AI promises speed and scale in copywriting—that’s undeniable. What once took copywriters eight hours to complete can now, with the right training, be done with the same level of quality in just the time it takes to get your morning coffee.

“But can’t I just use AI for that?”

This is the question I get asked more often than any other. The short answer is, “Yes, if you’re an expert copywriter. If not, then no.” If you needed heart surgery, you could “just use a scalpel for that.” Or you could schedule a doctor appointment.

Faster than you can say, “I really should’ve hired an expert,” AI-only copywriting tends to devolve into high-speed drivel generation, slapping together vast quantities of forgettable content.

Domain expertise helps alleviate this tension, integrating industry experience directly into AI workflows. The more experience the human expert has, the more reliably they can elevate the quality, precision, and creativity of AI outputs. 

For creative professionals like copywriters, this approach doesn’t just scale capacity—it fundamentally transforms how they approach their craft, enabling outcomes that are genuinely better than humanly possible.

AI can rapidly generate ideas, iterate language, and test messaging variants at a speed previously unimaginable. But it can’t grasp nuance, interpret strategic intent, or instinctively understand audience empathy. These skills, which form the backbone of creative work, still firmly rest in the hands of human creatives.

And the gap is far from trivial. In virtually every case of AI-driven copywriting, the expertise of the person controlling the AI makes all the difference between “fast and cheap” or “fast and unforgettable.”

Expert copywriters are better at prompt engineering

Prompt engineering is foundational to effective AI-driven copywriting, but it’s commonly misunderstood as being a purely technical skill that only AI model developers need to know. When engineering AI prompts, every word you use, every punctuation mark you include, everything you don’t say—every choice you make matters.

And every choice you make is part of the copywriting process. Given that prompts are predominantly textual, it’s easy to see why the best prompt writers tend to be the best copywriters.

Great copywriters leverage their deep understanding of tone, audience psychology, and messaging frameworks to craft AI prompts with outputs that are as creative as they are outcome-oriented.

Experiment: Compare the average user to the expert copywriter

To illustrate the stark difference expertise makes in AI results, I conducted a side-by-side experiment.

Average user	Expert copywriter

I asked a colleague of mine with no experience in copywriting to have ChatGPT generate some copy for a LinkedIn post he’d been working on. But, before he could see the results, I ushered him away from the laptop.

While he waited, I wrote a prompt of my own and ran both queries. So he wouldn’t be able to tell which output was from which prompt, I took screenshots and opened them in a separate window. I then asked him to choose which one he liked better. We repeated this process again and again until he threatened to start billing me for his time.

In 10 out of 11 runs, he chose the result of my prompt. But why?

The average user’s prompt was minimalistic, lacking clear direction, audience context, or desired outcomes. So the output was equally generic—a loosely structured, vague message devoid of any actionable insights or distinctive voice.

On the other hand, the expert-written prompt provided clear context, persona definition, audience specificity, and precise structural guidelines (including hooks, action-oriented insights, and calls to action). The resulting AI output was similarly rich, structured, authoritative, and better suited to the executive audience my colleague was targeting.

This experiment, though conducted over a casual conversation, underscored a critical point: prompt engineering isn’t simply about telling AI what you want it to do. It’s about translating strategic objectives, brand voice, and audience understanding into structured, outcome-driven instructions that AI models can execute effectively.

And who better to write copywriting instructions than an expert copywriter?

It’s also important to note that no self-respecting copywriter would ever submit raw AI output to a client without editing and polishing it first. So, what you see in the side-by-side comparison here should be considered a glimpse into the first stage of a work in progress—not by any means a final product ready for publication.

AI is only as effective as the person who guides it

Expertise is what determines whether your content reads as amateurish or polished—and copywriters are the ones who bring that expertise.

Although AI accelerates the writing process, it can’t replace the nuance, structure, or intention that expert copywriters bring to the table. At least, not yet. And, until that day comes, prompt engineering shouldn’t be seen as a technical task, but a creative project that, when done well, can make an immediate impact on the quality of your creative assets.

So, when you need fast and effective content, don’t just rely on the tool. Trust the expert behind it.

Learn more about AI-driven content creation.