In brief, content automation implies the creation of automated content pieces using a particular set of tools and technologies, usually the AI-powered ones.
What is Content Automation?
In the digital world the notion of content automation currently encompasses a wide variety of aspects, from programming advanced chat bots (including those integrated into the publisher’s digital properties) to generating logo design, writing short slogans, compiling cold emails, email marketing campaigns and concise news digests for newsletters, and creating media content, like images and videos for various purposes (e.g. to increase Instagram follower count).
Benefits of Content Automation
In the editorial segment, in particular, content automation was historically considered a black hat technique, which rose significant search ranking factor concerns and would eventually lead to a website downranking (if not ban) in the search results.
Nonetheless, it has been seemingly undergoing somewhat of a re-birth recently, in the short news blocks and daily/weekly highly-targeted email recaps, particularly written by the local media outlets, who experience shortage in their human creative resources (as reflected in the reported email outreach & time tracking data, EPM software stats, or else).
Having determined visible content gaps, e.g. in their email newsletter coverage (if any), quite a lot of news publishers have already embraced the use of AI-powered tools for the creation of short-form news content to ensure their readers are being timely informed on the topics they’re interested in.
More importantly, not only is this type of content relatively cheaper and often faster to produce, it may also unlock extra editorial inventory monetization streams for publishers.
Drawbacks & Perspectives of Adoption
Even though the use of content automation by digital publishers have been gradually expanding in the past few years, we can definitely predict that the AI-powered tech will NOT be replacing the qualified human copywriters any time soon.
The trick is, both the scope of use and even the scope of topics coverage, in terms of the non-human-produced content remain rather limited, and will be so in the months (if not years) to come.
More importantly, many experts have already expressed their concerns, regarding the so-to-speak “AI bias”, which means that the quality content moderation remains vital for ensuring the delivered editorial pieces meet all brand safety and brand suitability standards.