I was scrolling through LinkedIn today when a post by content strategist Frank Kalman caught my eye. His observation that “prompt engineering is the new copywriting” resonated deeply with me. As someone who’s spent years in content creation and marketing, I’ve witnessed countless evolutions in our field, but this particular shift feels especially significant.

When Old Skills Meet New Technology

Remember when SEO first became a thing? The collective panic that machines would dictate our writing? Or when social media emerged and suddenly we needed to craft messages for platforms that didn’t even exist before? The marketing world has always adapted to technological changes, and the rise of AI is simply the latest chapter in this ongoing story.

The truth is, prompt engineering isn’t replacing copywriting—it’s evolving it. Just as copywriters once had to learn the art of writing for radio, then television, then websites, and social media, we’re now learning how to communicate effectively with AI tools.

The Art of Conversation with Machines

At its core, good copywriting has always been about understanding your audience and crafting messages that resonate with them. Prompt engineering operates on the same principle—except your immediate audience is an AI. You’re still using words to elicit a specific response; you’re still applying psychology, empathy, and creative thinking.

When I craft prompts for AI tools, I find myself drawing on the same skills I’ve honed over years of copywriting:

• Understanding context and intent
• Choosing words with precision
• Structuring information effectively
• Anticipating how my words will be interpreted
• Iterating based on feedback

The difference is that I’m now engaging in a creative dialogue with an AI assistant before reaching my human audience. It’s like having a collaborative partner who brings different strengths to the table.

Beyond Simple Commands

Novice prompt engineers often treat AI tools like search engines—typing in keywords and hoping for the best. But experienced prompt crafters know better. They understand that effective prompting is about creating a relationship with the AI, providing context, setting parameters, and guiding the creative process.

This isn’t so different from how senior copywriters work with junior writers or how creative directors guide their teams. You provide direction, context, examples, and feedback. You refine and revise. You collaborate.

The Feedback Loop

Perhaps the most interesting parallel between copywriting and prompt engineering is the importance of the feedback loop. Traditional copywriters test headlines, measure click-through rates, and refine their approach based on data. Similarly, prompt engineers try different approaches, analyze AI responses, and continuously refine their prompts.

This process—sometimes called “prompt chaining” or “conversational prompting”—involves building on previous interactions rather than starting from scratch each time. It’s a dance between human and machine, with each response informing the next prompt.

Skills That Transfer

Many marketers fear that AI will replace their jobs or devalue their skills. But I see it differently. The core skills that make someone a great copywriter are precisely the skills that make someone great at prompt engineering:

Clear communication. Understanding audience psychology. Creative thinking. Strategic planning. The ability to iterate and improve based on feedback.

These are distinctly human skills that AI tools can’t replicate—they can only amplify them. And that’s precisely why prompt engineering feels so familiar to those of us with backgrounds in copywriting.

From Gatekeepers to Guides

Perhaps the most profound shift happening here isn’t technological but philosophical. We’re moving from being content gatekeepers to content guides. Instead of jealously guarding the creative process, we’re learning to collaborate with AI tools in ways that enhance our creativity rather than replace it.

This requires a certain humility—an acknowledgment that sometimes an AI tool might suggest an approach we hadn’t considered. But it also requires confidence in our uniquely human perspective, our lived experiences, and our ability to judge what resonates with other humans.

The Future of Creative Collaboration

So where does this leave us? I believe we’re entering an era where the most successful content creators won’t be those who resist AI tools nor those who rely on them exclusively. Rather, success will come to those who learn to dance with these new technologies—to use them as extensions of their own creativity rather than replacements for it.

Prompt engineering isn’t just about getting good results from AI tools. It’s about developing a new kind of creative partnership—one that combines human insight, experience, and intuition with machine learning capabilities.

In this sense, prompt engineering truly is the new copywriting. Not because it replaces traditional copywriting skills, but because it represents the next evolution of those skills in a rapidly changing technological landscape.

The marketers who embrace this evolution—who see prompt engineering as an extension of their existing creative toolkit rather than a threat to it—will be the ones who thrive in the years ahead. They’ll produce work that’s more varied, more experimental, and ultimately more human than ever before.

Because that’s the paradox of working with AI: when used thoughtfully, it doesn’t make our work more mechanical—it liberates our most creative, most distinctly human impulses. And isn’t that what great copywriting has always been about?