Talk about AI and writing, and you’ll get a familiar mix of breathless hype about a utopian future and existential dread for creative professionals.
The debate is polarized, pitting AI as either a flawless creative genius that will make us obsolete or a clumsy robot churning out soulless text. But what’s really happening on the ground, among the people whose careers are on the line?
We recently held our first Special Interest Group devoted to AI Copywriting. This is a brand new group designed to give professionals a place to gather around common interests, share ideas, discuss challenges, learn from each other, and generally get to know each other. This was a private group and the session was not recorded – you had to be there. Approximately 20 copywriters gathered together to discuss their experiences with AI, and to shape the future of our Special Interest Groups.
I’ve enlisted Zoom’s meeting summary and NotebookLM to create a summary of the meeting – and highlight 5 takeaways.
These 5 truths paint a surprising picture, not of technophobia, but of a profession grappling in real-time with the promise and peril of its most powerful tool yet.
1. The optimism paradox: we’re positive about AI, but fears remain
The meeting kicked off with a quick poll to gauge the room’s sentiment. The results were surprising: 60% of the writers felt neutral or open-minded about AI, and 40% felt actively positive. Most telling, however, was that a full 0% reported feeling negative. On the surface, it was a picture of professional optimism.
But as the conversation unfolded, a paradox emerged. Despite the positive poll numbers, the discussions were dominated by deep-seated concerns. It’s often easier to articulate specific fears than general optimism, especially when a profession’s identity is in flux, and the writers’ anxieties were palpable.
This anxiety about the future, however, is balanced by a pragmatic assessment of the present. One writer noted a feeling shared by many: that there seems to be a “current plateau in terms of the ability of AI to write useful copy.” While they fear what AI may become, their current experience is that it is not yet the strategic, human-like author it’s hyped to be.
This context makes their concerns even more telling:
This paradox reveals that even for professionals who are open to new tools, the uncertainty about the future of their work is a powerful undercurrent, running alongside a clear-eyed view of the technology’s current limitations.
2. AI isn’t a creative genius; it’s an intern for the boring stuff
This tension between future anxiety and present reality pushes professionals toward highly pragmatic applications. One of the most practical and widely embraced use cases for AI had nothing to do with writing the next great novel or a killer ad campaign. Instead, writers are enthusiastically using it to eliminate the tedious, repetitive tasks that drain their creative energy.
The group shared several examples of how they’re delegating the “boring stuff” to their new AI assistan
- Writing meta descriptions for SEO.
- Writing image file names.
- Generating alt text for images.
This reframes the relationship from one of replacement to one of enhancement. AI isn’t the star author; it’s the tireless intern handling the “rote and boring work.” This frees up the human writer to focus on what they do best: strategy, creative problem-solving, and crafting a message that resonates on a human level.
3. The ultimate cure for the blank page
Every writer knows the feeling: staring at a blank page, the cursor blinking, with no idea where to start. This “blank page syndrome” can be a major hurdle to productivity and creativity. According to the writers in the room, this is where AI has become an indispensable ally.
A major benefit highlighted by attendees is AI’s ability to act as a starting point, especially for tasks they are unenthusiastic about. It’s a way to “start a conversation” that gets the writer’s own ideas flowing. Rather than asking the tool to write a finished piece, they use it to generate a rough outline, a few opening sentences, or a list of potential angles. This simple prompt is often all that’s needed to overcome the initial inertia and get the creative process moving.
4. Your new partner is brilliant, eager, and can’t be trusted
For the many freelance and solo professionals in the room, AI has begun to feel less like a tool and more like a colleague. In a career that can often be isolating, it serves as a “powerful ally” or a “great partner.”
The benefits of this partnership are clear:
It provides a quick “second opinion” on a piece of copy when no one else is around to ask.
It can accelerate research, allowing a writer to become an expert on a new topic much faster than a standard Google search would allow.
However, this partnership comes with a crucial, non-negotiable caveat, which was perfectly captured in a phrase one writer picked up from a previous workshop:
“AI is your overenthusiastic research assistant that can’t be trusted.”
This analogy brilliantly sums up the dual nature of AI. It captures the tension between an “overenthusiastic” partner that is impressively fast and productive, and a system that “can’t be trusted” because it lacks human judgment, fabricates information, and requires constant, rigorous oversight.
5. The “Google Maps Effect” on our brains
Perhaps the most profound concern voiced in the meeting was crystallized in a powerful analogy.
One writer paused and asked the group a simple question: “Do you guys know how to get around your city without Google Maps?”
The silence that followed was telling. The analogy perfectly captured a subtle but significant fear about the long-term cognitive impact of outsourcing our thinking to AI.
Just as our over-reliance on GPS has weakened many people’s innate sense of direction, the group worried that leaning too heavily on AI for writing and idea generation could cause our own creative and critical-thinking “muscles” to atrophy.
It’s a concern not just about the quality of the work tomorrow, but about the capability of the human mind in the years to come.
Conclusion: the human element is non-negotiable
The conversation made one thing abundantly clear: professional writers are not running from AI, but they are anxiously defining the boundaries of their collaboration with it.
They see a clear, immediate value in offloading tedious work to an “intern,” but they also see the profound risk of the “Google Maps Effect”—the danger of offloading not just tasks, but thinking itself. This is the central tension they face.
Their cautious embrace of AI is not just about learning a new tool; it is an active, real-time effort to redefine the very nature of their value. They are being forced to ask what, precisely, the irreplaceable human element is.
For this group, the answer lies in judgement, strategy, critical thinking, and true creative insight. The consensus is that AI is a powerful assistant, but the writer must remain the author, the strategist, and the final arbiter of quality. In the age of AI, the human element is not just a feature – it’s the entire point.
As these tools become more powerful, what is the one creative task you would never outsource to a machine?
A note on the SIG
Special Interest Groups are a new experiment at ProCopywriters. We want to see if this format is useful for our members.
First impressions were very positive. Attendees appreciated the structure of the conversations, and are keen to attend more. The consensus seems to be that monthly meetings would be ideal. And each session might take on a different format, including things like Show & Tell or setting challenges for attendees to work on.