AI content writers are tools that use artificial intelligence (AI) to generate written content. AI content writers can create blog posts, articles, product descriptions, and other types of written content.
They’ve seen a meteoric rise in recent years, recently benefitting from increased interest thanks to free access to the OpenAI ChatGPT tool.
I first came across the idea of a writing assistant with the MarketMuse First Drafts tool. Unfortunately this tool turned out to be a lemon: it wasn’t helpful, didn’t live up to expectations, and has been retired by MarketMuse in the face of so many better competitors.
My first real experience was the excellent Nichesss tool, but others followed and over the last few years I’ve built up a collection of writing aid tools.
The last few months have seen a lot of these tools introduce new updates and features, with one of the most popular being a one-click article writer.
That got me wondering, what is the best AI content writer for producing a first draft, and is the output any good?
In my experience, Outranking consistently produces high quality first draft articles.
You shouldn’t just publish articles drafted by AI, they need fact checking, adding to, rewording to fit your tone of voice, but what they are great for is giving you the foundation of a great article.
Is it time to ditch 3rd party writers? Let’s find out!
AI Writers on Test
I’ve got access to a wide range of these tools, but not all of them have the ability to create a fully draft article from a title. My criteria for inclusion in this test is that the software has a specific feature to create a blog article from a title.
In other words, I don’t need to do much more than give it a title and press some buttons. Some of these tools just require the title of your post, some provide you with suggested headings that you can adjust. In all cases I didn’t do any manual adjustments, I just gave it a title and accepted any suggested headings.
- AI Writer for Windows
- Autoblogging
- Autowriterpro
- ChatGPT
- ClosersCopy
- Content Villian
- ContentBot
- Katteb
- Nichesss
- Outranking
- WriteCream
These are all well-established SaaS products apart from AI Writer for Windows, which released very recently on 7th January.
The creator, Matt Zimmerman, has taken a different approach and created a tool you use on your Windows computer which has the ability to create blog posts.
You pay OpenAI directly for the text generation, rather than the SaaS company. It was a late entry
I’m sure there are lots of other products available, these just happen to be the ones I have access to.
The Tests
In order to test each product out they would be asked to write an article titled “Can AI speed up your blog writing process?”.
In order to objectively test the output, the produced articles were then pasted into the following tools:
https://hemingwayapp.com/ – Checks the readability and provides feedback on the writing style. Free to use.
https://writerzen.net – An SEO research tool that has a plagiarism checker built in. Paid tool
https://www.frase.io/ & https://www.marketmuse.com/ – Research and SEO optimisation tools. Paid tools.
https://unfluff.io/ – Content quality checker. Free to use.
The full, unedited, output of each article has been included. Note that I wouldn’t usually dump the raw output into checkers; I’d edit refine, and add to the draft before checking and publishing.
Wordcount Results
No length was specified when generating each article, each system was left to produce whatever length it thought best.
Although I’ve only generated a single article, these results are in line with my expectations and previous experience using each writer.
Given the topic, I’d consider anything less than 1000 words to be a fail for this test.
Hemmingway Results
The Hemmingway App is a free writing aid tool that grades your writing on a scale and points out areas of improvement.
On checking the text a “Readability” grade is given. This measure “the lowest education needed to understand your prose”, with around grade 9/10 being suggested as the target.
In this case a higher number doesn’t always mean better, is usually indicated the text is confusing and tedious for the reader.
With this article there were 4 writers that hit the target readability score:
- AI Writer for Windows – 9
- Katteb – 9
- Nichesss -10
- Outranking – 9
Unfluff Results
https://unfluff.io/ is another free tool to help you create better quality content, and it’s also 100% free. It was created by the owners of a 200-people content agency to ensure they provided great quality content.
The tool gives you an “Unfluff Score” out of 100, with a higher score being a better, fluff-free, piece of content.
Again we have 4 writers leading the pack:
- Autoblogging – 99%
- ClosersCopy – 95%
- Outranking – 87%
Interesting, it’s a completely different set!
Plagiarism & Originality Results
A big worry for any blogger who uses a 3rd party (AI or human) to write content is that of plagiarism.
Two tools were used to test for plagiarism and originality:
- Writerzen is a keyword research tool that also has a plagiarism checker built in
- Frase is a content optimisation tool that checks articles for originality. This goes beyond word for word copying and checks if any part of the article sound like a simple rewording of something already published
I’m pleased to say all articles passed both tests as all had less than 3% plagiarism and originality scores. This is acceptable to me as there are often common elements, such as heading titles, that will be used when writing about a particular topic.
Frase Optimisation Score
Frase is an AI tool that helps you research, write and optimise content. It hasn’t been included in the tests because it doesn’t have a one click blog function, you can use templates that others have provided but there isn’t a native option.
Instead, I’ve used it to check the optimisation score, Frase searchs the internet based on the article title and identifies the topics other people have used in articles. The article is given a % score, the higher the score, the better optimised the article is according to Frase.
As Outranking is a similar tool to Frase, in that it looks at all the topics others have written about to inform what it should include, it came as no surprise it produced a well optimised article.
The top 4 this round are:
- AI Writer for Windows – 60%
- Autoblogging – 56%
- Katteb – 60%
- Outranking – 68%
It should be noted that AI Writer for Windows has an SEO blog writing option, where you can tell it what topics to include in the writing. In my tests that has produced articles that 100% (or close to) in Frase.
However, as that requires more work than just providing a title I went with the simpler 1 click blog option.
MarketMuse Optimisation Score
The grandaddy of optimisation tools, MarketMuse operates in a similar way to Frase, checking topics used and providing a score for your content.
Unlike Frase, the score isn’t a percentage; instead a target score is calculated for each article you create. For “Can AI speed up your blog writing process?” the target score was 42 and the average score of existing articles was 30.
Once again Outranking performs the best, getting closest to the target score of 42.
- AI Writer for Windows – 27
- ContentBot – 27
- Katteb – 27
- Outranking – 37
Which AI writer is best?
Overall, the results fell in line with my general experience using these tools. I make heavy use of Outranking and very little use of Content Villian.
It’s worth noting that although the tools tested all produced blog posts, they all differ in other options available.
For example, tools such as ContentBot and Writecream are excellent all-rounders that offer a tool box of writing assistance, not just blog posts but lots of short form writing tools too, such as AIDA, adverts, emails and personalisations.
The tools that performed best in this particular test are:
Both Katteb and AI Writer for Windows are new products for me, I’m still experimenting with them but I like what I’m seeing.
I’ve been using Outranking for some time now and have to praise the team behind it; not only have they provided a steady stream of updates and improvements, they’re also highly engaged with their customers.
That’s not to say the other tools tested aren’t worth a look, each can offer a useful set of features.
At the time of writing, the following are available for a one-time payment via AppSumo:
Katteb: https://appsumo.8odi.net/e4DQoQ
Writecream: https://appsumo.8odi.net/kj5kn3
Nichesss: https://appsumo.8odi.net/a1yLJo
Which AI Blog Writer Was Found to Be the Most Accurate in Fact-Checking?
According to recent research, the ultimate factchecking AI was found to be the most accurate in fact-checking. Its advanced algorithms and extensive database enable it to quickly and efficiently verify information, making it a reliable tool for combating misinformation and ensuring the accuracy of online content.
Final Thoughts
This is a fairly simple set of tests on a single topic. The results could vary if a different article topic was chosen, but I would generally expect a similar outcome based on my own experience using these tools.
I’d never recommend generating and then directly posting; every single one of these tools is a useful way to get an initial draft you can then work on and improve.
I’m also aware I’ve not mentioned pricing; some of these are still available on a lifetime deal, others have moved to monthly payments. If you’re new to the world of AI writing, I’d suggest grabbing one of the lifetime deals, so you can experiment with all it has to offer.
I wanted to specifically test the one click blog generation, the easiest way to generate an article. However, it’s worth noting I personally use CrawlQ a lot due to the in-depth research it does to create content for your ideal target audience; it’s more work but does give great results.
Whatever tool you use, remember to check the output, add your own tone of voice and any original research, photos or videos you have to make it a unique and new Google-worthy article.
