Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a popular topic of conversation amongst freelancers all over the world, and while some of those conversations are positive, others aren’t so optimistic.
As a freelancer, you may worry that AI could take work from you, which is a very valid concern. After all, there’s very little it can’t do! But what if you used AI to your advantage?
By treating AI as a tool rather than a replacement, freelancers could improve their work in a more efficient way. In this blog, we’ll explore how you can make AI work for your freelance business.
What is AI?
In simple terms, artificial intelligence is inspired by human intelligence, and its main focus is the brain – especially when it comes to how we think, learn, and execute tasks. It essentially makes computers, smartphones, and machines act more like us.
What do we use AI for?
AI can do a multitude of things, and at a much faster speed than humans. It can problem-solve, make decisions, search the web, and even create art – not to mention switch your lights on or off in any room, or regulate your air conditioning without you lifting a finger.
You’re likely to have interacted with AI in one way or another, whether you’ve spoken to a customer service bot, asked Siri or Alexa a question, or used an AI art generator. It’s part of our lives these days, and most people don’t even realise how much we interact with it.
What are the benefits of using AI as a freelancer?
As a freelancer, it can be difficult to see AI as something positive – especially when it’s being used to create art and write content – but one thing AI lacks is the human touch, meaning freelancing isn’t dead (and never will be).
There’s plenty of things AI simply can’t replicate, and collaborating with it can help:
Boost your efficiency
As a freelancer, you’ll spend a lot of your time on admin. In fact, lots of freelancers will admit to spending a good chunk of their working hours scheduling meetings, sending out email reminders, and ensuring there’s no clashes in calendars. Using an AI scheduling assistant app can save you hours on admin, so you can focus on what you do best.
What types of AI can help me boost my efficiency as a freelancer?
If you want to be efficient as possible, an AI scheduling assistant like Clara can give you a helping hand. Apps like this give you a real-life-human virtual assistant feel, simply ask her to find a time in your diary to schedule a meeting and she will do just that.
If that feels a little weird, you can use other AI Calendar apps like Clockwise!
If the financial admin side of things is slowing you down, take a look at cloud-based bookkeeping software providers such as Pandle, which offers lots of powerful automations at a decent price.
Improve your accuracy
If you’re a copywriter, marketer, or someone who needs to write a lot (which is most freelancers), you’ll know mistakes are easily made. Especially when you’ve read over your work for the fifth time and words somehow lose all meaning.
Using AI tools can help you spot errors quickly, so you can focus on writing that killer article or piece of copy.
What types of AI can help improve my accuracy as a freelancer?
Tools like Grammarly highlight any errors, and in some cases offer suggestions to reword sentences so they read better for your audience. This is a massive help if you don’t have an extra pair of eyes to make use of every time you’re writing.
The likes of Grammarly aren’t there to replace you, but rather to assist you in writing clear, engaging content.
Assist you with ideas
We assume you have lots of ideas – after all, you’re a freelancer, and your business runs off the back of your creativity! But sometimes you need help getting the bones of an article or piece of copy, and AI can assist you in doing just that, while also keeping your content original and yours.
What types of AI can help me with ideas as a freelancer?
If you’re looking for inspiration on how to put an article together, AI tools like copy.ai can help get your creative juices flowing. You could use it to get the bare bones of an article or to see your topic from a different perspective. Make the article your own though, of course – the content needs your unique human perspective!
Keep you up-to-date
When you run your own business with clients from different industries, you’ll need to stay ahead of the curve with access to all the latest data and insights. It can be hard to do that sometimes, with information flying at you from every angle.
What type of AI can help me keep up to date with the latest trends and insights from my industry?
Chat GPT is big news at the moment. This AI chatbot is trained on a large dataset of up-to-date information, so asking it the right questions might be a useful way to find the latest data analysis and trends.
Will AI be the end of freelancing?
AI does have the capability to take some work away from freelancers – for example, if businesses want to cut costs and use AI to write a blog post – but there will always be a demand for freelance work somewhere, and this is because:
You can’t replicate human creativity
AI is brilliant for writing clear and concise content, but it doesn’t go much further than that. It can’t think outside of the box and it doesn’t have a deep understanding of real human emotions. So, while AI can write a decent piece of copy, it will always need a human touch to make it relatable.
Some content can be duplicated, and in some instances, false
There are two issues here that could damage your website authority. Firstly, if lots of us are asking for AI to write specific things, there’s a likelihood somewhere along the line content will be duplicated.
As well as this, if we were to ask AI to pull up quotes and statistics, it may pick out-of-date or incorrect information. Without human judgement, it could be tricky for AI to pull statistics that are factually correct.
It lacks original thought
AI is all about gathering data and looking at algorithms. It can’t come up with an idea that isn’t there, as all of its thoughts are ones that have been written before. We humans, on the other hand, can come up with a unique fresh perspective for everything we write.
It has knowledge, not experience
A lot of our learning is through experience, successes, or failures. And that’s what makes our content so unique. We can suggest things from our own personal experience and give examples or advice that AI can’t – simply because it hasn’t lived through it. It’s that personal touch readers want, and what clients love for their websites. Tapping into real human emotions will always be vital, whether you’re writing content, producing art, or creating designs.
Freelancers will not be replaced any time soon.
Head over to our Freelancer Hub where we have a whole host of guides and resources.
