The dangers of AI-written website content

Did you know that AI can produce content 3-5x faster than a human writer? If you’re part of a busy marketing team and are under pressure to publish consistently, that’s an incredibly tempting proposition. After all, why spend hours crafting the perfect landing page or blog when AI can generate one in seconds?

On the surface, this sounds like a huge productivity win. But relying too heavily on AI is doing your brand more harm than good, leading to weaker rankings, lower engagement, and fewer conversions. We witnessed this first-hand at SOZO; here’s what we found…

What really happens when AI writes your website content?

AI can quickly produce grammatically correct, well-structured copy at scale. It seems to tick all the right boxes; but when you dig a little deeper, the cracks really begin to show.

Our in-house copywriters started working with a luxury hospitality client in the summer of 2024, writing high-quality, human-focused SEO articles that brought genuine value to their audience and resulted in an immediate uplift in website traffic.

The client then updated and expanded their website copy using AI. However, this copy was generic and lacking in quality, which:

• Alienated their audience
• Damaged their brand reputation
• Caused their organic search rankings to plummet

Over a period of eight months, their website experienced a staggering 93% drop in traffic; suggesting that when content loses its authenticity and strategic direction, both users and search engines respond. Here’s what that actually looked like:

How we fixed it

When the brand’s organic traffic hit an all time low in April 2025, we knew we had to step in and help them turn it around. Here’s what we did:

1. Refined and humanised key landing pages on the website to realign them with the brand’s tone of voice and positioning
2. Made strategic SEO amends that were informed by search intent and sector-specific insight
3. Continued to build on our blog content strategy to write human-focused articles, boost topical authority and capture organic traffic

We didn’t just tweak a few lines; we fully audited the website and rewrote AI-generated content to ensure it resonated better with users and search engines. Organic performance began to climb, and key landing pages generated significantly more enquiries. In one case, a priority landing page jumped over 30 places to an average Google position of 8.8 (from 45.8), which accounted for 10% of overall website conversions over the following 6 months. 

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Don’t let AI dilute your brand! Here’s how we can help

If you’re using AI to scale your website content, you’re not alone. But the real question is: is it helping your brand grow, or holding you back? That’s where our new website content audit service comes in.

First, we audit your website to uncover:

• Whether AI-written content is damaging your search rankings or confusing your messaging using specialist SEO and AI Search tools
• Where your tone of voice has become inconsistent or generic
• Which pages aren’t aligned with what your audience is actually searching for

Based on our findings, we then:

• Refine and humanise existing copy to restore trust and clarity amongst your target audience
• Rewrite key pages using SEO and AI Search insights to improve your visibility in Google search and AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google’s AI Overviews
• Ensure consistency of messaging and tone of voice across all pages to better reflect your brand, your expertise and your USPs
• Build a strategic content roadmap to help you grow your brand

The ultimate goal is to ensure that your content sounds authentically you, connects with your audience, and performs in search results.

Not sure whether your website content is helping or harming your performance? Get in touch and we’ll help you unlock more value from every page.