Just Keep Writing

On "content design" in the AI era

I've been watching the great title wars unfold across LinkedIn, Teams chats, and conference rooms for months (years?) now. Content Designer versus UX Writer versus Content Strategist versus, I don’t know, Content Experience Architect. Because nothing says strategic thinking like writing ‘Your password must be at least 8 characters,’ right?

But seriously, the panic is real, and I get it. When ChatGPT can pump out a week's worth of email copy in thirty seconds, it's natural to want a job title that screams I do more than just arrange words! When some CEO's latest memo suggests maybe we don't need quite so many humans in the content loop, the impulse is to rebrand, fast. Suddenly everyone's a strategist, a researcher, an architect of information experiences.

But while we're all busy figuring out what to call ourselves, we're missing the fact that the work itself hasn't actually changed that much.

Making Sense

I'm not going to pretend the concern is irrational. This particular moment does make one wonder what exactly you're being paid for anymore. The natural response has been to expand the job description. We don't just write copy — we architect user journeys! We don't just edit content — we orchestrate holistic brand experiences!

Yes, a lot of that is true. Good content work has always involved strategy and research and user empathy and systems thinking. We've always been doing more than just typing words into text boxes. The job was bigger than the title suggested. The problem is that trying to cram all of that nuance into a job title is like trying to explain jazz by listing every instrument in the band. You can do it, but you’re not really getting your point across.

And while we've been having existential debates about our job titles, something interesting has been happening in the actual job market. Companies are hiring more writers who can work with AI. Job postings mentioning AI skills have doubled in two years. This shouldn’t freak us out, this should make us stand taller, and race to be the ones who know how to use these tools and make this make sense. Companies tried the "just let the robot do everything" approach and discovered what anyone who's spent more than five minutes with ChatGPT already knows: these tools are simultaneously incredibly sophisticated and remarkably stupid.

The companies figuring this out aren't replacing their writers. They're asking writers to do more of the strategic work while AI handles more of the production grunt work. Learning to let go of that work that used to be our domain should be the easy part, instead, it seems to be causing unnecessary handwringing. Don’t you see? A weight is lifted!

Writing is Thinking

I've spent a few years now working closely within AI systems, and the experience has been clarifying. Using these tools makes you conscious of all the invisible decisions that go into good writing.

When you prompt an AI to write error copy, you quickly realize how much context and judgment goes into choosing tone. Should this be apologetic or matter-of-fact? Friendly or professional? The AI needs you to make those choices explicitly because it can't read the room. It doesn't know that your users are probably already frustrated, or that this particular error happens at a critical point in the signup flow, or that your brand voice is more "helpful neighbor" than "corporate representative."

When you ask it to write onboarding copy, you discover how much strategic thinking goes into information architecture. What does the user actually need to know right now? What can wait until later? What shouldn't we tell them at all because it'll just confuse them? AI will happily give you everything it knows. You have to decide what matters. These are the skills that good writers have always had — AI just makes them visible and valuable in a new way.

The hardest part of writing was never actually the writing. It was always the thinking that happens before you write the first word. AI is pretty good at execution once you've done that thinking, and it's terrible at the thinking itself. This is probably why the title anxiety feels misplaced to me. The work that's becoming more valuable doesn't need a fancy title to justify its existence; it just needs to be good. The value is in our judgment.

Don’t Freak Out

Consider how other professions have handled similar technological shifts. When photography went digital, more people could suddenly take decent photos, but that didn't make the photographers obsolete; it made real craft more valuable. The ones who thrived understood light and composition and timing in ways that no amount of digital automation could replicate, and it had nothing to do with what they called themselves.

Maybe the future of content work looks different from what we're used to. AI systems desperately need quality writing in places most people don't even think about: evaluations, taxonomies, training datasets. And the core skills of a great writer aren't going anywhere. You can't prompt your way into good judgment. That comes from experience, practice, and something you definitely can't automate: taste.

The writers I know who seem most confident about the future have simply stayed curious about the actual work. They picked up the AI tools, figured out what works and what doesn't, and kept solving the same problems they've always solved. They're not particularly worried about what to call themselves because they're too busy being useful. They know that regardless of what we end up being called, companies need people who can take messy business requirements and turn them into clear, effective communication. That need isn't going away. If anything, it's getting stronger as the volume of content explodes and the stakes of getting it wrong get higher.

So maybe instead of trying to architect the perfect title to capture everything we do, we just keep doing it. The market will figure out what to call us eventually. We'll be too busy writing to care.