generated content becomes indistinguishable from human-generated content? Will readers be able to tell the difference, and if not, what implications will this have for the integrity of written content?

Overall, the future of AI in creative writing is an exciting and rapidly evolving area, with far-reaching implications for the field. As AI technology continues to evolve, it will be fascinating to see how it is used to enhance and transform the way we write, consume, and interact with written content, and to explore the ethical and societal implications of these developments.

The ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI in creative writing

As with any emerging technology, there are ethical considerations that must be taken into account when it comes to the use of AI in creative writing. While AI has the potential to revolutionize the writing process and make it more efficient and effective, there are also concerns about its impact on human creativity, copyright law, and the future of the writing profession.

One of the key ethical considerations surrounding AI in creative writing is the question of authorship. If AI is used to generate content, who should be considered the author of that content? Should it be the programmer who wrote the AI algorithm, the company that owns the algorithm, or the end user who puts the algorithm to work? This is a question that has yet to be fully resolved, and it has significant implications for copyright law and the future of the writing profession.

Another ethical consideration is the potential impact of AI-generated content on human creativity. While AI can be a powerful tool for generating ideas and streamlining the writing process, there are concerns that it may also stifle human creativity by making it too easy to produce high-quality content. Some experts worry that the use of AI in writing could lead to a world where all writing sounds the same, with little room for individual expression or innovation.

There are also concerns about the impact of AI on the job market for writers. As AI becomes more sophisticated, it may be able to replace human writers in certain areas, leading to a decrease in demand for skilled writers and a shift in the balance of power between writers and publishers.

Finally, there are ethical concerns related to the use of AI in the production of biased or misleading content. If AI algorithms are programmed with biased or incomplete data, they may produce content that reinforces existing stereotypes or promotes misinformation. It's important to ensure that AI is used in a responsible and ethical manner, with a focus on promoting diversity, equity, and accuracy in all forms of writing.

Overall, the ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI in creative writing are complex and multifaceted. It's important for writers, publishers, and policymakers to consider these issues carefully as they explore the potential benefits and risks of this emerging technology.

Wrapping up

The future of creative writing with AI technology is a fascinating and rapidly evolving area that has the potential to transform the way we write, consume, and interact with written content. AI algorithms are already being used to generate story ideas and plotlines, to improve the editing and revision process, and to develop personalized content for individual readers. In addition, AI is enabling entirely new forms of writing, such as interactive and immersive storytelling, which allow readers to actively participate in the story.

While AI technology has many exciting possibilities, it also raises important ethical and societal questions, such as the impact of AI on the publishing industry and the job market for writers, and the potential for AI to replicate human creativity and emotion. Despite these concerns, the future of AI in creative writing is bright, and as the technology continues to evolve, it will be fascinating to see how writers use it to further enhance and expand the possibilities of storytelling.

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How AI Tools Enhance Creative Writing

Crafting a new story from scratch is a formidable challenge, especially when it comes to creating unique ideas or selecting the words to bring your narrative to life. This is a common hurdle encountered by writers of all calibers, from novices to seasoned authors.

Thankfully, the advent of new tools in artificial intelligence, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs) , offers a beacon of hope. Let's delve into how AI can significantly enhance the creative writing process, providing solutions and inspiration where previously there was frustration and writer's block.

Getting around writer's block with AI

While there are many books and articles out there about coming up with a story idea, AI makes this much easier. An AI book writing software can help in developing creative story ideas and using just the right wording and style choices for your audience.

Writer's block is a notorious impediment, often hindering authors from finding that novel twist or groundbreaking idea. AI technology can serve as a catalyst in this regard. By leveraging AI, writers can access a wealth of information sourced from across the digital expanse, eliminating the need for exhaustive research.

The truth is, when it comes to constructing rich, detailed scenarios, our knowledge is limited by our experiences. It's challenging to write authentically about situations or settings we haven't personally encountered. AI steps into this gap by offering a variety of concepts and scenarios, generated from prompts you provide. This virtual brainstorming can unearth scenarios and examples that inject fresh inspiration into your work, acting as a springboard for new or expanded ideas. For instance, our Writing Prompt Generator leverages AI to generate alternatives to over one thousand story starters we have written over the years, helping writers easily find and explore new narrative possibilities.

Moreover, AI simplifies the process of idea generation, akin to having a personal assistant whose sole purpose is to help you craft compelling narratives. This is not just about overcoming a temporary block; it's about revolutionizing the way we approach the creative process itself. AI tools can analyze vast datasets to identify trends, patterns, and gaps in existing literature, suggesting avenues of exploration that might not be immediately obvious to the human mind. This level of analysis can reveal underexplored themes or perspectives, offering writers a unique edge in storytelling.

AI's capacity for natural language processing also allows it to understand and mimic various writing styles, making it an invaluable tool for experimenting with voice and tone. Writers can feed the AI examples of their work, and the AI can produce content in a similar style, but with new ideas or expressions. This can be particularly useful for authors looking to maintain consistency in long projects or series but who want to ensure each piece feels fresh and engaging.

Furthermore, AI can help writers build out their characters and worlds in more depth. By inputting basic information about a character or setting, AI can generate detailed backstories, cultural histories, or personality traits. This can be a boon for writers working on complex narratives who need to maintain a high level of detail across multiple storylines or universes.

The collaborative nature of AI in the creative process also opens up new avenues for co-creation. Writers can interact with AI in real-time, refining ideas and exploring different narrative paths as they write. This dynamic interaction can keep the creative juices flowing, reducing the periods of stagnation that often lead to writer's block.

Lastly, the accessibility of AI tools democratizes the writing process, making it easier for people with different backgrounds to tell their stories. By providing assistance with language, grammar , and storytelling, AI can help bridge the gap for emerging writers who may lack formal training in writing but possess powerful stories to tell. This could lead to a richer literary landscape, fueled by voices that have historically been underrepresented.

In essence, AI's role in overcoming writer's block is just the tip of the iceberg. As we delve deeper into the potential of these technologies, we're beginning to see a future where AI doesn't just help us navigate creative obstacles but actively enhances our creative capacities, enabling us to tell stories in ways we never thought possible.

AI, word choice, and style

As a writer, you may have spent years building your vocabulary so that you can find the perfect word to describe exactly what you mean. AI can be an invaluable ally in this objective, offering suggestions for word choice and sentence structure that may not immediately come to mind.

AI's grasp of style and tone is surprisingly nuanced. By inputting a sample of your writing, AI can suggest alterations or rewrites, offering a new perspective on your own stylistic approach.

Moreover, AI can introduce writers to a broader linguistic palette, pulling from a large set of languages and dialects. This can be especially beneficial when crafting dialogues for characters from varied backgrounds or when trying to infuse a narrative with a particular cultural essence. By analyzing vast amounts of text, AI can suggest authentic dialogue options and descriptive phrases that resonate with specific cultural or social idioms, thereby adding depth and authenticity to the narrative.

AI's ability to adapt to different genres and writing styles is another area where it shines. AI can adjust its suggestions to fit the genre's conventions and the audience's expectations. This flexibility allows writers to experiment with various genres and styles, pushing creative boundaries and exploring new narrative territories without losing their voice or authenticity.

In addition, AI tools can help writers understand the emotional impact of their words, offering insights into how their writing might be perceived by readers. By analyzing the emotional tone of text, AI can suggest adjustments to better align with the intended reader experience, whether that's to excite, soothe, inspire, or provoke thought. This level of analysis can be particularly useful in fine-tuning the emotional resonance of key scenes or dialogues, ensuring that the narrative hits the mark with its intended audience.

Through these capabilities, AI not only acts as a tool for enhancing word choice and style but also becomes a collaborative partner in the creative process, helping writers to hone their craft in ways that were previously unimaginable. The partnership between human creativity and AI's analytical prowess opens up new horizons in storytelling, enabling writers to explore and express their narratives with greater depth, precision, and emotional impact.

Enhancing readability

AI's role in enhancing readability extends beyond mere spell-checking to encompass the refinement of complex sentences and the improvement of narrative structure. It can identify passages that may be difficult for readers to understand due to convoluted syntax or advanced vocabulary and suggest simpler alternatives without compromising the text's integrity or the author's voice. This ensures that the message is accessible to a broader audience, making the text not only more enjoyable to read but also more inclusive.

Additionally, AI can analyze the pacing of a narrative, identifying sections that might drag or disrupt the flow of the story. It can suggest where to cut down on lengthy descriptions or where to add detail to flesh out the scene and characters, thus maintaining the reader's engagement throughout the story. This aspect of AI is particularly useful for long-form writing, where maintaining consistent pacing is crucial for keeping readers invested from beginning to end.

AI's capacity to adapt its suggestions based on specific audience demographics is another significant advantage. For instance, writing intended for young readers can be optimized for simplicity and excitement, while science fiction technical writing can be adjusted to adhere to the appropriate levels of complexity and formality. By tailoring the readability according to the target audience, AI helps writers strike the perfect balance between being understood and maintaining the depth of their content. This tailored approach not only enhances the reader's experience but also amplifies the writer's ability to connect with their audience effectively, making AI an indispensable tool in the modern writer's toolkit.

Boosting productivity

AI's capability to offer instant suggestions extends into research and data collection, areas that traditionally consume a considerable portion of a writer's time. By quickly gathering relevant information, statistics, or background material, AI tools enable writers to spend more time developing their narratives rather than sifting through endless sources. This not only speeds up the writing process but also ensures that the information integrated into the narrative is accurate and up-to-date, enhancing the overall quality of the work produced.

Moreover, AI can assist in organizing thoughts and ideas through the use of digital outlines and storyboards. By inputting a basic plot or theme, writers can leverage AI to structure their narratives, suggesting a logical progression of events or arguments that ensures coherence and flow. This structural assistance is invaluable for maintaining clarity of thought, especially in complex projects involving multiple storylines or intricate concepts. As a result, writers can approach their projects with a clear roadmap, reducing the likelihood of encountering writer's block and boosting overall productivity.

In addition, AI-powered writing tools often come with features designed to enhance focus, such as goal setting and progress tracking. Writers can set daily word count goals, for example, and receive reminders and encouragement from the AI. This gamification of the writing process can motivate writers to maintain a steady pace, turning the daunting task of completing a manuscript into a series of achievable milestones. By breaking down the writing process into manageable segments and providing constant support, AI can transform writing from a solitary endeavor into an interactive and engaging experience, further boosting productivity and the overall enjoyment of the creative process.

While you explore AI's capabilities, it's equally important to stay mindful of digital security. Utilizing tools like password managers , VPNs, and two-factor authentication can help protect your personal information, allowing you to focus on your writing with confidence and peace of mind. It's also wise to invest in the best antivirus software to safeguard your system against malware and other threats. Choosing the best antivirus ensures comprehensive protection, keeping your devices secure while you harness the power of AI in your work.

Mastering prompts

The art of crafting effective AI prompts also involves understanding the capabilities and limitations of the AI you're working with. Familiarizing yourself with the specific AI model's strengths can greatly enhance the quality of the output. As you become more adept at formulating prompts, you'll learn how to ask questions or frame requests in ways that play to the AI's strengths, thereby maximizing the utility of the tool for your specific needs. This nuanced understanding enables a more symbiotic relationship between the writer and the AI, where both parties' capabilities are leveraged to produce the best possible results.

Additionally, experimenting with different types of prompts can unlock new creative possibilities. For instance, you might explore prompts that ask the AI to suggest plot twists, develop character backstories, or even write in the style of a particular author. This exploratory approach not only expands your creative toolkit but also introduces elements of surprise and novelty into your writing process. Over time, this practice can lead to a more dynamic and innovative creative process, where the AI becomes a source of inspiration that challenges you to think outside the box and explore new narrative territories.

Keeping a record of successful prompts and the context in which they were effective can serve as a valuable reference for future projects. Additionally, sharing experiences and strategies with a community of writers who also use AI can provide new insights and approaches to refining your prompt-crafting skills. As the technology continues to evolve , so too will the strategies for interacting with it, making the mastery of AI prompts an ongoing and rewarding aspect of modern creative writing.

AI stands as a powerful ally in creative writing. Its ability to offer rapid assistance with word choice and idea generation can significantly elevate a writer's productivity and creative output. The key is to embrace AI as a tool in your creative arsenal, experimenting with prompts and discovering the myriad ways in which it can enrich your writing journey.

Why not take the plunge? Familiarize yourself with an AI model and begin exploring the vast potential it holds for transforming your creative process. The results might just surprise you, sparking your creativity in ways you never imagined.

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How Generative AI Can Augment Human Creativity

• Tojin T. Eapen,
• Daniel J. Finkenstadt,
• Lokesh Venkataswamy

There is tremendous apprehension about the potential of generative AI—technologies that can create new content such as text, images, and video—to replace people in many jobs. But one of the biggest opportunities generative AI offers is to augment human creativity and overcome the challenges of democratizing innovation.

In the past two decades, companies have used crowdsourcing and idea competitions to involve outsiders in the innovation process. But many businesses have struggled to capitalize on these contributions. They’ve lacked an efficient way to evaluate the ideas, for instance, or to synthesize different ideas.

Generative AI can help over­come those challenges, the authors say. It can supplement the creativity of employees and customers and help them produce and identify novel ideas—and improve the quality of raw ideas. Specifically, companies can use generative AI to promote divergent thinking, challenge expertise bias, assist in idea evaluation, support idea refinement, and facilitate collaboration among users.

Use it to promote divergent thinking.

Idea in Brief

The problem.

In the past two decades, companies’ efforts to involve outsiders in the process of coming up with new offerings have taken off. Crowdsourcing and idea competitions are two prime examples. But firms still struggle to make use of the plethora of ideas that are generated.

The Root Causes

A lack of an efficient way to evaluate the ideas, domain experts’ struggles in accepting novel ideas, the inability of contributors to provide details needed to make their ideas feasible, and the challenge of synthesizing different ideas are all factors.

The Solution

Generative AI can help overcome these challenges. It can augment the creativity of employees and customers and help them generate and identify novel ideas as well as improve the quality of raw ideas.

There is tremendous apprehension about the potential of generative AI—technologies that can create new content such as audio, text, images, and video—to replace people in many jobs. But one of the biggest opportunities generative AI offers to businesses and governments is to augment human creativity and overcome the challenges of democratizing innovation.

• Tojin T. Eapen is the founder of the Center for Creative Foresight, a senior fellow at the Conference Board, and an adviser at StratRocket.
• Daniel J. Finkenstadt is a U.S. military officer, an academic researcher, and the principal of Wolf Stake Consulting. He is a coauthor of the books Supply Chain Immunity (2023) and Bioinspired Strategic Design (2024).
• JF Josh Folk is the CEO and cofounder of StratRocket, an AI-native innovation SaaS platform.
• LV Lokesh Venkataswamy is the CEO and managing director of Innomantra, an innovation and intellectual-property consulting firm in Bengaluru, India.

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How writers can use AI writing tools to be more creative (even if they’re scared)

What type of content do you primarily create?

As technology advances, so do the tools available to creatives. First it was movable type, then mechanical pencils, and now we have generative AI. You’ve surely heard of it by now — it uses something called a large language model to create content based on prompts you give it. Generative AI tools can produce text (along with audio, video, pictures, and other things) and they can do it faster and cheaper than you, a human. 

That of course raises the fear that it could replace those of us who write for a living. And, yeah, that’s possible: if you write commodity copy, like paint-by-keyword SEO articles or super-safe marketing emails, generative AI will probably be able to do your job better and faster in the near future — if it doesn’t already.

But before you start studying for that real estate license, let’s recognize that, for most creatives — anyone whose job is to conjure original ideas and make something fresh — generative AI is just another tool you can use to streamline your process, or even to enhance your creativity. 

That goes for writers as much as anyone. We spoke to three who are already using generative AI writing tools in their work to get their insights on how to use AI to its fullest potential while protecting the human heart and soul in everything they make.

Plugging AI into your creative process

For novelist Leanne Leeds , generative AI was just a faster way of doing what she’d been doing already. “I kept a database of e-books I bought from writers that I liked. If I was writing and got stuck with phrasing or how to end a sentence or how to say something in a different way, I'd search through that database and flip through other authors' work to get ideas.” AI seemed like a more powerful version of her own database, so using it just made sense.

For anyone who writes, generative AI is a fantastic tool for getting out of ruts and finding the right word or phrase for the moment. Bestselling author Joanna Penn , who writes both thrillers and nonfiction — including “Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Virtual Worlds: The Impact of Converging Technologies On Authors and the Publishing Industry” — uses it a lot for this purpose. “AI tools enable me to ideate and iterate faster, and to spark off into other ideas,” she says.

But it’s much more than that. “The most exciting part is that it opens up the creative process to everyone, not just a chosen select few,” says storytelling professor and consultant Jim Hull. Jim funneled his 20 years as an animator and director at Disney and Dreamworks into Subtxt , an AI writing assistant that pairs a predictive narrative framework with AI text generation, and he is “definitely bullish on AI supporting the creative process.”

He has seen many potential artists drop their creative pursuit because they can’t get past their impostor syndrome and just start making stuff. “They feel that if they weren't ‘born with it,’ or if they didn't go to art school that they're not allowed to be creative in any shape or form,” he says. “With these new generative AI tools, the neophyte artist can start with nothing — and quickly see something that, in essence, gives them that permission to go on.”

With our powers combined

But once you add AI into the mix, who’s to say what’s yours, and what’s the robot’s? If you can get AI to do your writing, art, or video production for you, why do you need to be there?

First of all, even the best AI isn’t good enough yet to fully replace the human hand. “I've yet to see something that has come back, whether through GPT-3, ChatGPT, DALL-E, or Midjourney that didn't need some kind of tweaking,” Jim says.

Joanna agrees. “There is no magic button I can press to output a perfectly formed finished product, nor would I want to, anyway.”

That’s the thing: however you use generative AI tools, the creative decisions — what to include and leave out, how to say what you want to say, when humor moments work, and so on — remain ultimately, entirely, up to you. 

“It’s like having a super car sitting outside your house,” Joanna says. “It has huge potential, and it can go in any direction and end up in any place eventually. But you have to decide where to go, and you have to drive it there. The tool is nothing without the human behind the wheel.”

In addition, most people don’t create in a vacuum — they have help. It’s just that their help is usually human. “Currently, my books are around 90% my own words and around 10% augmented in some way with artificial intelligence,” Leanne says. “That 10% that has been augmented isn't much more than what my editor would augment by cleaning up phrasings or clunky statements or rearranging the presentation for clarity.”

There’s also something deeper at play: most creators like creating. Ancient humans didn’t make cave paintings to sell at auction; they did it because there’s something inherent to humanity that drives us to create. While companies will inevitably start using AI to pump out blog posts, marketing materials, and maybe even a few creative efforts like songs and novels, humans are not going to stop creating — and by extension, they likely won’t stop consuming human-made content, either.

Shortcomings to keep in mind

So the good news is that AI isn’t perfect. That’s also the bad news, if you were expecting it to make creative work easy.

The first challenge for creators using AI technology is that many of these tools are really technical — though more and more products are coming out that harness the power of the underlying AI with a more intuitive user interface. For example, Joanna started by using OpenAI’s GPT-3 on its own, which she found too difficult. Then she found Sudowrite , which uses GPT-3 to analyze characters, tone, and plot and offer ideas for what should happen next in a story — “essentially a pre-prompted front end,” as Joanna puts it.

Leanne uses Sudowrite too, and finds that it’s less a silver bullet for her creative challenges and more like a slot machine. “You hit the button, pay a coin, and hope that something awesome hits that's perfect — but most of the time, that's not going to be the case. It's rare that I see a paragraph the AI generated and I'm instantly impressed and ready to incorporate the entire paragraph as is. It's happened, but it's rare,” she says.

Generative AI can also offer up creative suggestions you didn’t ask for and would never want. The AI behind Subtxt will sometimes try to rewrite fiction stories to make them happier, for example, despite the fact that some of history’s greatest literature ends in tragedy. This is something Jim is actively working to change so that the tool stays aligned with the artist's intentions.

Likewise, the AI might want to inject some action in a spot where the character is deliberately taking no action — to resolve a conflict, for instance. “This would be the part where human intervention is still needed, and where I see the generative process as additive rather than as a replacement,” Jim says.

And finally, there are the ethical concerns. AI is only as good as the data used to build it, and any data pulled from the world at large is bound to have biases. And the more AI-assisted content that’s out there, the worse those biases will become. AI can also get facts wrong or make things up entirely.

Then there’s the issue of plagiarism and copyright, which is a thorny subject. And one that writers can expect to be on both sides of — seeing their own work parroted by AI tools and learning that they lifted from another writer via AI tools. “We need to be a bit gentle with each other as a creative community while this is getting worked out legally,” Leanne says. “It's going to get murkier before the waters clear.”

There are a few fixes out there for these issues. Joanna worked with the Alliance of Independent Authors to create guidelines for using AI, which include things like being aware of AI’s biases; editing, curating, and taking responsibility for anything you publish; and labeling anything created with the help of AI.

“For example, I include a statement of AI usage in my books, and I add a badge on my AI-generated audiobooks,” Joanna says.

Should you be afraid of generative AI? 

Probably! Generative AI has the potential to usher in a generational shift in the way we do lots of things, including creating content. That’s scary, and it’s okay to fear it. But don’t let it stop you from experimenting — that alone could help you get past your fears.

"Most people who are scared have not tried the tools yet,” Joanna says. She advises starting with the tasks you don’t enjoy doing, like writing promotional copy or website metadata.

It’s also okay to be afraid for your livelihood. If you make a living doing something that a computer can suddenly do — well, we’ve all seen how that turns out. But if you’re good at what you do, it will be a long time before the AI can replace you. And figuring out how you can use it to make you even better is probably your best defense against it. Plus, fear is rarely an ingredient in any recipe for creativity.

“I don't believe what is ultimately fear-based thinking is good for anyone, least of all the artist,” Jim says.

And in the end, AI is coming — whether you’re ready for it or not. So creators might as well embrace it.

“It’s early days,” Joanna says, “but like the internet, or electricity, AI will soon be part of almost everything we do.”

The author used the AI tool Whiskey to turn her rambled thoughts into a cohesive introduction paragraph and Lex AI for suggestions when her writing flow stalled. All AI-generated content was then edited by a human.

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Computer Science > Human-Computer Interaction

Title: creative writing with an ai-powered writing assistant: perspectives from professional writers.

Abstract: Recent developments in natural language generation (NLG) using neural language models have brought us closer than ever to the goal of building AI-powered creative writing tools. However, most prior work on human-AI collaboration in the creative writing domain has evaluated new systems with amateur writers, typically in contrived user studies of limited scope. In this work, we commissioned 13 professional, published writers from a diverse set of creative writing backgrounds to craft stories using Wordcraft, a text editor with built-in AI-powered writing assistance tools. Using interviews and participant journals, we discuss the potential of NLG to have significant impact in the creative writing domain--especially with respect to brainstorming, generation of story details, world-building, and research assistance. Experienced writers, more so than amateurs, typically have well-developed systems and methodologies for writing, as well as distinctive voices and target audiences. Our work highlights the challenges in building for these writers; NLG technologies struggle to preserve style and authorial voice, and they lack deep understanding of story contents. In order for AI-powered writing assistants to realize their full potential, it is essential that they take into account the diverse goals and expertise of human writers.

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Ai is contentious among authors. so why are some feeding it their own writing.

Chloe Veltman

The vast majority of authors don't use artificial intelligence as part of their creative process — or at least won't admit to it.

Yet according to a recent poll from the writers' advocacy nonprofit The Authors Guild, 13% said they do use AI, for activities like brainstorming character ideas and creating outlines.

The technology is a vexed topic in the literary world. Many authors are concerned about the use of their copyrighted material in generative AI models. At the same time, some are actively using these technologies — even attempting to train AI models on their own works.

These experiments, though limited, are teaching their authors new things about creativity.

Best known as the author of technology and business-oriented non-fiction books like The Long Tail, lately Chris Anderson has been trying his hand at fiction. Anderson is working on his second novel, about drone warfare.

He says he wants to put generative AI technology to the test.

"I wanted to see whether in fact AI can do more than just help me organize my thoughts, but actually start injecting new thoughts," Anderson says.

Anderson says he fed parts of his first novel into an AI writing platform to help him write this new one. The system surprised him by moving his opening scene from a corporate meeting room to a karaoke bar.

Authors push back on the growing number of AI 'scam' books on Amazon

"And I was like, you know? That could work!" Anderson says. "I ended up writing the scene myself. But the idea was the AI's."

Anderson says he didn't use a single actual word the AI platform generated. The sentences were grammatically correct, he says, but fell way short in terms of replicating his writing style. Although he admits to being disappointed, Anderson says ultimately he's OK with having to do some of the heavy lifting himself: "Maybe that's just the universe telling me that writing actually involves the act of writing."

Training an AI model to imitate style

It's very hard for off-the-shelf AI models like GPT and Claude to emulate contemporary literary authors' styles.

The authors NPR talked with say that's because these models are predominantly trained on content scraped from the Internet like news articles, Wikipedia entries and how-to manuals — standard, non-literary prose.

But some authors, like Sasha Stiles , say they have been able to make these systems suit their stylistic needs.

"There are moments where I do ask my machine collaborator to write something and then I use what's come out verbatim," Stiles says.

The poet and AI researcher says she wanted to make the off-the-shelf AI models she'd been experimenting with for years more responsive to her own poetic voice.

So she started customizing them by inputting her finished poems, drafts, and research notes.

"All with the intention to sort of mentor a bespoke poetic alter ego," Stiles says.

She has collaborated with this bespoke poetic alter ego on a variety of projects, including Technelegy (2021), a volume of poetry published by Black Spring Press; and " Repetae: Again, Again ," a multimedia poem created last year for luxury fashion brand Gucci.

Stiles says working with her AI persona has led her to ask questions about whether what she's doing is in fact poetic, and where the line falls between the human and the machine.

read it again… pic.twitter.com/sAs2xhdufD — Sasha Stiles | AI alter ego Technelegy ✍️🤖 (@sashastiles) November 28, 2023

"It's been really a provocative thing to be able to use these tools to create poetry," she says.

Potential issues come with these experiments

These types of experiments are also provocative in another way. Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger says she's not opposed to authors training AI models on their own writing.

"If you're using AI to create derivative works of your own work, that is completely acceptable," Rasenberger says.

Thousands of authors urge AI companies to stop using work without permission

But building an AI system that responds fluently to user prompts requires vast amounts of training data. So the foundational AI models that underpin most of these investigations in literary style may contain copyrighted works.

Rasenberger pointed to the recent wave of lawsuits brought by authors alleging AI companies trained their models on unauthorized copies of articles and books.

"If the output does in fact contain other people's works, that creates real ethical concerns," she says. "Because that you should be getting permission for."

Circumventing ethical problems while being creative

Award-winning speculative fiction writer Ken Liu says he wanted to circumvent these ethical problems, while at the same time creating new aesthetic possibilities using AI.

So the former software engineer and lawyer attempted to train an AI model solely on his own output. He says he fed all of his short stories and novels into the system — and nothing else.

Liu says he knew this approach was doomed to fail.

That's because the entire life's work of any single writer simply doesn't contain enough words to produce a viable so-called large language model.

"I don't care how prolific you are," Liu says. "It's just not going to work."

Liu's AI system built only on his own writing produced predictable results.

"It barely generated any phrases, even," Liu says. "A lot of it was just gibberish."

Yet for Liu, that was the point. He put this gibberish to work in a short story. 50 Things Every AI Working With Humans Should Know , published in Uncanny Magazine in 2020, is a meditation on what it means to be human from the perspective of a machine.

"Dinoted concentration crusch the dead gods," is an example of one line in Liu's story generated by his custom-built AI model. "A man reached the torch for something darker perified it seemed the billboding," is another.

Liu continues to experiment with AI. He says the technology shows promise, but is still very limited. If anything, he says, his experiments have reaffirmed why human art matters.

"So what is the point of experimenting with AIs?" Liu says. "The point for me really is about pushing the boundaries of what is art."

Audio and digital stories edited by Meghan Collins Sullivan .

• large language model
• mary rasenberger
• chris anderson
• sasha stiles
• authors guild

Creative Writing with an AI-Powered Writing Assistant: Perspectives from Professional Writers

Recent developments in natural language generation (NLG) using neural language models have brought us closer than ever to the goal of building AI-powered creative writing tools. However, most prior work on human-AI collaboration in the creative writing domain has evaluated new systems with amateur writers, typically in contrived user studies of limited scope. In this work, we commissioned 13 professional, published writers from a diverse set of creative writing backgrounds to craft stories using Wordcraft, a text editor with built-in AI-powered writing assistance tools. Using interviews and participant journals, we discuss the potential of NLG to have significant impact in the creative writing domain–especially with respect to brainstorming, generation of story details, world-building, and research assistance. Experienced writers, more so than amateurs, typically have well-developed systems and methodologies for writing, as well as distinctive voices and target audiences. Our work highlights the challenges in building for these writers; NLG technologies struggle to preserve style and authorial voice, and they lack deep understanding of story contents. In order for AI-powered writing assistants to realize their full potential, it is essential that they take into account the diverse goals and expertise of human writers.

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Will AI Replace My Creative Writing Degree?

• Artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT threaten to displace writers.
• The Writers Guild of America strike involves the use of AI in screenwriting.
• AI can create content, but it’s not purely creative in the ways humans are.
• It’s best to think of AI as a complementary tool aiding the creative process.

So there you were last fall, comfortably ensconced in your creative writing degree program, eyeing a career — or at least a side hustle — as an author, screenwriter, copywriter, or any other endeavor rooted in the written word.

Then ChatGPT happened. The November 2022 launch of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot turned the creative world upside down.

Will this new tool constitute a godsend, a fount of inspiration and ideation destined to make writing tasks easier? Or is it the Grim Reaper come to collect humanity’s creative soul and terminate any aspirations you may harbor for a writing career?

In other words, will AI render your degree obsolete?

Hollywood Writers Protest AI’s Incursion

Given that the most celebrated manifestation of AI, ChatGPT, produces written content on demand, it’s no surprise writers rank high among the professionals most affected by this technology.

A recent study by OpenAI (which owns ChatGPT), OpenResearch, and the University of Pennsylvania found that creative writers and authors have extraordinarily high “exposure” to disruption from AI tools.

This new reality caught the attention of the Writers Guild of America, whose members went on strike in May. Among other concerns, the union aims to “ regulate use of material produced using artificial intelligence or similar technologies.”

Could AI replace Hollywood writers? To test this theory, I asked ChatGPT to write me a “Ted Lasso” script. Now that the series has ended , perhaps fans can binge on bot-written episodes.

Here’s what it offered:

Title: “Believe in the Beard”

INT. AFC RICHMOND LOCKER ROOM — DAY

Ted Lasso, the charismatic American football coach, stands in the center of the locker room, surrounded by his team, AFC Richmond. They look tired and demoralized after a series of defeats.

TED LASSO (With a smile) Alright, fellas. Gather ’round. I got a little story to tell ya.

The players exchange curious glances, but they humor their coach and lean in closer.

TED LASSO (CONT’D) Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there was a little sapling. This sapling had a dream, a dream to grow into a mighty oak tree. But as time went on, the sapling faced droughts, storms, and even the harsh winter winds.

The players listen intently, captivated by Ted’s storytelling.

And so forth. It went on for some time, though I didn’t stick around to see the rest.

Presumably, clicking “regenerate” would result in yet another script. Do that 11 more times and you’ll have a full season, though one no doubt comprising a series of unrelated stories and not a continuous arc.

Still, it’s easy to see what’s causing all this consternation . Assuming a showrunner could feed the bot specific details and curate the results until a feasible plot unfolds, complete with realistic dialogue, the role of professional writers would significantly diminish.

At the very least, chatbots could rewrite certain scenes expeditiously and, with some guidance, expertly.

“That’s the nightmare scenario,” John August, who’s on the Writers Guild negotiating committee, told The New York Times .

Michael Schur, creator of “The Good Place” and co-creator of “Parks and Recreation,” harbors a similar fear of AI interference.

“It is not out of the realm of possibility that before 2026, which is the next time we will negotiate with these companies, they might just go, ‘You know what, we’re good,'” he told the Times . “We don’t need you. We have a bunch of AIs that are creating a bunch of entertainment that people are kind of OK with.”

Although that’s the rub. Will AI material be just “good enough” to pass muster with an audience? Or will it seem derivative, largely because AI doesn’t create anything new but rather repackages and regurgitates what’s already been produced?

The answer, it seems, involves the notion of what, exactly, it means to be creative.

Can AI Replicate Human Creativity?

No doubt AI chatbots can create content, but are they creative in the ways humans are, perhaps even moreso?

In a New York Times op-ed , famed linguist Noam Chomsky and his colleagues note the advent of tools such as ChatGPT have signaled the arrival of anthropomorphic bots capable of human thought processes.

Some warn we’ve reached “that long-prophesied moment when mechanical minds surpass human brains not only quantitatively in terms of processing speed and memory size but also qualitatively in terms of intellectual insight, artistic creativity and every other distinctively human faculty,” they wrote.

Initially, this seems preposterous. Machines can’t think; they only process. Certainly, no bot could, for example, produce poetry capable of fooling literary experts, could it?

Well, it turns out one could. A team from Microsoft and Kyoto University created an AI poetry tool and tested the results using Amazon Mechanical Turk , a crowdsourcing website ironically claiming “there are many things human beings do much more effectively than computers.”

The experts, the study found , were “fooled more often than not.”

That’s because we can, in fact, “teach” a computer to be creative, claims Craig Wisneski, co-founder of the AI platform Akkio.

“Given the tremendous rate of progress we’re seeing in AI,” he wrote , “we can naturally expect AI’s creativity to continuously improve to the point where AI-created art could be indistinguishable from human art in any area.”

However, Wisneski added, computers aren’t able to create truly random data. And randomness, producing something truly novel, lies at the heart of human creativity.

“Humans can create and perceive patterns from (apparent or real) randomness, because humans, for better or worse, see patterns everywhere,” Wisneski wrote. “But computers can only work in existing patterns; it’s actually impossible for a computer to internally create truly random — and therefore truly original — data.”

Take ChatGPT. Its algorithm sorts through millions of sources searching for the next most likely word based on patterns it has “learned,” creating strings of text that seem logical and plausible.

Yet true creativity is not using that next most common word but instead finding new pairings and sequences, producing that “spark of genius” that connects ideas with surprising, not predictable, results.

“The key characteristic of AI’s creative processes is that the current computational creativity is systematic, not impulsive, as its human counterpart can often be,” Chloe Preece wrote in The Conversation . “It is programmed to process information in a certain way to achieve particular results predictably, albeit in often unexpected ways.”

Any AI attempt to create will be “constrained by the bounds of its training data,” notes the futurist Thomas Frey, “making it less likely to generate truly original or groundbreaking ideas that have not been seen before.”

A counterargument might suggest all creativity is simply iterative and derivative, building on existing human knowledge and understanding.

We all have frames of reference we draw upon when creating something “new.” Writers use the same 26 letters, at least in the English language, and operate within an established vocabulary codified by the dictionary. (Devotees of constructed languages might beg to differ, however.)

Consider the truly revolutionary inventions in history: the printing press, the light bulb, the telephone, the automobile, the steam engine, the airplane, the computer, the internet, the pet rock . None of these sprang from whole cloth but rather manifested when people combined existing materials to incrementally advance the boundaries of knowledge.

Yes, Your Degree Will Remain Valuable

How do I know this? ChatGPT told me.

I asked the bot if it planned to replace my creative writing degree (for argument’s sake, let’s say I have one). Its reply:

“While AI can generate text based on patterns and data, it may struggle to replicate the depth and complexity of human creativity. Creative writing is not just about producing words; it involves personal expression, storytelling, and the ability to evoke emotions. These aspects often require human intuition, empathy, and the ability to think critically, which AI may not fully possess.

Your degree equips you with a range of skills that go beyond the technical aspects of writing, such as critical thinking, analysis, and communication, which are invaluable in the field of writing and beyond.”

Even the almighty bot concedes.

Instead of fearing AI, think of it as a companion tool augmenting your work, suggests Wayne Butterfield, a partner at ISG Automation.

“Rather than put people out of work, using AI alongside their own skills enables even jingle writers, artists, etc., to do more, faster and potentially cheaper,” he said .

Because ultimately, AI isn’t sentient . It can’t feel or emote. It can’t express what it means to love, to yearn, to mourn, to exalt. It can borrow another’s words capturing those experiences, but that expression will ring hollow without a human author.

In a world filled with AI content, consumers will gravitate toward the authentic and pay a premium for it .

So rest easy and continue pursuing your bachelor’s or master’s degree in creative writing or your MFA in fiction or poetry or nonfiction. In the battle against bots threatening to reduce creativity to algorithmic formulas, we need your help.

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5 Best AI Writing Tools: Supercharge Your Content Creation

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Over the past two years, the market has been flooded with sparkly artificial intelligence tools that promise to improve our writing. Generative AI’s primary function is content creation, and chatbots are its most accessible form, so it is not surprising that the number of so-called “copilots” has grown quickly.

However, many are based on the same large language models and produce varying results. It is widely accepted that, without the human touch, AI favours cliched, repetitive content. This is especially the case for tasks used in a professional setting, such as drafting emails and marketing content.

Saying that, bespoke AI writing aids can be beneficial when used correctly. They can significantly speed up tasks, highlight grammatical errors you didn’t notice, keep your copy’s style on-brand, formulate scattered ideas, and help you overcome writer’s block. The best tools will also gear the user away from generic content that both puts off readers and flags AI detectors.

To help writers cut through the noise and find the AI that will do the best with the task at hand, TechRepublic has compiled a list of the top five tools for different writing tasks.

Best for spelling and grammar: Grammarly

Best for generating ideas: chatgpt, best for creating marketing content: jasper, best for emails and everyday tasks: flowrite, best for translation: deepl translate.

SEE: Scale Your SEO Writing With This AI-Powered Tool for Google Sheets

Best AI writing tools: Comparison table

Grammarly is one of the most well-known writing aids. It has been around since the pre-ChatGPT era, aiding users with their spelling and grammar wherever they’re typing, be it Word, Gmail, Teams, or just their to-do list. Additionally, the Grammarly widget will include suggestions on sentence structure, style, and clarity, on top of highlighting the typical typos and misplaced apostrophes. You can apply these edits with just a click.

This writing tool goes deeper with its suggestions than a simple spellchecker, especially if you upgrade to Pro level. One of the coolest things I’ve noticed is how it can direct you away from unconscious biases in your writing, such as suggesting “spokesperson” over “spokesman.” But it can also highlight “weak” choices of adjectives and when a more optimistic, convincing, formal, or otherwise appropriate word could be used within the context of the sentence.

Grammarly is more powerful than other AI writing assistants, in part, because it uses a proprietary LLM, rather than relying on offerings from OpenAI or another tech giant. Plus, if you like chatbots, it has also recently added the GrammarlyGO writing assistant that can respond to prompts based on your text.

Free for basic plan. Pro level costs $12/£10 a month and includes plagiarism detection, tone adjustment, sentence rewriting, and more.

Top features

Spellchecker, plagiarism checker, personalised weekly email with writing stats.

Pros and cons

By now, it would take a dedicated technophobe to have not heard of OpenAI’s ChatGPT . The chatbot has become almost synonymous with generative AI, since its release in November 2022 brought the power of the technology into the public consciousness. While it has brought about much valid criticism regarding its hallucinations , biases , security issues , and environmental impact , it can certainly prove helpful when writing if used responsibly and smartly.

ChatGPT’s intelligence means that it can interpret disparate ideas or half-baked questions, so it is useful for brainstorming. For example, if there’s a word on the tip of your tongue, you can prompt the bot with what it sounds like, the letter it starts with, and a general definition, and it is likely you’ll get your answer. The chat interface makes it easy to build on ideas, and the LLM’s wide breadth of knowledge means it can give you a starting point for almost any topic.

However, those that use ChatGPT regularly can quite easily spot its telltale signs; lists of threes, bullet point lists, “in the ever-evolving landscape,” to name just a few. This means that it is unwise to copy and paste large chunks of outputted text without any amendments. ChatGPT’s ideas are also often basic and vague, as everything it generates is based on already-published text, so use with caution.

SEE: ChatGPT vs Google Gemini (2024): What Are the Main Differences?

Free, for the most part. If you would like access to OpenAI’s most powerful LLMs, then you will need at least a “ChatGPT Plus” membership, costing $20/£16 a month.

GPT-4 access, DALL-E image generation for paid users.

Unlike ChatGPT and Grammarly, Jasper is intended to aid writers working in a specific industry: marketing. Users will feed it information about the company, be it tone of voice or product details, as “memories” to draw from. Then, its chatbot interface can respond to prompts asking for blog and social media posts, product descriptions, emails, scripts, and other marketing content.

On top of being knowledgeable of the products and services, Jasper’s company-specific training means it can maintain a consistent brand tone when generating new copy. This avoids the common pitfall of ChatGPT, where output can seem generic and clearly AI-generated.

There are several prompt templates for tasks like blog post outlines and Facebook ads, so you don’t need to repeat yourself. Plus, you can input keywords to generate content optimised for search engines. Templates can be used consecutively; for example, an AI-generated outline can be followed by generating full paragraphs for a post, allowing marketers to complete the process hands-free. However, without the human touch, the output can still seem stiff and unoriginal, so some edits are recommended.

$39/£30 per month, per user for the most basic version.

Prompt templates, ability to provide brand-specific training data, AI art generator.

If you’re looking for an AI writing tool to support repetitive corporate tasks, such as writing emails, instant messages, and other communications, the best available is Flowrite. The web app or Chrome extension can “read” any email or message visible on screen, picks up the necessary inputs, and presents a text input box as a widget. The user just needs to enter a few words — for example, “accept invite” — as a prompt to generate a fully formulated response to the on-screen message.

Flowrite works with most email clients, as well as X, LinkedIn, MailChimp, Messenger, and more. Flowrite also has templates for the most common types of messages, such as prospecting sales and scheduling meetings, which can be tailored and continuously used as responses to save further time. However, in September 2024, Flowrite was acquired by Maestro Labs, which will be incorporating it into its email generating AI tool, MailMaestro. Therefore, there could be some changes in the near future.

$5/£4 per month for 15 messages. Unlimited messages costs $30/£23 per month.

Message templates.

Translation plays an important part in many roles, be it for recruitment, marketing, sales, or media relations. However, if an employee relies on online tools to communicate with international clients or prospects, it opens them up to errors. Such errors could merely lead to an awkward misunderstanding, but it might also lose a sale or cause reputational damage. While hiring a professional translator is the most reliable option for avoiding these outcomes, when time is of the essence, an AI tool can suffice, such as DeepL Translate.

DeepL is based on a proprietary LLM, and many users say it surpasses competitors such as Google Translate and ChatGPT in understanding acronyms, jargon, and other non-literal language. This is because it is trained on the Linguee database of human-translated sentences. It also takes into account the context, i.e. the prior sentences, as it translates a passage. Its main shortfall is that it can only translate in 33 languages, with the majority European.

Free for five thousand characters of translation a month; unlimited characters costs $28.74/£22.18 per month.

Understanding context and non-literal phrases.

What are the benefits of using AI writing tools?

AI writing tools can accelerate tasks. You probably don’t realise how much content you write on a daily basis until you have access to a tool that can expedite this process for you. While speed isn’t everything and a high level of quality control is always recommended when, say, putting together an email for a CEO, those that forgo the latest tools risk falling behind competitors.

Critics may assume that the use of AI in any writing will give it “ChatGPT voice,” making it generic and lifeless while possibly negatively impacting its SEO. However, AI tools are useful for more than quickly producing large bodies of text. These tools can also generate ideas, help refine sentence structure, identify subtle grammatical errors, and more. See if they can help you with your day-to-day by testing out the free version of one on this list.

SEE: Generative AI Policy

Can AI replace writers?

Well, as a human writer myself, I certainly hope not!

As mentioned, over-reliance on AI for writing is dangerous, as it adds a recognisable robotic tone of voice that is off-putting to readers. The technology is also fundamentally incapable of producing original ideas, so any writing it produces from scratch isn’t going to be more useful than the best answer that’s already out there. Those who write as part of their job should only use the technology as an assistant — rather than a replacement for their pen — and employers share this view.

Methodology

We assessed a number of AI writing tools used for the most common use cases. To produce this list of the top five, we examined the reliability and popularity of the provider, the features they offer in comparison to their top competitors, and the cost.

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Social Europe

Ai is threatening more than just creative jobs—it’s undermining our humanity.

Daniel Mügge 23rd October 2024

The debate on AI and job loss misses the deeper impact: by automating creativity, we risk devaluing the very essence of human expression.

Something is missing in the debate about generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and creative workers losing their jobs. The current conversation reduces creative activity to content production: marketable output. But creativity is so much more. It’s our attempt to articulate what we feel inside, both intellectually and emotionally. Being creative means grappling with the mess we encounter in our lives and on this planet—and somehow coming to terms with it, both collectively and individually. A debate that suggests only jobs are lost when generative AI takes over misses the essence of what creativity entails.

Let’s take a step back for a moment. AI has its hype cycles, and so do the doom scenarios it spawns. A decade ago, when neural networks took off, they were seen as dreadful harbingers of impending mass unemployment. Now, in 2024, many European companies struggle not with mass lay-offs but with filling vacancies. Company bosses with tech Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) promise to “definitely look into” adopting AI in their firms. However, it rarely goes much further than that. For better or worse, economy-wide AI implementation lags behind expectations.

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Was the job market doom just a false alarm? Not quite. In many sectors, AI is not a major concern so far. Most taxi drivers need not lose sleep yet over self-driving Waymo cars. In some sectors, though, AI does encroach on jobs, and creative roles are on the front line. Generative AI is already quite capable, and it’s improving daily.

Top-notch opera composers or painters with work in the Guggenheim may have nothing to fear. However, people who pay the rent by creating, say, illustrations for websites or jingles for radio ads are right to be nervous. Like many others who see their livelihoods under threat, it’s legitimate for them to protest and demand a debate about their future. And let’s not forget: today’s Grammy winners started out small, probably funding their first steps with run-of-the-mill creative work. Eliminate that, and you dry up the pipeline for tomorrow’s superstars as well.

That is the state of play in the “AI and creative work” debate in a very small nutshell. However, something has always felt wrong to me about it, and I think it is its narrowness. Framing the issue as one of job loss views creativity through the economistic lens of the company boss or consultant: content in exchange for money. If there’s a cheaper way to produce something that sells just as well, what’s not to like? Job types have always come and gone. Is it a bane that, at least in wealthy countries, no one ploughs fields by hand anymore? And from that perspective, is automated text writing any different from using a machine, rather than hands, to sort through rubbish in a recycling plant?

I think it is. Creativity is communication. People start playing music to connect with others, not to earn money. They craft lyrics to touch others, to soothe them, to express their anger, whatever. Just as people wield a paintbrush to project something onto the canvas that is still nestled somewhere between their heart and brain, they show others what they could not possibly articulate in words.

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Creativity is also self-reflection. People used to write diaries to order their thoughts, to delve into their feelings, and to express them. It can be a cathartic experience, or simply a calming one. If you’ve tracked your life in a diary—as a teenager, perhaps?—you’re familiar with this moment: once you listen inwardly to write down what’s truly going on, things emerge that we would otherwise never articulate. Secret longings, frustrations at work, relationship troubles, fears. Diary writing is not about chronicling your life but about reflecting on it.

Self-expression, communication, and reflection help us navigate days, months, and years. If you walk around with open eyes, there is enough beauty, violence, existential questions, and agony out there to bewilder us. Whether you prefer Beethoven’s 9th Symphony or UK Grime, here are real people making music to translate their experiences into something that resonates with fellow human beings. Others use TikTok videos or novels as their medium of choice.

Long story short, creativity is a virtue that deserves nourishment (I borrow the virtue aspect from Shannon Vallor’s fantastic books on philosophy and technology). Creativity, even in small doses, can help us grow into better people, happier people, for ourselves and for each other. That’s why we should allow children to doodle and engage in handicrafts at school, and why a liberal arts education might encourage students to keep a diary. Even if you’re not a professional painter or writer of any kind, being creative is beneficial. It fosters empathy and forges connections with others, often on a visceral level—like sampling food that just tastes great, no explanation required. Creative expression can link people in the same way.

But this creativity is like a fragile plant. To blossom, it needs care, nutrients, and regular watering. Enter GenAI. Yes, algorithms are impressive at making hip-hop beats or wallpaper designs. However, the more we outsource creative work to algorithms, the more we allow creativity, as a faculty in our society, to shrivel. In theory, GenAI could be a tool to boost your creativity, producing even funkier creations (you’ll find quite a bit of that in contemporary art galleries these days).

But I bet that in practice, GenAI is mostly a quick fix to produce more content more cheaply and quickly, not a means to elevate artistic expression to a whole new level. It would be a shame if people stopped making pencil drawings because, by now, DALL-E is so much better. It would also be a shame if people stopped penning poems because now Meta’s Llama outperforms them.

I realise that even now, hobby poets are rare. But if anything, we should want more of them, not fewer. Cultural traditions and religions around the world prize self-reflection and artistic expression. Secular thinkers like Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes hoped that technological progress would eventually free us to devote more time to play and create.

There is no news here, but that’s not the world we live in in 2024, despite the abundance of new technology. We do find people in our societies who earn money through creative work—even if it is rarely substantial. They combine commercial work, such as magazine illustrations, with their non-commercial projects, like pictures they give to friends as gifts. Most musicians never break through on Spotify, getting by instead on guitar or clarinet lessons for children. There is a creative stratum in society, in short, that isn’t about artsy superstars but consists of people who keep alive the creative dimension of our human existence.

If these people were to lose their livelihoods, not only would their jobs disappear. The musical education for our children would also vanish, along with the creative classes at community schools, the art classes at colleges, and the entire notion that investing time in honing creative faculties is worthwhile. Algorithmic “content production” would, de facto, if not intentionally, devalue creativity in its entirety.

And that would be a loss for all of us. Open a newspaper or your social media feed, and you find discord all around—frequently in the form of deadly violence on small and large scales. This world could use all the healing it can get. And creative faculties could help. So, automating our creative side away would come with collateral damage far beyond some lost employment down the line.

Compare that to the message of the recent Draghi Report. The ex-ECB boss’s message to the EU was: invest and compete, or die. Digital technologies, with AI central among them, are key domains that Draghi believes need boosting. Put on narrow economistic glasses, and you can see his point. People do need jobs and cash to buy food and pay the rent. But a thriving society is not just a web of economic nodes that shuffle money and products around. So when we debate GenAI and creative activity, it is at our own peril that we sever the economic side from the rest of our existence. It is not just jobs that are at risk.

Daniel Mügge

Daniel Mügge is Professor of Political Arithmetic at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). As leader of the NWO Vici project RegulAite, he investigates how the EU governs artificial intelligence and how these politics are shaped by global geopolitical and economic competition. At UvA, he is also co-founder of the research platform and the research priority area AI & Politics.

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Your Business Will Get Left Behind If You Ignore These 7 Content Writing Trends Discover the top content writing trends from 2024, from AI-assisted writing and hyper-personalization to SEO shifts and long-form content's comeback.

By Ron Lieback Edited by Kara McIntyre Oct 24, 2024

Key Takeaways

• AI-assisted writing is essential but requires human finesse to connect with readers emotionally.
• Hyper-personalized content is crucial as consumers expect tailor-made experiences and interaction.
• SEO demands quality, authoritative content that answers users' queries comprehensively to rank and resonate.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The world of content writing has evolved beyond just slapping words on a page and waiting for the Google gods to bless you with traffic. With Search Generative Experience (SGE) and other AI tools, the content landscape in 2024 has reached a new frontier where creativity must be combined with strategy, SEO has grown smarter and audiences are more discerning than ever.

So, let's cut to the chase — if you're not adapting your content strategy , you're falling behind.

Here are the critical content writing trends you need to pay attention to if you want to dominate the market in 2024 and beyond.

Related: The 7 Commandments for Good Content Writing

1. AI-assisted writing: It's here to stay — but you still need humans

I get it — AI is the shiny new toy in the content creation space. Everyone is obsessed with tools like ChatGPT, Jasper and others for generating blog posts, social media captions and even email newsletters. And while AI can help streamline workflows, let's not kid ourselves — AI-generated content lacks the nuance and human touch that readers crave.

Brands leveraging AI without human oversight risk sounding robotic, detached, and boring. The key for 2024? AI should assist your writers, not replace them. Use AI for data-driven insights, topic ideation or first drafts, but always have a skilled human writer refining, adding personality and ensuring the piece resonates emotionally with your audience.

In short, AI is a tool, not a savior. Use it wisely.

2. Hyper-personalization is no longer optional

In 2024 and beyond, "one-size-fits-all" content is dead. Audiences want content tailored to their specific needs, interests and even personal browsing habits. In fact, according to a report by McKinsey , 71% of consumers now expect companies to deliver personalized interactions . And guess what? They get frustrated when that doesn't happen.

That means your content strategy has to include personalization at scale. This could be personalized email newsletters, targeted blog posts for segmented audiences or even AI-driven personalized content recommendations on your website.

Personalization doesn't just mean using someone's first name in a marketing email. It means delivering content that meets people where they are in their customer journey — whether they're just learning about your product or are ready to buy.

If you're not investing in understanding your audience segments in 2024, don't be surprised when your competitors steal them away with content that speaks directly to their needs.

3. SEO is smarter, so you need to be, too

SEO isn't the straightforward keyword-stuffing game it used to be. Google's algorithms, including its integration with AI through the Search Generative Experience, now focus more on context, user intent and topical authority than just keywords.

This means writers can no longer rely on writing 1,000-word articles stuffed with keywords and expect to rank well. The future of SEO content writing is about quality over quantity. Writers need to focus on creating comprehensive, authoritative content that answers questions in depth and provides real value. Think topic clusters, internal linking strategies and long-form content that answers search queries from multiple angles.

Remember, your goal isn't just to get the click; it's to keep the reader engaged, build trust and position your brand as an expert in your industry.

Related: SEO Writing 101 — How to Create Content That Ranks

4. Video and interactive content are king

Writing is no longer limited to just blog posts and articles. Interactive content and video are becoming integral parts of content strategy, and if you're not integrating these mediums, you're missing out on massive opportunities.

The shift towards video isn't slowing down either. According to a report from Wyzowl , 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, and that number is expected to grow even further in 2024. Whether it's video tutorials, webinars or product demos, these formats engage audiences in a way static content often can't.

But don't just stop at video. Interactive content — think quizzes, surveys, calculators and interactive infographics — can exponentially increase engagement and drive traffic. According to Demand Metric research , interactive content generates twice as many conversions than passive content.

Writers in 2024 need to think beyond words and start thinking in terms of engagement. How can your writing enhance and support interactive formats? How can you craft compelling video scripts, quiz questions or even chatbot dialogues?

5. Authority and trustworthiness matter more than ever

Trust is becoming a critical currency in the age of misinformation and AI-generated content. Google's E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) guidelines are tightening, and the search engine is prioritizing content from verified, trustworthy sources. This means that authority-driven content — whether it's interviews with experts, in-depth research pieces or case studies — will stand out more than ever.

Your content needs to prove that it's backed by legitimate expertise . Including author bios, citations from credible sources and links to industry research will make a massive difference in your rankings and reader trust. Consumers are savvier today, and they can spot content that's fluff or baseless. So, it's critical to establish your brand as an authoritative voice in your niche.

6. Long-form content is making a comeback

Long-form content has made a strong comeback. Google still rewards long-form, comprehensive guides and articles that provide in-depth value, and readers are still willing to spend time on content that solves their problems. According to research from Search Engine Journal , posts that are 2,500 words tend to perform best in terms of search engine rankings.

However, that doesn't mean writing long content for the sake of word count. Your long-form pieces need to be well-researched, informative and packed with value. If your 3,000-word article doesn't solve a reader's problem, they'll bounce, and Google will take notice.

So, if you're going to write long-form content, make sure it's worth the read.

7. Voice search and conversational content

The rise of voice assistants like Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant has changed how people search for information. Voice search is more conversational, and content needs to adapt. When users ask voice assistants a question, they expect direct, concise and clear answers.

Content writers need to think about conversational tone and long-tail keywords that mimic natural speech. This might mean writing more FAQs, creating concise answers at the top of your articles (to aim for featured snippets) and focusing on how your audience is asking questions out loud, not just typing them into a search bar.

Related: This Is the Well-Kept Secret to Writing Compelling Original Content

Wrapping it up: Adapt or get left behind

If you don't adapt your strategy to embrace these trends, you risk becoming irrelevant. Whether you're leveraging AI to assist your writing, personalizing your content at scale or integrating video and interactive formats, the message is clear: innovate or fade away.

Your content strategy is no longer just about keywords and clicks — it's about engagement, authority and providing real value. So get ahead of the curve and start implementing these trends before your competitors do.

If you want to dominate the digital space in 2024 and beyond, it's time to rethink, refresh and refine your content game. Are you ready?

Entrepreneur Leadership Network® Contributor

ContentMender Founder, Author

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