Content generation is not content creation

Simply put, “content generation” refers to content created and gathered together by artificial intelligence. In contrast, “content creation” involves not just copywriting or images but a whole ecosystem of processes (both in marketing and in other areas).

Under this premise, we understand that content generation is an automated process performed by software to organize content loaded from a database, emulating human writing/art. In contrast, content creation is a productive exercise of human creativity. On the surface, they get the same results. But they don’t. Here, we present key differences and highlight their value.

What is content generation?

Content generation involves the production or staging of content generated through artificial intelligence. It is not content per se, nor does it involve reasoning or research. It relies on data loading from commands through a language processing program.

Artificial intelligence software processes a prompt. Following the user’s command and quoting keywords, such software can give pre-selected answers, and we get a result. 

The main qualities of content management are:

• That content appears to respond to the user’s needs.
• Consistent, structured, schematized content.
• You probably receive content with SEO optimizations.
• You will have measurable results that evaluate the content’s efficiency.
• It is a type of content that saves time and money in processes.

But there are (negative) implications of this type of content. Among them, we have:

• Many AIs have been trained to handle serious copyright violation problems.
• The generated content may be false, have misinformation, or be irrelevant.
• It depends on constant algorithm updates, which can create errors.

What is content creation?

Here, we have a much broader spectrum of the word “content.” Specifically, in the context of digital marketing, content creation encompasses all aspects of creative production.

And what is creative production? It includes copywriting, graphic design, video production, scripting, and occasionally editing with SEO optimization.

Content creation, unlike content generation, relies entirely on human input. Human effort enables the creation of a marketing campaign. 

These creative production processes involve:

• Market research and analysis to understand the type of content needed.
• Production hours, in any form, are required to obtain the creative pieces.
• Proofread and edit content to adapt it to your respective campaigns.
• Follow-up, updates, and improvements of the created content.
• Publication and promotion of the created content.

In other words, content creation involves producing creative pieces, whether in print or digital formats. A message, an email, an article, a video, an image—these are all products in the overall scheme of a marketing campaign. They are the results of content creation, indispensable for the survival of digital marketing.

Can content generation and content creation work together?

Yes, they can. Today, we find content generation in almost any marketing campaign. But we recommend it only as a complement to marketing processes. It cannot be the overall manager of a campaign. The truth is that AI search and much of the entire marketing industry have aggressively embraced artificial intelligence. There’s a new dependency there in between.

Many people today reject using artificial intelligence as the main engine for content creation. This is due to ethical implications, a lack of trust, and poor results. There are even some prohibited AI practices in many countries.

Additionally, this type of generated content can significantly impact search results in selected search engines or algorithms.

Although not indispensable, content generation and content creation are now largely integrated. However, one thing is clear: content generation and creation are different.

Content creation does not only imply producing an image or a text. It is the various stages that these products undergo to ensure the effectiveness and execution of a campaign.

Content generation should complement content creation. It has even been implemented effectively in several companies to automate internal processes or conduct basic research.