Let’s be real. We can do better when it comes to using AI in marketing.

So, you finally discovered ChatGPT, Claude or whatever shiny AI toy your nephew told you about. Congrats! You’re officially part of the future of marketing!

Ok. Not really. Not the way you’re doing it.

Here’s a scene being played out way too often lately. Someone types “write me a LinkedIn post about title insurance” into their AI platform of choice. Thirty seconds later, they’ve got 200 perfectly formatted words. They’re well written – elegant, even. Maybe a little long for Instagram, but well written, anyway. They’re promptly cut and pasted into the appropriate place, then posted.  The proud author then sits back and waits for the engagement to roll in. Except, it never does. 

Here’s what’s actually happening across LinkedIn, blogs and just about every other content channel right now. Far too many professionals, even marketers, are using AI as a glorified content vending machine. Plug in a topic. Get out a post. Rinse and repeat.

The real issue is that there’s zero editing and zero personalization. Zero thought about whether the output actually sounds like something a human being would say, much less the author.

And the kicker is that the audience knows. They can smell it. The minute they start reading these AI-generated masterpieces, something feels off. It’s too polished, too predictable, and completely lacking in authenticity. 

Since AI uses these clear patterns, people sense when it’s been used, even if they can’t quite pinpoint the rhythm. And when everyone’s using the same tool the same way, we all end up sounding like we had the same robot ghostwriter. Because, well, we probably did. It’s why doom scrolling has become more like being dead in the water in a sea of sameness.

Déjà vu. Only worse.

It hasn’t been that long since every single marketing post started with “Imagine a world where…” or opened with a rhetorical question. There was also a time not that long ago when every piece of content had to include a numbered list because some guru said lists get more clicks. True to form, we’re doing it again. Except this time, it’s worse.

AI tends to pump out the same predictable phrases and sentence structures over and over. It’s precise. Efficient, even perfect. As a writer, I can tell you that more than once I’ve marveled at some of the turns of phrase that AI has scribed on my behalf. But when people scroll past hundreds of posts a week, they start to feel that. They can sense a certain rhythm that screams, “I didn’t actually write this.” Think contrast framing, series overkill or way too many em or en dashes—which is a huge pet peeve of mine (I loved using those long before AI did…along with parentheses and ellipses).

Professionals need to remember that their audiences aren’t idiots. They’re likely reading five (or 15!) other posts today that sound exactly the same. At some point, they just start scrolling past all of them.

Authenticity, anyone?

Authenticity is one of those timeless concepts on which your marketing must be built. That’s been true since someone started marketing in the first place. It works. Always has, and always will. People want to do business with people they know and trust—not content mills or whichever agency hired the best prompt engineer.

When someone reads content, they should hear author’s (or brand’s, in some cases) voice, which means the author’s personality, actual thoughts and expertise. After all, if one’s post could have been written by any of their competitors, why choose the author over any of them?

Good marketing has always been about connection. It’s about showing prospects that the content creator understands their world and their challenges as well as demonstrating expertise in a way that’s helpful rather than just self-promotional. It’s basically the same tried-and-true sales technique that’s worked in our industry forever.

AI can’t do that for you. After all, it doesn’t know your clients. Nor does it really understand your market the way you do. It hasn’t spent 25 years learning the nuances of your industry.

But if you have, why are you letting a computer speak for you?

Use AI. Don’t let it use you.

Please don’t get me wrong. This is anything but a suggestion that people turn off AI entirely and return to the old days of staring at a blank screen for three hours.

AI is a fantastic tool. It can help brainstorm ideas or overcome writer’s block. It helps many organize their thoughts and clean up their grammar. It’ll even draft a first version that can (and should) be completely rewrite the author’s own voice.

That last part is the most important. Completely rewrite. That’s the step far too many are skipping, and it’s the only step that actually matters.

The smart way to move forward is to use AI for the draft. Then make it yours by adding your stories or including your specific industry knowledge. Thought leadership is a powerful approach to marketing communications. Additionally, don’t be afraid to inject your personality. Start by saying things the way you’d actually say them to a client over coffee.

Most importantly, strip out the “AI-speak” and corporate fluff. Ditch those phrases that sound like they came from a marketing textbook written in 2015. And, whatever you do, eliminate the content framing – start by including that in the prompt. Make it sound like you, because how you write is a huge part of how people will see you and/or your brand.

Your move

Your competition is already using AI, and they’re probably doing it the exact same, way you are. That opens up a massive opportunity for differentiation. Start by being the one person who actually sounds like a person. That means sharing real insights from real experience and writing content that couldn’t have been written by anyone else in your space. 

Right now, our industry, like most, is drowning in AI-generated noise. It’s actively turning people off from going to platforms like LinkedIn in search of genuine, authentic content. They are desperate for something that doesn’t sound like it was written by a committee of robots. So, why not be the one to do that and see what happens?

Or, then again, feel free to just keep doing what you’re doing. Keep posting content that sounds like everyone else’s content. And keep wondering why nobody’s engaging with those brilliant AI-generated posts.

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