• WordPress has launched a generative AI-powered writing tool called Jetpack AI Assistant.
• In the announcement, the company shows off how Jetpack can write entire articles, headlines, and even translate them into 12 languages in seconds.
• With quick and cheap AI-generated content being used to soak up ad revenues, we can’t help but feel that WordPress is only adding fuel to that fire.

It is estimated that around 810 million websites worldwide are built using WordPress, including many media pages. Now, the content management system is the next firm to join the AI-powered bandwagon, with its launch of Jetpack AI Assistant.

Among its many uses demoed by WordPress in an announcement post, Jetpack can use generative AI to write entire articles, headlines and even translate huge swathes of text for you in an instant. As seen in the video below, you can simply use Jetpack as a WordPress block, and input a prompt as if you were using ChatGPT or similar software.

“Jetpack AI Assistant is seamlessly integrated as a block within the WordPress.com editor. (If your WordPress site is hosted elsewhere, the AI Assistant is also available through the Jetpack plugin.) This powerful new tool is still in the experimental phase,” explains WordPress in the post.

“Jetpack AI Assistant utilizes a conversational system so that you can “chat” with it in natural language. Enter a prompt, such as “Write a list of Tokyo’s must-visit destinations,” and watch as the Assistant crafts an engaging piece of content. Compelling blog posts, detailed pages, structured lists, and comprehensive tables can be created in seconds,” it continues.

Further, Jetpack can also correct the spelling and grammar of entire posts, and it can adjust the tone of your content towards your audience makeup and goals.

Headline writing, which is a complex skill that many spend years attempting to perfect, can also be done by Jetpack. You can ask the AI to write “suitable and compelling” headlines from the text you have already included in the article.

For example, if you write a post about Eskom, Jetpack will read your entire post and formulate a headline based on it. WordPress hasn’t mentioned if the AI will also include search engine optimisation in the headline.

The Jetpack assistant can also translate your post into 12 different languages, including Japanese, Arabic, Hindi, Korean, Chinese, German, Spanish, and French. WordPress hopes this feature in particular will allow users to reach wider audiences in other regions.

WordPress Jetpack AI Assistant is free for now, for all WordPress customers starting 6th July 2023, the firm says. This will only be for a limited time, however. Perhaps WordPress is just letting users grow accustomed to it before slapping it behind a paywall.

It joins the likes of Google, Grammarly and Microsoft with AI-writing assistants. Google Bard can edit emails for you, and change their tone. Microsoft’s Copilot can summarise Word documents in seconds, and Grammarly’s own AI can formulate communications for your team of employees requiring only single-line prompts.

With many bloggers and media professionals writing in WordPress around the world, software like Jetpack is feared to make certain parts of these jobs obsolete. While a writer will be needed to oversee the content that Jetpack produces and make sure it is accurate – WordPress has not said where the AI will be receiving its information from – some companies may see these kinds of innovations as excuses to reduce team sizes.

We say that when it comes to written content, especially of the journalistic variety, DNA always beats AI, just ask CNET.

Unscrupulous actors are also using software similar to Jetpack to soak up ad revenue, quickly and cheaply hoisting up websites with AI-generated content at a pace no human can match. While this content has very little actual value, algorithms and search engines will still offer it up believing it to be legitimate.

Companies like WordPress, much like Salesforce, have no say in what people do with their AI software after the purchase has been made.

[Image – CC 0 Tara Winstead on Pexels]