New Report Examines Writers' Attitudes toward AI

"The study, "A.I. and The Writing Profession," collected response from 1,481 working writers comprised of 1,190 writing professionals and 291 fiction authors. The analysis was supplied by author and former Forrester Research executive Josh Bernoff. The majority of all writers think that AI poses both a threat and an opportunity. 61% reported using AI tools, which they say increase their productivity by an average of 31%, but only 7% of respondents have published AI-generated text."

"According to the report, writing professionals use AI for a variety of tasks. For daily use, the most popular AI-aided task is search. For less frequent tasks, a majority of AI users are using it to suggest possible titles and headings, for brainstorming, or as a thesaurus. While 63% use AI to generate text that they then edit further, only 7% use it to generate text content for publication, the report found."

"The more writers use AI the more favorably the view the technology, though even heavy users have concerns, the report found. Nine out of 10 writers reported that they are worried about factual errors (hallucinations) being introduced by AI, but opinions on other AI challenges vary based on writers' experiences with it. Nonusers are nearly unanimous in their concern about AI tools trained on copyrighted text, but only 61% of advanced users agree."

1,481 working writers responded: 1,190 writing professionals and 291 fiction authors. 61% reported using AI tools, with users citing average productivity gains of 31%, while only 7% have published AI-generated text. Heaviest adoption appears among thought leadership writers (84%), PR/comms professionals (73%), and content marketing writers (73%); lowest adoption excluding fiction is among copy editors (33%), journalists (44%), and technical writers (52%). Daily AI use is most common for search; many use AI to suggest titles and headings, brainstorm, or as a thesaurus. Sixty-three percent generate text they then edit; average AI users perform 3.6 tasks weekly, primarily using ChatGPT. Concerns include factual errors (90%) and copyright-trained models.

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