Nikki’s Notes
Snap up professional marketing strategies and keep up to date with industry changes in the PR/Marketing arena with Nikki Alvin-Smith’s newswire.
Nikki’s Notes: Is Sloppy AI Writing Hurting Your Business?
Release Date: June 2nd, 2026
“Hiring a content writer to fix what you’ve broken is one way to go about utilizing expensive AI services. And believe me that job is one of sincere frustration and hard work, and entry level GIG personnel will not be turning things right way up any time soon. Especially if your business exists in a niche market with a target audience that requires bona fide thought leadership to trust your brand and product line. In recent months much has changed in the professional content writers’ sphere, including my own. I recently closed the door on a productive long-term working relationship of over 8 years with Horizon Structures LLC, a marketing company for horse barns and other structures built by the Amish community, where I produced all manner of content for their veteran marketing guru at the time, Jill Siragusa. The swift change of events in leadership went inexplicably from seasoned and experienced management in their marketing department to adopting a ‘fresh young face’ Mary Cherney, (who is a travel loving freelancer living abroad in a small coastal town in Essex. U.K.) to head up the team. The switch in the level of experience not just in marketing prowess but also in style of management was abrupt. But such is the nature of the ‘who you know is where you go’ world and certainly I hope the new job works out for her.
During the transition phase the adoption of AI became more broad-based within the company, and the issues this expensive ‘all or nothing’ approach has had repercussions. Not all bad but certainly not all good. I had indicated a year earlier I was happy to work newsletters through their CRM email studio (which was mindlessly unstable but that’s another chat) but was sidelined when the then overwhelmed manager of their AI direction couldn’t provide a basic template. It was the blind leading the blind. And that is not uncommon in the adoptive process of AI. Unless you are prepared to pay top dollar for an experienced professional, then you are not going to reap the full benefit out of the AI tools. No matter what the ‘dog and pony show’ the sales force for these tools put out there.
On a personal note I’ve since moved on with a couple of new clients where other ‘barn doors’ opened. I am currently working at what I love and do best, creating thought-led human-authored content while laying my own brand of humor and unique angles to these companies content streams including e-blasts and website flywheels and yes, blogs. I embrace running the email studio CRMs alongside routing content to the right marketing strategy for the individual accounts and also fashioning a variety of content for a broad spectrum of industries for a large marketing concern in NYC. My experience in not just the equine and pet world, but also in investment, travel, construction and international commerce all coming in very useful!
AI is expensive in more ways than one. It’s more than just the cost of bulking up your business and training staff on CRM. From ongoing tides of data hacks to customers of Salesforce and the like, to upsets with customers that abhor AI creations like the recent outburst from readers of Vogue magazine who responded negatively to an AI created advertisement, things are rapidly moving in a bad direction for ROI. Is your business ahead of the curve or are you paying through the nose to be just another guinea pig?
As Gen Z trend toward human-authored works and non-AI developed reads and creative assets, the actual ‘buying band’ is much less impressed, captured or romanced by the influencer idea. Ignoring metrics is not smart and leaving them in the hands of the CRM are not a good idea either. There has to be some human intelligence integrated into the process. Otherwise it’s akin to hanging a sign on the glass door of the shop saying, “Be back in a few hours” in the middle of Black Friday.
As Bob Dylan told us, “The times they are a changin’.” While you’re reading this play his song his advice is rather apt on a number of levels. But are folks that choose not to take on AI in all its vestiges are likely drowning in the past? Or are the ones slow to adapt to these changes going to be the fast ones later? I’m a big Bob Dylan fan especially for his insightful lyrics, perhaps this last stanza of his song might apply:
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin' “
NBC News pointed out in their tech news piece, “Humans Are Being Hired To Make AI Slop Look Less Sloppy”, even web and app developers are having trouble navigating the muddy AI waters. Specifically that vibe-coded websites and apps were not delivering results wanted and that systems were unstable; chatbots were delivering inaccurate answers to customers and sometimes leaked sensitive data; and frequent AI content crashes and irrelevant recommendations made life a bit of a mess.
So salient advice from this seasoned marketeer who is swimming slightly against the AI rip tide and not moving parallel to the coastline away from a beach of strong branding and trust building content, don’t throw away your talented content creators in the pull of the tide. They represent a valuable return on investment that you know for a fact is reliable. As META recently found out, trying to structure or shape their human creative energy is not easy, and capturing the keyboard strokes and activity isn’t going to work if you want to keep the best of the best at the table.
It is important to remember that the creative process is one crafted over days or hours, with ideas flowing to the writer’s mind throughout the day and even night. Inspiration for unique angles and writing topics sometimes comes from unexpected places. It cannot be cornered. It cannot be measured in hours or taps on a keyboard. The human mind is a powerful thing, and perhaps having an accredited AI human resource on your team is not to be sneezed at. After all, shouldn’t an equestrian based business have at least one marketing person that actually knows horses?
To wrap-up: this is an exciting time of change and progress. AI use in the workflow process and management is here and we must all adapt. But it’s perhaps not the best long-term solution for your business content production to totally rely on AI to produce the quality of work needed in niche aspects. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.”
Interested in working with professional freelancer Nikki Alvin-Smith? There is a stable for you! Please Email Nikki@HorseinaKiltMedia.com direct or visit Horse in a Kilt Media Inc., and learn more about the stable full of marketing skills as an artful content writer, equestrian blogger, columnist, marketing specialist and strategist that are ready for your dining delight. Employing a professional marketing strategist/specialist is your way forward to getting out from behind your computer screen and enjoying more down time – AND importantly, enjoying better sales figures and less stress building them.
As a British/American professional Grand Prix competitor/coach/clinician Nikki brings unique angles, experiences and thought leadership/authority to her wordsmith wizardry with a proven successful track record in boosting brand visibility and viability and a willingness to interject some much-needed human intelligence into your marketing content.
Nikki’s Notes: Do Equine Websites and Equestrian Magazines Need Human-Authored Content Anymore?
Release Date: April 1st, 2026
There is no doubt that AI is taking control of the conversation across websites and sales portals, workflows and publishing arenas. Question is, does your business suffer if it doesn’t have any original human-authored content? Based on my attendance at NYC meetings of my PR/Marketing Chapter gurus on Madison and my discussions with fellow marketing strategists and specialists across multiple industries both in the U.S., the U.K. and the EU, the answer is a hard ‘Yes’. Which is good news for my fellow writing creatives with proven talent in this career.
Terms bandied about today extend from SEO to GEO and AEO and a myriad of other acronyms that are hard to keep up track of let alone follow directives for their use. AI searches herald more and more attention and our electronic devices map us to areas they prefer to present as the best resource for our educational and entertainment delights. Trouble is, AI content is fabulously boring. Generic newsletters litter our inboxes void of humor or engagement, and bizarre fake reels and images clutter or screens.
Thankfully, the writer (the true writer that produces 100 percent human-authored works), holds a prestige position IF they offer a high level of accreditation in the non-fiction field in which they write. The term ‘thought leadership’ and its importance for elevation in the pool of AI search algorithms has scaled to new heights. And the byline of an author with an authentic backstory and proven track record in whichever genre or topic they write now holds more dollar value and ROI benefit than ever to the publisher.
There is a true necessity to build the bottom line for all businesses and by having strong ‘human anchors’ in their content provisions the competitive advantage is apparent. The content hopper does need to be fed on a regular basis in order to keep abreast of the advantage, so new creative content should always be added to the mix with fresh angles and anecdotal engagement factors. Just manipulating old content or holding onto already ‘spent’ assets will not cut it.
Purchasing worthy wordsmith content for your equine brand or related business, equestrian publication or website portal is easy to accomplish. You can get started right here at my studio where top-tier accreditation in the horse industry across multiple equestrian disciplines and pursuits in addition to validated authorship across over 260 works worldwide on a huge range of topics ensures good SEO/GEO/AEO results.
ALL the articles/works provided for sale on the site are new, i.e. First Time Serial Rights. Thus their organic standing is high on the leaderboard. Once purchased, they are removed from the site.