Your obviously-written-by-AI content screams “I gave up”

Or worse, “I'm not invested in this” or “I can’t write”

It’s been 57 days since Elon Musk (at 4:20 a.m.) activated the Memphis Supercluster to “build the world’s most powerful AI” by December ‘24.

As mega-corporations keep building even more powerful AI infrastructure, we're seeing an explosion of AI-generated content flooding the internet’s pipes.

AI content already has a “smell”. 

And people hate that smell. It’s the fart in the room that sends the message “hey, I gave my thinking to a machine.”

I know people like to joke around about it and like to poke fun at the generic ChatGPT outputs. But IMO it’s becoming a serious dox to your credibility if it’s obvious you’re unskilled with LLMs (and that means bad content).

Having bad content is one thing. But it’s another thing to have bad content that’s clearly been lazily offloaded to an LLM like ChatGPT or Claude. That means no unique voice, no unique words used, no unique personality making its way into your content. 

This is what Kipp & Kieran over on Marketing Against the Grain (the only marketing pod I listen to these days) talk about as “personality-led growth”.

It’s nothing super groundbreaking but it’s the advice the market needs right now to understand what they should be leaning into with as much force as possible.

But just because AI-generated content can backfire doesn’t mean you should shy away from using these tools. Quite the opposite. 

There’s going to be a learning curve for sure. You should 100% experiment, play, and explore what AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude and others can do. 

But you need to do it carefully, with intention, and without losing sight of what makes your content uniquely yours.

We’ve had ~22 months to see how people react to AI-generated content: most hate it or simply ignore it. 

And when someone you’ve followed for a while starts posting content that’s clearly AI-generated, you lose a little bit of trust in them. That’s a very real and lasting consequence. 

But it’s also a lesson…humans love humans! 

They love the mistakes, the quirks, the personality that only comes through when a real person is behind the words.

We’re learning that, in the end, authenticity wins. People want content that feels real, with all the messiness and human touch that comes with it. That’s something AI can’t replicate.

Everything you write should be connected to your direct experience. If you’re writing for a client, pull directly from customer language and the lived experiences of those who have faced the problems your product or service solves.

For everything else make sure your content is rooted in what you know, what you’ve done, and what you’ve learned firsthand. That might come from interviews, real-world stories, or domain expertise you’ve built up over time. If your writing isn’t tied to your direct experience, it’s going to sound off. 

It might “sound” like you, but it won’t feel like you.

Take me, for example. 

I keep doing client work because the second I stop doing client work is the second I lose touch with my market. This is a newsletter about AI but it’s also about building a long-term career as a successful copywriter & marketer.

I wouldn’t allow myself to write about AI if I wasn’t using the tools day in and day out. I need to be in the details of my craft.

I can only write from my own direct, messy, and non-linear experience. 

Even with AI tools, I remember the early months of using ChatGPT. It was all over the place, and I found myself on this weird, trippy journey of reacting, reassessing my process, and questioning everything. 

• “Will AI automate my profession away?” 
• “Will these models really get that good?” 
• “Should I be worried?”

After rigorously exploring, applying, using, getting frustrated, making mistakes, getting bad outputs, getting great outputs, and documenting everything I learned along the way, I came to a conclusion that it’s going to serve me (and you, dear reader) better in the long run to be bullish on these tools. But like anything else, you have to use them with intention.

Write…every day!

I find myself writing every day because I HAVE to write. I feel weird if I don’t. 

There is a messy blob of thoughts and ideas swirling around in my brain, and the only way to make sense of it all is to get it out on paper (or screen). Writing is my way to clarify my thinking and process what’s going on in my head.

What worries me is a lot of writers are leaning way too heavily on AI to take over their writing process. 

And when you do that, you’re not just handing over the words. You’re handing over the thinking, too. 

Clear writing is clear thinking. 

The two go hand in hand. AI can help sharpen your ideas, spark new ones, or streamline your process in unexpected ways. But it can’t replace the clarity that comes from wrestling with your own thoughts, one word at a time.

So write. Every day. Even when it’s hard, even when you don’t feel like it, even when it’s messy. That’s how you keep your voice sharp and your thinking clear. 

And in the long run, that’s what’s going to set you apart because no AI can replicate the hard-earned clarity that comes from a daily writing habit.