The rise of AI-generated content has transformed digital marketing, allowing businesses to quickly and cost-effectively produce paid news articles, paid press releases and branded content, and other content to promote their brands.
However, the lack of regulation around synthetic media has raised ethical concerns. Now, with the European Union’s (EU’s) landmark AI Act passed, imposing strict limits, paid media creators need to consider how the new rules could affect content strategies.
Risks of AI content and paid media press releases
To date, many companies in India have utilized AI tools to cheaply generate paid news articles, paid media press releases, product descriptions, company profiles, interviews and other digital marketing materials.
The ability to automate content at scale has been a boon for inexpensive paid media campaigns looking to widely syndicate links and keywords across the web.
However, this approach is not without downsides, and long-term distress.
Google’s warning
For one, Google has warned that pages with low-quality or distracting content may rank lower in search results.
As the search giant improves its ability to detect machine-generated text, excessive reliance on synthetic content on Indian websites posting branded content or paid press releases in specific categories and sections, could jeopardize their visibility on Google searches.
The EU’s ban on certain AI practices could accelerate this process for paid media articles and branded content.
There are also risks associated with publishing AI content on websites which only publish paid news. The distrust such networks generate could have negative SEO impacts on Google presence.
EU’s new AI regulation Act
Recently, after years of debate, the EU Parliament approved the Artificial Intelligence Act, landmark legislation that strictly regulates the use of AI.
A key provision allows for a complete ban on AI systems deemed a “clear threat” to health, safety, fundamental rights, and that enable “significant economic harms.”
While the exact impacts on content generation are still uncertain as additional guidance gets released, the law will likely restrict manipulative, abusive, and other problematic AI marketing practices.
Coupled with Google algorithm updates capable of detecting less-than-stellar computer-written content, the new compliance challenges could have major impacts on contemporary content production strategies, and thus on paid media and branded content.
Organic news beats paid media in quality
To future-proof strategies in the face of AI regulation, advertisers need to place more emphasis on organic news which is accepted largely on new-age websites in India, and expert-generated, original writing. While more time-consuming and expensive upfront, thoughtfully produced evergreen articles will continue driving organic growth for years to come.
In many ways, pending governance presents an opportunity to people and Indian websites to course-correct and rely less on paid media volume and more on organic news initiatives.
Taking the following steps can help ease uncertainty:
Risks of cost-cutting
Relying too heavily on cheap, AI-generated posts for paid news articles may undermine long-term results in an age of sophisticated algorithms capable of detecting sub-par writing.
The coming content crackdown
With AI governance on the horizon, low-quality and manipulative branded content practices could soon fall under new rules around ethical technology use.
Transitioning towards organic news content
Placing more emphasis on expertly curated organic news articles over AI-generated or branded content, will ease uncertainty as the web enters a new era of tech governance.
In closing, stricter oversight presents challenges for AI content as well as branded content in respect to Google algorithms. While AI content is easily produced, relying too heavily on automation and branded content increases risks from pending algorithmic and regulatory shifts in regard to Google presence.
Taking proactive steps towards organic news and quality thought leadership content, will yield the best returns in the long run.