Are You Sleepwalking Into an AI Mistake?
Today’s AI for School Marketing course got me thinking.
Are schools getting ChatGPT contracts because it’s easiest? Or because they’ve done their due diligence and checked it’s the right fit for what they need it for?
A lot of school marketing teams are sleepwalking into paid ChatGPT. Someone starts on the free version. It feels useful. A few people share prompts in a Teams channel. Then IT or the budget holder asks whether you should “just get Team” or roll out Plus. Before anyone has written down the jobs AI is actually meant to do, youre paying monthly across the department.
Paid isnt the problem. Unchecked is.
ChatGPT is fine for some jobs. Not for sounding like your school.
If you want fast, generic copy that’s a bit more polished than your first draft, ChatGPT is fine.
If you want to sound like your school, you need Claude.
Admissions marketing is not homework. You don’t need the fastest average draft. You need voice: outcomes, culture, why this school, not the one down the road. ChatGPT writes the easy version. It’s the model most prone to AI Slop”.
Claude writes with more nuance and less of the flattened AI tone parents now skim past. It’s more sophisticated, like our lovely schools. You’ll notice how much more human, reasoned and useful it is to work with, and that’s reflected in its outputs.
Every person who’s started the AI for School Marketing course as a ChatGPT or Copilot user has said the same thing afterwards: Claude is better at everything they actually need it to do day to day.
Write down the real jobs before you spend
Before you renew, buy, or recommend a paid plan, do this on one page.
Write the work that actually lands on your desk. Not “AI in general”. Parent emails. Web pages. Open Day follow-up. Commercial hire copy. Competitor scans. Board packs. Enquiry replies. Stick to a normal fortnight.
Decide which of those jobs need a paid plan at all. A lot of school marketing work runs on a free tier once you know how to brief it. Pay when the free version is genuinely getting in your way, not because “everyone else has Plus”.
Match the tool to that work. ChatGPT, Copilot and Claude are not interchangeable. If most of your week is long-form writing, editing to your school’s voice, and keeping a brief straight across a pack of content, that changes the answer.
It’s quite simple, really. Name the jobs. Then choose. Don’t let the easiest procurement path choose for you.
What “surface level” looks like (and what sits underneath)
After today’s session, one attendee put it like this:
It’s made me realise how little I knew about what AI could do. I was only using it on a surface level before. Knowing you can set up specific tasks and workflows to get results weekly or however often you need them is game changing. The fact you can generate it so quickly means you have more time to action other things.
Surface level is asking for a first draft and hoping. The useful layer is knowing which tasks repeat, briefing them properly, and reviewing the output before anything goes near a parent, a Head, or a Board pack. Human-led. Co-pilot, not autopilot. Safeguarding still wins: keep pupil data out of free tools entirely.
FAQ
Is ChatGPT wrong for schools?
No. It’s fine for fast, generic polish. It’s a weak default if your real need is school voice and admissions nuance.
Do we have to pay for Claude?
Not always. Start by writing down the real jobs. Use the free version where it works, and where you can. Pay when a free tier is blocking work you actually need done.
What’s the difference for marketing and admissions copy?
ChatGPT tends toward the easy, average draft. Claude tends to hold voice, culture and “why this school” with less flattened AI tone.
Where do we start if were mid-renewal?
Write down this week’s real jobs. Sense-check ChatGPT vs Claude vs Copilot against that list. If you want a structured walkthrough, the next live AI for School Marketing half-day is on the training page.
Next step
If you want me to show you how to work in Claude (including how to bring ChatGPT work across so you don’t lose what you’ve already built), join the next live half-day of AI for School Marketing on Thursday 26 November:
https://www.attenger.com/ai-training-for-school-marketing
Prefer a free start first? The AI Starter Guide for school business operations is here:
https://www.attenger.com/ai-starter-guide-for-school-business-operations