Jasper: The Useful AI App That creates Marketing Copy

Jasper began with a simple idea: make an AI program that writes marketing copy.

This might not seem like new territory. But what this service promises to do goes beyond what many companies have promised before. While products like Grammarly advertise their ability to help you out as you write, Jasper says it will write all the marketing copy for you.

Of course, anyone who would like to easily generate marketing copy might be wondering if it could really work. Can AI actually do it?

To see how AI writing aids are coming along, let’s look at the features of Jasper, how it works, and what the results are.

Jasper vs. ChatGPT

Jasper is an app that generates writing for you. Once you sign up, you simply go through the different templates available and answer a few prompts. The templates include:

• Paragraph Generator
• Creative Story
• Explain It To a Child
• Sentence Expander
• Facebook Ad Headline
• Amazon Product Features
• and many more.

The vast majority of online marketing or content creation needs are addressed by one of the templates in their exhaustive list.

If you have the more expensive version (called Boss Mode), there is also an editor that assists you as you write your own pieces, as well.

The product promises to quickly create writing that is plagiarism free. It also claims to make content that will prove high performing for SEO and conversion, depending on what you ask it to do.

For people who have too much writing to do themselves, or who don’t like to write at all, it seems like it could be a good deal. So is it?

Jasper is tailored for business use cases, such as marketing, sales, and content creation. It offers over 50 copywriting tools that can help users create high-quality content for their brand. If you are writing an online course, this tool would definitely be of great help.

Jasper has even a browser extension that lets users write and improve content wherever they work online, such as social media platforms, email clients, or website builders.

 Jasper sources from multiple language models, including GPT-3.5, Neo X, T5, and Bloom, as well as its own models. Jasper can distinguish the best combination of models for a specific use case or industry.

Additionally, Jasper offers a chat-style interface called Jasper Chat that works like ChatGPT but with more features and benefits. Jasper Chat allows users to converse with AI and refine responses with each engagement.

ChatGPT is an amazing conversational AI tool that can do many things, but it is still in research mode and has some limitations. ChatGPT is not optimized for business use cases and may produce incorrect or nonsensical answers at times. ChatGPT does not have a browser extension or a chat-style interface like Jasper Chat. However, Bing’s Chat — Microsoft’s version of ChatGPT — does, and I am a big fan, but that’s for another article.

Back to Jasper, if someone wants to create content for their business I would recommend Jasper over ChatGPT because of its ease of use, versatility, and (relative) reliability.

Does Jasper Work?

Jasper definitely fulfills its fundamental goal. You answer a few questions, and it will spit out readable sentences. Look at this test run below. I used the Paragraph Generator template, and these were the prompts and my answers:

• What is your paragraph about: What is Jasper?
• Keywords to include: Jasper, app, writing
• Tone of voice: Professional

And here is what the program spit out for me as soon as I clicked the Generate button:

Jasper is a remarkable new app that is shaking up the writing world. Jasper provides a simple, elegant interface for writing and editing text. But Jasper’s real power lies in its ability to help you create and organize your ideas. With Jasper, you can quickly capture thoughts and topics, then easily rearrange and connect them to form a coherent argument. What’s more, Jasper makes it easy to share your work with others and get feedback. Whether you’re writing a school paper or your next novel, Jasper is the perfect tool for the job.

It’s English. It sometimes even feels like it is building up to something. But ultimately, it comes off as stilted, formulaic, and dull. In short: bad writing.

For comparison to see just how formulaic and inhuman the outcomes can be, I changed the prompt to “Why is Jasper not a good program?” and got this:

Jasper is a writing app that is designed to help users improve their writing skills. However, Jasper has several significant flaws that make it ineffective as a writing tool. First, Jasper’s user interface is confusing and difficult to use. The app’s menus are cluttered and confusing, and it can be difficult to find the features you need. Second, Jasper is not very effective at catching errors in your writing. The app often misses typos and grammatical errors, which can lead to frustrating mistakes. Finally, Jasper is not compatible with all devices. The app only works on iOS devices, so if you want to use Jasper on your Android phone or tablet, you’re out of luck. For these reasons, Jasper is not a good program for writers who want to improve their skills. There are better options available that don’t have Jasper’s significant flaws.

While it’s humorous to see Jasper critique itself, there is immediately a red flag. It mentions that the app only works on iOS devices, which isn’t true. You use it in your browser, and I tried it on a Chromebook to test out the claim. The Android device did just fine.

Conclusions

It might be plagiarism free. It might be somewhat readable. But after two attempts, it already gave me the wrong information. In short, you need to keep a close eye on what it gives you. That might not be as hard as doing all the writing yourself, but it is a long way from the effortless process Jasper is aiming for.

Should You Get Jasper?

Jasper’s free trial seems harmless to tinker around with. If you really need a lot of marketing copy and you don’t want to write it yourself (or pay someone else to write it), it’s worth a shot.