Henmar Creative

Find out which AI programs did the best.

Disclosure: Wherever possible, this post probably contains affiliate links. Anything unlinked today may become linked tomorrow. Don’t hate. Links won’t sway my recommendations because I write the content first.

People are often surprised to learn that I, as a professional writer and content-slinger, use AI tools to create articles, eBooks, landing pages, and social media content. Give me a blog article or white paper to whip up, I’ll bury myself in Google, coffee-soaked creative meanderings, and Chat AI technology.

Any hostility toward chatbots and robot writers is futile. AI know-how is basic table stakes for my craft. AI algorithms underpin all my efforts: how I frame articles, restructure existing content, or bounce ideas when scavenging for the mot juste.

But which AI program is the best one? There are so many these days.

So, I decided to find out. I spent the past 72 hours comparing 10 top AI programs — top in terms of name recognition and visibility in search rankings. I gave each AI program the same task: Create a short blog article to explain “Easy SEO Basics” to a non-savvy reader. (And yes, I published these AI-authored articles on the Henmar Creative blog. There are links further on in the article. Keep reading, or just doom-scroll ahead.)

AI programs I tested

• ChatGPT
• Gemini (Bard)
• Frase
• Writesonic
• Surfer SEO
• Writeseed
• Ask AI
• AnyWord
• Reword
• Underline.AI

Here are the pros and cons of each — followed by a look at where AI shines, where it falls short, and the best use cases of AI if you’re a writer, or needer, of content.

ChatGPT 3.5

ChatGPT produced a well-written article that was completely unhelpful. It suggests using “compelling words and images” or submitting a sitemap, but there is no step-by-step guidance, no screengrabs, and no links to any referenced sources. It excels at what Amazon calls “weasel” language: Empty language that delivers “fluff” but no specificity. (“Unlimited earning potential” instead of “the average driver makes $18.53 per hour.”)

> > > Check out the article ChatGPT wrote. 

Pros

• Free (upgraded version for a fee)
• Well-written language — conversational and error-free

Cons

• Information is not specific or actionable
• No outbound links, references, or citations
• No screengrabs or visuals

Gemini (Bard)

Gemini, previously known as Bard, is Google’s take on Chat GPT. The article it wrote was better aligned with my brand voice and writing style, and it adapted better to the intended audience of novice SEO practitioners.

> > > Check out the article that Google AI Gemini wrote. 

Pros

• Free
• Well-written language — conversational and error-free
• More closely aligned with my conversational style
• Better adapted to my audience of SEO novices

Cons

• Information is not specific or actionable; uses weasel language
• Over the top hype; so many exclamation marks!
• No screengrabs or visuals
• No outbound links, references, or citations
• Feature to “Double-check results on Google” didn’t work

Frase

Frase is a content writing tool for SEO optimization and collaborative work. Its user flow involves inputting audience segments, keywords, campaign goals, headers, and conclusions. It pulls Google results into its template for inspiration and rewriting.

To get an AI-written article, Frase requires more interaction and has a steeper learning curve than ChatGPT or Gemini. The article it wrote for me was a miss. It had only had a couple of vague SEO tips: Use keyword research tools and remember “content is king.”

> > > Check out the article Frase wrote. 

Pros

• More powerful capabilities than Chat GPT or Gemini
• Supports integrations with other software programs
• Conversational, error-free language
• Ability to prompt Frase to provide sources for any facts it provides

Cons

• Subscription starts at $15 per month per user for up to 10 queries; AI writer tool is $34.99 per month for 30 articles and offered as an add-on to any paid plan
• Steep learning curve
• Information is not specific or actionable; uses weasel language
• No screengrabs or visuals
• No outbound links, references, or citations

Writesonic

I had high hopes for Writesonic. It’s a tool to plan and optimize content for SEO and has a built-in writing tool to pen blog articles, ads, landing pages, and more.

It crafted a fairly well-structured article for me about steps for doing SEO and even included a featured image, although bizarrely, the photo looks like a catheter line attached to a bag of urine in a German hospital.

> > > Check out the article Writesonice wrote. 

Pros

• More powerful capabilities than Chat GPT or Gemini
• Supports integrations with other software programs
• Conversational, error-free language
• Better at SEO formatting (article) structure than other programs

Cons

• Subscription starts at $12 per month for a single user
• Steep learning curve
• Provides irrelevant, unusable images
• Information is not specific or actionable; uses weasel language
• No screen grabs or visuals
• No outbound links, references, or citation

Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO isn’t free, but I use its content editor tool to optimize articles and copy I write daily. The platform has an AI writing feature you can use for an upgraded cost, and I’ve tried it now for four different articles. I think Surfer AI has improved over the past few months, but the article it wrote for me about easy SEO tips isn’t usable.

To use the AI writer, the first step is to provide the keywords. Surfer will then create an outline of H2 headings for you, a process that took 10 minutes. Next, you prompt Surfer AI to write the article which takes another 7-10 minutes.

Initially, I thought the first output — a collection of H2 headings and bullets — was the article. But someone at Surfer clarified that I had only used the outline builder, so I went back in and had Surfer create an article off of my outline.

(I am including this tidbit as I think it highlights that the AI writing tool might be less intuitive than other platforms in terms of process and UI. Or, ChatGPT has trained us to be lazy and to demand an instant, one-prompt output?)

Surfer’s finished article looks visually well-optimized for SEO with headers, subheaders, images, and structured data. Some of the tips are helpful and it’s easily scannable.

> > > Check out what Surfer SEO wrote, outline and finished article

Pros

• More powerful capabilities than Chat GPT or Gemini
• Supports integrations with other software programs
• Conversational, error-free language
• Some of the content is helpful and actionable; it mentions useful sources
• Article does a good job expanding on its outline; structures the content into paragraphs of varying lengths
• SEO formatting: FAQs, intro, summary, key takeaways, and subsections
• Offers relevant images
• Excellent customer service

Cons

• Subscription starts at $89 per month; must purchase extra credits for AI Writer
• Steep learning curve
• References some statistics and specific SEO tools but no outbound links, references, or citations (i.e., mentions “the last Penguin update” but does not provide a date or link – probably good since the Penguin update was in 2012)
• Obvious keyword stuffing
• Lack of vetted expertise or human perspective; no clear “I” statements
• Provides no meta title or description
• Slow — took the AI-powered tool over 15 minutes to write an article; would not perform well as a live demo

Neutral observation: Surfer SEO mentions Moz, SEMrush, Google Keyword Planner, Google Analytics, Ahrefs, and Yoast SEO among helpful resources in its article, but it does not reference its own tool.

>>> Try Surfer SEO for free now.

Writeseed

Writeseed is a newer generative AI platform. The software is designed to create SEO-optimized content across many digital touchpoints. It provided the best article among all the platforms I tested, however, it still was not a usable end product.

> > > Check out the article Writeseed AI wrote. 

Pros

• More powerful AI features than Chat GPT or Gemini
• Conversational, error-free language
• Well-structured content with title, key takeaways, headers, and defined summary
• Impressively, it included a table of data (about meta tags) and a relevant photo for the featured image

Cons

• Subscription starts at $39 per month
• Steeper learning curve than Chat GPT — it requires some data prompts
• Information is not inaccurate but not specific either; no sources, no references, no links, no screengrabs
• Provided easy SEO insights to predict how well the content could perform on SERP (search engine results page)

>>> Try Writeseed for free now.

Ask AI 

[Section under construction. Don’t hate. In the meantime, the cost for Ask AI is $29.99 per year.] 

. . .

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AnyWord

AnyWord bills itself as an AI writing platform built for marketing results. It targets businesses and enterprise clients for a wide range of use cases.

> > > Check out the article that AnyWord AI wrote. 

Pros

• More powerful writing capabilities than Chat GPT or Gemini
• Supports integrations with WordPress and other APIs
• Conversational language free of grammatical errors
• Content is well-structured overall, with an intro, conclusion, and subsections
• Calls out some useful, specific tips, like not naming your audio files a random string of characters

Cons

• Subscription starts at $39 per month
• Steeper learning curve than Chat GPT; must provide AnyWords with prompts to get an article
• Most of the sections have no paragraph or space breaks for easier reading
• Most information is not specific or actionable; uses weasel language and the tone is overly energetic and sounds fake
• No screengrabs or visuals
• No outbound links, references, or citations

Reword

Reword is an AI-powered writing assistant that you can train to write content in your personal style or brand voice.

Check out the article that Reword AI wrote. 

• More powerful writing capabilities than ChatGPT or Gemini
• Supports integrations with WordPress
• Conversational language free of grammatical errors
• User-friendly; almost as streamlined as the one-prompt interface of ChatGPT

Cons

• Subscription starts at $39 per month per user for up to 10 drafts
• Information is not specific or actionable; uses weasel language
• No screengrabs or visuals
• No outbound links, references, or citations
• Not SEO-structured; no article title, no defined conclusion, no subheaders
• “Looks” the most obviously AI-written; article is one long string of same-length paragraphs

>>> Try Reword AI for free now.

Underline.AI

Underline.AI is an AI chatbot that promises to end writer’s block. The AI writing assistant creates content of all kinds, with custom-molded wording to improve conversion rates. The program is known for its deep learning (a subset of machine learning models) and advanced data analysis capabilities.

I wasn’t mad at the article it wrote. While not usable (publishable in its original form), Underline.AI performed better than most of the other content creation tools I tried.

Check out the article that Underline.AI wrote. 

Pros

• More powerful, advanced features than Chat GPT or Gemini
• Conversational, error-free language
• Some of the content is helpful and actionable and it references Yoast, a useful SEO plug-in

Cons

• Subscription starts at $34 per month
• Steeper learning curve than ChatGPT; requires back-and-forth prompts to get an article
• Information is not inaccurate but not specific either; no sources, no references, no links, no screengrabs

All of these AI programs are actually “pretty good”

But I already knew that. AI-powered writing tools write things that sound good in error-free language in whatever tone you dictate.

On the surface level, these articles look okay — but they don’t help my readers. They say to use great SEO tools to create great SEO content. To avoid misinformation, Chat AI gives no real information. It just peddles jargon-laced obscurities. Want content that ranks and gets backlinks? Make it compelling because content is king. Need a faster load time? Change your CDN (content delivery network). Want authority? Be bold! Publish content that’s authoritative.

If I’m coaching a beginner on submitting a sitemap or creating compelling content, then visuals and specificity are needed. Link to the resources you mention. Explain the PAS (Problem, Agitation, Solution) copywriting framework. Show screengrabs of Google Search Console. Talk about free tools and tools that cost — and how much they cost.

Yes, these programs could deliver better results with more feedback (prompts) and training. And many have other capabilities beyond writing, like AI image generation. But I was not testing everything that these programs can do. I was testing what I need AI to do for me.

AI writes so pretty

Artificial intelligence talks and writes pretty, and can even woo in multiple languages. And except for the urine drip photo (it’s seared in my brain and I’m tele-stamping it everywhere), nothing it produced was glaringly terrible.

On a single prompt, AI can write and spellcheck articles for me if I do the rest: 

• Edit the text and restructure different sections
• Add headers and subheaders
• Add tables (with columns and rows)
• Throttle keyword-stuffing, or add relevant keywords as needed
• Write the article excerpt (introductory summary)
• Write the summary (final conclusion)
• Fact-check (and add specific figures)
• Add citations and link to sources (and append the URLs with UTMs or your affiliate ID)
• Take screengrabs
• Find relevant images
• Add image alt tags, captions, and descriptions
• Add intersite links (to other pages on your domain)
• Tag categories and keywords
• Write the social post description (preview snippet)
• Write the meta title and meta description
• Add any needed structured data
• Submit the published article to Google (request indexing)
• Ensure compliance with company style guide guides, legal policies, and local laws or regulations
• Upload the article to any team workflow like Asana, Basecamp, or Wrike

{{ Helpful related note: Since its March 2024 core algorithm update, Google has penalized or completely de-indexed sites (no longer appearing on Google Search) that appear questionable: Webpages with no external links, no images, no human experience, and other red flags.  With the August 2024 update, Google is privileging useful content from small and independent publishers.)

So, What’s the Best AI Program?

It depends. For shocking headlines and spam, any AI program will do the trick. (Although clickbait has recently felt the full wrath of Google.) 

For general content writing, I really like AnyWord or Writeseed. For factual answers, I’d turn to Ask AI (trust but verify). ChatGPT is good at summarizing long-winded emails (or my own non-sequitous ramblings) and Surfer SEO is excellent at optimizing your own content. And while Frase didn’t perform well for me in this test, I think it could be useful for a research-as-you-write sort of project.

But for a finished, written deliverable, the best program is any AI-specific writing tool paired with the human algorithm of oversight.