With content available to people in the blink of an eye thanks to those extremely thirsty super AI computers at the like Microsoft, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and Perplexity, just who makes the best content for storytelling?
It’s experiment time. Human versus machine! Will the tortoise or the hare win the rac?
Research is key part of the work we do at WonderMaker and our support for clients currently has a heavy focus on the role AI plays in marketing, communications and storytelling.
So, I thought I would see if AI could write a news story which would successfully be picked up by journalists and LLMs the way that one written by a human would.
I asked Copilot (other AI tools are available) to draft a news story based on multiple pieces of background information and everything I knew about the story, whilst I wrote my own version based on the same information and the background experience and knowledge I have.
Ten instructions later, I read through the AI version.
The information was all there, but the story just didn’t flow, even though it contained most of the information provided.
I spent a little longer than AI, and began some A/B testing.
Both stories were given to humans and AI tools for peer reviews.
The human-created story (my version) was favoured by every human, while the AI tools offered differing versions and edits to both versions. Confusing?
Then, the acid test. The media. Half of the targeted media received the AI version and half the human version.
Only two journalists wanted the AI story. 2/14
The human version was used by at least half of the media. 10/14
This is not to say I’m an amazing storyteller or journalist. But, it shows that while AI has many benefits, creating stories with meaning and purpose, stories that flow and provide the reader with a reason to reach the end, are almost always going to come from a human.
How about the stories being cited by LLMs?
Well, here’s the irony. AI-created stories aren’t really getting to the stage that they can be read by LLMs, but, even when they are, they aren’t being cited in people’s search queries. Those written by humans, are.
You could say that AI is marking its own homework and, along with many journalists, doesn’t like it.
The conclusion – short-term wins, with AI storytelling saving humans time, are seemingly leading to a long-term loss from a lack of presence in the world of search.
Spend budgets wisely and invest in humans to create stories to avoid AI policing its own content.