AI Didn't Kill Copywriting. It Just Made Average Copywriting a Lot Less Valuable.

I used to think one of my biggest professional strengths was copywriting.

Writing headlines.

Creating sales pages.

Building video sales letters.

Coming up with advertising hooks that make people stop scrolling and pay attention.

And for years, those skills were incredibly valuable.

Then AI came along.

Suddenly, anyone with an internet connection could generate 50 Facebook ads before finishing their morning coffee.

Was that a little concerning?

Sure.

But after spending a lot of time experimenting with AI, I came to a different conclusion.

AI didn't make marketing strategy less valuable. It made good strategy even more important.

And I think there's a pretty interesting reason why.

The Cost of Creating Stuff Has Collapsed

Think about what it used to take to create a marketing campaign.

You needed someone to research the audience.

Someone to write the copy.

Someone to design the landing page.

Someone to build it.

Someone to set up the email automation.

Someone to connect everything.

And usually someone to figure out why half of it wasn't working.

Now?

AI can help with research, initial drafts, code, design concepts, automation, and testing.

Tools like Lovable have made it possible to build functional applications without writing every line of code yourself.

I've personally used these kinds of tools to develop marketing applications, CRM functionality, and integrations with services like Twilio and ElevenLabs.

Things that previously required coordinating multiple technical resources can now be prototyped much faster.

That's a big deal.

But it creates a new problem.

Just Because You Can Build Something Doesn't Mean You Should

Imagine giving someone access to every tool in a professional kitchen.

Industrial ovens.

Expensive knives.

Fancy mixers.

A refrigerator full of ingredients.

Does that automatically make them a great chef?

Of course not.

You might just get a very expensive bowl of terrible soup.

AI works the same way.

It can help you build a landing page.

But it doesn't automatically know whether your offer is compelling.

It can write a video sales letter.

But it doesn't automatically know which beliefs the audience needs to overcome.

It can create a CRM.

But it doesn't automatically know which processes should be automated or how your sales team actually operates.

And it certainly doesn't guarantee that the thing you built will make money.

The tools have become easier to use. The decisions haven't necessarily become easier to make.

That's where I think experienced marketers have an enormous opportunity.

The New Competitive Advantage

I believe the strongest marketing professionals will increasingly combine three capabilities.

First, they understand consumer psychology.

They know how to identify what an audience wants, what it fears, what it believes, and what motivates action.

Second, they understand business economics.

They can look beyond clicks and leads to evaluate acquisition costs, customer value, margins, and monetization.

Third, they know how to use modern tools to execute.

They're not limited to writing a strategy document and hoping someone else builds it correctly.

They can prototype ideas, develop working systems, and shorten the distance between an idea and a meaningful test.

That combination is interesting.

Because when the cost of producing marketing assets gets lower, the quality of the decisions behind those assets becomes more important.

Here's How I'd Actually Use AI in a Marketing Project

Let's imagine a home service company is getting plenty of website visitors but not enough inbound calls.

I wouldn't start by asking AI to write 100 advertisements.

I'd start with the business problem.

Where is the traffic coming from?

What are people searching for?

What does the landing page promise?

Is the phone number obvious?

Does the page establish trust?

Are people visiting from mobile devices?

Are calls being tracked accurately?

Are qualified calls being answered?

Once I understand the situation, AI becomes much more useful.

I might use it to organize customer research, generate alternative messaging angles, prototype a landing page, or help build a simple reporting tool.

Then I'd test the changes against actual business outcomes.

Not just whether the page looks nice.

Not just whether AI produced something impressive.

But whether more qualified prospects are taking the intended action.

That's the distinction between using AI as a content machine and using AI as part of a growth strategy.

There's Another Side Nobody Should Ignore

AI can also make mistakes with remarkable confidence.

It can invent statistics.

Misunderstand customer research.

Produce inaccurate medical or financial claims.

Write copy that sounds persuasive but violates advertising policies.

And generate software that looks functional but has security or data-handling problems.

So the answer isn't to blindly trust every output.

You still need verification, testing, quality control, compliance review, and human judgment.

Sometimes the best thing a marketer can do with an AI-generated suggestion is delete it.

Preferably before spending $10,000 promoting it.

Where I Think This Is Going

I don't think the future belongs exclusively to traditional copywriters.

And I don't think it belongs exclusively to people who know how to build AI tools.

I think the biggest opportunity belongs to people who can connect the two.

The people who understand the customer.

Understand the offer.

Understand the economics.

And can use modern technology to turn those insights into working marketing systems.

That's where I've been focusing my own development.

Not because copywriting stopped mattering.

But because the bigger opportunity is understanding what needs to be built in the first place.

The Bottom Line

AI made it easier to create marketing.

It didn't make it easier to know which marketing will work.

That still requires research, judgment, creativity, and a willingness to test your assumptions.

The person who can generate 1,000 ads isn't necessarily more valuable than the person who knows which three angles are worth testing.

And if that person can build the funnel and the system behind those ads, even better.

That's the kind of marketer I want to be.

— Carlos Redlich