Humans are more inclined to favor content produced by AI rather than written by a human, as indicated by a recent and unexpected survey.
Significance of the Findings: While AI cannot completely substitute humans in content creation, it is evident that generative AI has the ability to generate content that resonates with consumers.
Generative AI 6, humans 0: In a series of six competitions between AI-generated and human-generated content, the generative AI consistently emerged as the preferred choice.
An illustrative instance of such a competition involved crafting an introduction for a blog post discussing the top cat food for indoor cats, where AI secured a victory with a 54% to 46% preference rate:
In the remaining five contests, AI outperformed humans in creating social media advertisements (70% to 30% and 54% to 47%), composing a paragraph for a blog post (60% to 40%), crafting a social media post (65% to 35%), and developing a product description (65% to 35%).
Nevertheless: While the survey results are intriguing and unexpected, it is crucial to acknowledge that although AI was preferred in this survey, this preference may not necessarily translate to actual performance metrics such as traffic, leads, revenue, rankings, or engagement.
Research Methodology: The survey encompassed 700 U.S. consumers, with a fairly balanced gender distribution (50.2% male, 49.5% female) and varying age groups:
- 38% of participants fell within the 25-44 age bracket.
- 12% were aged 18-24.
- 18% belonged to the 45-54 age group.
- 32% were 55 years old or above.
Semrush engaged “several writers” to produce the human-generated content. For the AI-generated content, Semrush utilized comprehensive prompts (including guidelines on tone, length, readability, and objectives) and occasionally had to provide two or three additional prompts to refine the final output.
Key Takeaways: As articulated in the Semrush report:
- “These findings demonstrate that AI-generated content can be impactful and resonate with your audience. By effectively guiding your AI tools, you can craft compelling and top-notch marketing content.”
- “Nevertheless, our experiment does not imply that AI alone suffices for content creation.”
Reasons why individuals likely favored AI-generated content include:
- Its ability to swiftly convey the main points.
- Its clear emphasis on value propositions or reader concerns.
- Its enhanced readability and comprehension.
About the author
Danny Goodwin has served as the Managing Editor of Search Engine Land & Search Marketing Expo – SMX since 2022. He initially joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as the Senior Editor. Apart from covering the latest search marketing news, he oversees Search Engine Land’s SME (Subject Matter Expert) program and contributes to organizing U.S. SMX events.
Goodwin has been involved in editing and reporting on the newest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. Previously, he held the position of Executive Editor at Search Engine Journal (from 2017 to 2022), managed editor of Momentology (from 2014-2016), and editor of Search Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has been a speaker at numerous major search conferences and virtual events, and his expertise has been featured in a wide array of publications and podcasts.
