It’s no secret that I use tools like ChatGPT and ClaudeAI to help me write content. They have helped create content much faster than ever before. But they’re not perfect. If you’re just starting to use these tools for writing content here’s a few tips to keep your content from sounding like generic, white washed garbage while retaining your voice and perspective.
Yes, I know these tools are not “artificial intelligence” that designation is 100% marketing, but the terminology is so polluted that it’s just easier to refer to them as “AI” to avoid further confusion
I also want to make it clear that AI is not a replacement for capable, knowledgeable, experienced professional copywriters. But for those times when you don’t have the budget or just need to do it yourself, an AI powered writing assistant is a great tool to have in your arsenal.
AI isn’t a magic article machine
Some people see the speed at which these tools spit out content as an easy button. Sure, they can “write” something that may be factually correct and easy to read but it’s pretty much the same copy that everyone gets with the same or similar prompt. This is no different than just finding an article on Google to copy or using some kind of article spinner (which have been around for years) to remix a bunch of sources into a different article by just moving some words around.
AI tools aren’t innovating any ideas, they’re just spitting back the ideas they’ve been trained on…which were our (humanity’s) ideas in the first place. As of the time of this writing, you will not get an original, innovative, or necessarily informative article that’s any different from any others from simply copying and pasting the results of a generic AI prompt.
Stop copying and pasting!
So then how should you do it?
You still need to put in the work
AI is not a shortcut to knowledge and experience. Trying to write about something you don’t even understand stands out like a sore thumb. Your content will be vague, full of errors, and laughably generic. You won’t know enough to fix the bad parts or add anything meaningful.
Even with AI, you still have to research, understand the topic, and contribute your own voice and perspective. The best content comes from knowledgeable humans using AI as a tool—not the other way around ( yeah, I saw the em dash and I’m leaving it).
I rarely have an AI tool write the article first. It can’t think like me, or come up with my ideas and witticisms. Starting with AI first usually wastes more time. I usually turn to AI after I’ve written my incoherent mess of ramblings to help me clean it up. Which brings up my next point:
AI tools should assist, not write for you
Most of us are not professional copywriters. There’s generally an area where we struggle with whether that’s time consumption, subject matter research, organizing thoughts, or just putting sentences together to form something coherent.
For me it’s brevity. I’m long-winded, repeat points (like I just did there), and end up spending forever editing down blog posts. Sometimes all day. AI helps me cut the fluff, organize my ideas, and say what I mean much faster. This original paragraph alone was far more sentences than what is here now.
If you’re an entrepreneur you don’t have all day to write one blog post. When used correctly AI tools can not only save you time, but sanity.
I rarely have an AI tool write the article first. It can’t think like me, or come up with my ideas and starting with AI first usually wastes more time. I usually turn to AI after I’ve written my incoherent mess of ramblings to help me clean it up.
Train your tools
Copy and pasting prompts will never get you back content that sounds like you, or that speaks to your target audience. No matter the tool, if it doesn’t know who you are and doesn’t have any examples of your writing, it will never be able to produce anything close to the content that you actually need.
You need to create branding docs that you can call on to use with these AI tools.
At a minimum you need:
- Target Audience Doc
- Customer Avatar Doc
- Brand voice guidelines
- Competitive research (optional)
Upload those, or at least refer to them in your prompts. This is how you get AI to assist in your voice, not spit out some random internet gumbo.
Need help making these? Get in touch with me.
Which brings me to the next point…
Use the best tool for the job
ChatGPT is the most recognized brand name that gets most of the main stream press, but it is not the only AI model in town, if you include local models that you run on your own hardware there are tens of thousands of them.
As of the time of this writing, here’s how the top 5 tools that you’ve probably heard of stack up for me, and how I use them for the best results.
- ChatGPT – Great all-around. Custom GPTs are killer for writing assistants as well as many other AI power tools to help you run your business. $20/month for ChatGPT Plus. I’ve never seen a limite to how many GPTs you can have. You can literally build an arsenal or AI tools. Totally worth it.
- ClaudeAI – Probably the best raw writer. Warmer tone, feels more human, especially when trained on your brand.
- Perplexity – The research wizard. Cites sources, gets specific, saves you time digging through Google. When I need to research something I always start here.
- NotebookLM – Organizes info from multiple sources into something coherent. Good for learning and outlining. When I need to combine information from many sources including podcasts, and YouTube videos, this is my go to.
- Gemini – Most underrated. Solid across the board for almost everything.
Let AI handle the boring stuff
There are times when no one cares that you used AI to write something. Every piece of content does not need to be a creative expression of your soul, responsible for the survival of humanity. These are what I call utility content. Where what matters to the reader is that the content is correct, well organized, and easy to understand. Most AI tools are better at this than you are.
- Instructions: This is not the time to be cute or express creativity. Instructions need to be clear and get to the point.
- Contracts, agreements, and polices: The information in them needs to be accurate, well organized, and vetted.
Important: AI tools are still evolving and may not be accurate or complete. THEY ARE NOT not a substitute for legal, financial, or professional advice. Please consult a qualified expert when needed. - Product descriptions: Focus on benefits, features, and calls to action. If you’re not a professional copywriter you’re not going to get this right. AI tools can be a great help in this area.
How I used AI to help with this article
I first wrote the article, rambling, unfiltered, without much care for organization. Then I ran what I had through my custom GPT that is already loaded with examples of my writing, and target audience data and asked it to clean it up and suggest improvements without losing any key points.
My prompt was something like: “Look at my article on using AI tools for copywriting and make suggestions to clean things up for clarity, brevity, without losing any of the key points or my unique voice and perspective. Also make any suggestions for a better title, headers, keywords and phrases for Yoast SEO:”
What it came back with was a ton of suggestions that were better…cleaner, but not 100% copy and paste. It does a great job at getting me in the ball park, but I need to take it home. I took from areas that made sense, put them in my own words. There were some things it eliminated that I thought were important, so I didn’t take it’s advice and instead relied on my own instincts.
The takeaway here is that these are tools, and like all tools you use them to save time, fill in the gaps and do things that you cannot do yourself. You wouldn’t lay a chain saw down by the tree and expect it instinctively know what angle to cut. It needs guidance. So do AI tools.
It’s important to remember that these tools are not “Artificial Intelligence”. That’s marketing. They follow instructions and produce results based on the existing data that they’ve been trained with.
The prompts and information that you give them are the instructions. The better the instructions, the better your results are going to be.
