AI-Assisted Writing for Authors: How Copy.ai Can Help You Write Better

There’s no question about it, writing is work. Even accomplished authors can struggle with finding the right words, getting the tone right, or even keeping the language fresh. The last thing that a writer wants is lackluster blog posts, boring social media posts, or uninspired copy.

Today, artificial intelligence (AI) offers a unique solution for writers’ creative woes. Companies like Copy.ai have harnessed the power of AI to take your writing to the next level without all the painstaking hours of brainstorming and rewriting your content. If this sounds appealing to you, here’s what you need to know about AI-assisted writing.

What is AI-Assisted Writing?

AI-assisted writing is a tool that writers and marketers can use to create unique content and edit their existing content. AI definitely doesn’t replace the need for writing, but it can help with the creative process by suggesting new ideas and possible ways to improve existing text. Instead of spending an hour trying to think of a way to rewrite a headline for a younger audience, for example, an AI writing assistant can offer numerous suggestions in seconds.

Chris Lu and Paul Yacoubian co-founded Copy.ai after they tinkered with an OpenAI model and realized that they could use the tool to help with common writing tasks. Copy.ai’s main focuses revolve around content marketing uses, including:

• Social media posts
• Product descriptions
• Headlines and blog titles
• Company slogans
• Emails
• Call-to-action posts
• General ad copy

Furthermore, for every piece of content you enter into the Copy.ai tool, the generator will create several AI-generated options for you to choose from and tinker with further. It can even make tedious tasks, such as transforming bullet points to paragraphs, as simple as a few clicks.

Potential Uses of AI-Generated Writing for Authors

Although Copy.ai is targeted towards small business owners, marketers, and social media influencers, it can be a lifesaver for authors, too. While it certainly isn’t capable of writing an entire chapter for you (sorry!), the AI will get your creative juices flowing and introduce you to new potential ideas and angles for your books.

If you struggle to come up with chapter titles or need to rework certain paragraphs of your novel, AI-assisted writing is the next best thing to a personal editor. Tools like Copy.ai can be used by writers to generate:

• Book titles
• Book descriptions
• Re-worded paragraphs
• Social media posts about the book
• Email newsletter copy for fans
• YouTube video summaries
• Attention-grabbing hooks for blog posts, novel descriptions, intro paragraphs, and more!

Content Written by Copy.ai

AI-assisted writing can generate brief passages based on keywords and other information you plug into the generator.

We gave Copy.ai a small snippet of a book description which read as follows: “a thrilling mystery novel featuring a retired detective, a precocious young child, and an escaped convict”

Then we selected the type copy we wanted it to write. In the case we asked it to write a “blog introduction,” which allows you to give the program minimal information and it will craft the beginning of a blog post for you. Copy.ai retuned three options to us that we at turns bizarre are remarkable. Here are the three options that Copy.ai gave back to us:

• “This is a thrilling mystery novel featuring a retired detective, a precocious young child, and an escaped convict. While there is no graphic violence or sexuality, the text does include some mild swearing.“ (In this example copy.au just tacked on a disclaimer to the text we gave it.)
• “Police Detective Jack Robinson had been retired for almost four years when he got the call that would change his life forever. When he was a detective, Robinson had earned the nickname “No Spook” because of his ability to crack cases few other detectives could solve. But the department had forced him into retirement when a conviction he’d helped secure was overturned by a federal judge.” (In this example copy.ai invented a story line, seemingly out of thin air.)
• “This novel started out as a mystery, but I didn’t have enough plot to fill a novel, so I added an old man as a protagonist. Actually there are two men, the retired detective who sets things in motion, and the child whose excitement about finding things out propels the story. The convict is the antagonist of course.” (In this example copy.ai uses the first person POV to pretend to be the author of the book, writing about writing the book.)

Bottomline: The AI tool can take a phrase or a short sentence and go to town, spinning up ideas in all kinds of different directions. We think it feels…well…challenging and fascinating, but given the right circumstances, especially that of a marketer needing marketing copy, it has plenty of promise.

Content Rewritten by Copy.ai

Another way that Copy.ai works is by rewriting and reworking content that’s already fairly polished. If you want to see how a paragraph could be more effective for a certain audience or how it could be rewritten in a different voice, you can simply copy and paste your work into the generator!

Here’s a brief description of the book Warren Lane by Andrew Diamond that was originally entered into Copy.ai, followed by the suggested edits provided by the AI tool:

• Original content: Susan Moore is about to hire the wrong man to investigate her philandering husband, Will. Something is not quite right about that detective, but he’s all she has at the moment. “Warren Lane” drinks too much and has a hard time staying out of trouble. He’s just the kind of guy Will’s mistress can’t resist. And everyone is starting to figure out that Will is hiding a lot more than his affair with a reckless young woman. With a bit of mystery, romance, crime and suspense, Warren Lane has his hands full in this dark comedy of errors.
• AI-rewritten content: Susan had a feeling that Will wasn’t telling her everything, but she had no idea how much he was hiding. The detective she hired to investigate him took the relationship to a whole other level. Detective Warren Lane fell for his mark, but she has yet to love another human being—or at least that’s what Will convinced her.

As mentioned above, Copy.ai can also rewrite social media posts. Here’s one example:

• Original: Ready to learn some useful networking strategies? “The Introvert’s Edge to Networking” is a must read for anyone who needs to create and build professional relationships.
• AI-rewritten: If you are new to networking and want to develop your professional relationships, this book will help you create a breakthrough strategy.

How to Use Copy.ai

Copy.ai offers a 7-day free trial where you can access its plethora of tools and use them as much as you’d like. Each piece of content you enter, however, can’t be more than 400 characters in length. If you upgrade to a paid account, you’ll be able to enter longer passages.

As for generating copy, it’s as simple as selecting the type of content you’d like such as ad copy, blog post, photo caption, etc., then writing or pasting your content in the text box, and clicking “Create.”

Other Computer-Generated Writing Companies

Copy.ai isn’t the only AI-assisted writing company on the market. Other AI writing tools to explore include:

• Jarvis. Jarvis.ai is an AI copywriting assistant that boasts thousands of reviews and even a list of published books that authors have written with the help of Jarvis.
• Copysmith. This AI tool promises that writers will “never have to start from a blank page again.”