How to Sound More Like a Human in a Sea of AI-Generated Content
Beat the bots at their own game by being radically, ostentatiously, un-fakeably human.
So—AI-generated content is everywhere. (Hello, Captain Obvious.)
From corporations to small business owners to college kids, millions of people have the bots working overtime churning out blog posts, social content, and plenty of "personalized" emails that make you go "ummmm, personalized email my ass.
But before we go any further, let me be clear—this post isn’t about villainizing AI, or the people who use it. I may (and do) have ethical concerns about it, but I’ve also studied it seriously and thoroughly, so I’m not here to try to stubbornly discredit it while leaving my head in the sand.
What I AM here to do is help you, pro copywriter to small business owner, rise to the top in a sea of blah blah blah by sounding 100% human.
Why Boring AI Content is a Big Ol’ Bummer for Our Brains
We’ve all scrolled through IG and felt like, “What in the name of copy-paste is going on?”
The same “5 Steps to Scale”-type carousels, the same language about “leveling up” (here’s my partial list of telltale chatGPT words for further proof), the same “how-to”-type stuff that doesn’t get anybody excited anymore.
Because it has never before in human history been easier to *create content,* there’s more of it than ever, turning our feeds and inboxes into an echo chamber of bland, samey stuff. Pop a prompt into the content vending machine, put the output in Canva, post.
This high quantity, low quality wormhole has two big problems:
It’s boring. A snoozefest.
All of the sameness and repetition makes us forget who WE are and how we sound. Once your brain is overly saturated with the same words, the same phrases, even the same default tone, it gets harder and harder to stay connected to your own voice and tone. And therefore, more likely that you’ll find your fingers typing a sentence like, “Unleash your inner CEO goddess and turbocharge your brand to next-level success in the digital landscape!” while your brain is like “I’m sorry, when did a personality transplant happen that I was not made aware of?????”
AND. ALSO. Those two big problems lead to one big, wonderful opportunity.
Instead of making humans less valuable, AI has made humans more valuable.
Specifically—humans willing to challenge themselves to bust through the blah blah blah and communicate in a way that’s alive, textured, interesting, authentic, and utterly un-fakeable.
It's like we’re wandering through a world where everything's been auto-tuned, and now people are craving the sound of an actual, imperfect human voice.
This means that right now, your everyday stories, your weird analogies, your client examples, even your typos aren't just acceptable—they're rare, real, and valuable. They're proof that there's a person worth connecting with (worth trusting! worth investing in!) behind the screen, not just a clever predictive algorithm.
So the cool thing is that being boldly, genuinely, unflinchingly human is now actually a competitive advantage.
And here are some tips to help amp up (or reconnect with!) your ability to write like the cool, smart human weirdo you are.
What’s Working: Beat the Bots by Being You
As a pro copywriter, I spend time with literally hundreds of thousands of words every week for all kinds of clients. And here’s what I see working for them right now:
Those “wait, what did you just say?” expressions you use a lot in conversation with your friends & fam? Use ‘em. (Sorry not sorry I wrote “oh for farts SAKE” in a recent email.) And if you’re not actually a “hey bestie” kind of girl, stop using it (or any other not-you trendy phrase) in your writing!
Tell more stories. They don’t have to be “here’s this crazy and hilarious thing that happened to me that I will now - surprise! - transition into a small biz topic!” stories. Talk about something that happened on a call, what you’re worried about, this thing that your client just went through, what you’re reading right now. AI can’t tell your stories.
Share more of your perspective and your process over general “how to”-type stuff. AI can generate checklists and create lists of pointers all day. But YOU can talk about why you do things the way you do. You can talk about how to *think about * or approach something, not just the nuts and bolts overview of how to do it. And you can talk to your people’s exact wants, needs, concerns, hopes.
Embrace your weird and squishy and true-to-you shorthand. Go look at some texts you’ve sent. (Some of my recents are “uuuggghhhhh” and “that seems wayyy more reasonable” and “they are seriously delusional about their prices” and “raise a glass, raise a pretzel.”) Abandon your worries about being grammatically correct and let yourself be expressive in your spelling, punctuation, images, phrases, everything!
Chop anything that makes your eyes glaze over. Switch up your vocabulary - nobody wants to see innovative, elevate, secret, cutting-edge, trusty sidekick, level up, game-changer, etc anymore. Stand up, shake out all the corporate/AI gobbledygook you’ve absorbed, and try again. How would you, an actual human being, say this out loud in real human words?
Get specific and sensory. Work those five senses, baby. Vivid images. Specific details. Emotions. Place names, brand names, people’s names. This is what takes your copy from “This could be anyone’s” to copy that’s undeniably YOURS.
Channel your empathy, emotion, and focus. Why this, why you, why now, why your people? What do they deeply, truly want? (What you want them to want is often a different thing.) Challenge yourself to get SO real and specific that you’re basically entering the exact convo they’re already having with themselves.
Focus on your relationships. There’s this new saying—“The FROM line is becoming more important than the subject line.” Whether people actually click through and read isn’t just about a few absolutely brilliantly magically strategic words in the subject line, but whether people actually feel an existing connection with you in the first place.
Wanna practice?
Time to put your money where your mouth is! (Or, more accurately, put your personality where… your words… are? You get it.)
Start with a Cringe Audit:
Go dig up your last few posts, emails, or whatever content you've been sharing. Read them out loud. Did you make it through without wincing? No? Good. That's where we start.
Try the "Would I Actually Say This?" Test:
For each piece of writing you’re looking at, ask yourself, "Would I ever say this in real life?” Be ruthlessly honest! Marie Kondo that shit! Anything you wouldn’t actually say officially does NOT spark joy and needs to be purged.
Experiment with a Personality Injection:
Pick an email/IG post/piece of writing you want to revamp. Bring one of your most favorite clients to mind, the one you absolutely LOVE working with and could chat with forevs. (Bonus points if you at least semi-regularly exchange voice notes or DMs.) Now, take the idea you’re working on and pretend you’re sharing it with her. Say it out loud like a voice note and record it. Write it like you’d share it with her in 12 fragmented DMs. What expressions do you use, what shorthand or abbreviations come up, what stories do you tell? Use it all!
It’s not about performing that you’re relatably ~unprofessional~, or *spicy*, or letting it all hang out. It’s about finding that natural sweet spot between polished business owner and the true to Y-O-U, actual human being that you are.
It might feel uncomfortable at first, but stick with it! Practice will make it easier, and putting the reps in will help create your reputation as a real, interesting person that the right people would LOVE to work with.
So go forth and be human. Your people are waiting.
And one more thing:
Just to really twist the plot here… it turns out that someone else (a copywriter) can help you figure this out! So if you’re curious about how this particular word-woman (hi!) manages to fully capture your own human voice, embody it, and reflect it back to you, there’s a whole post on the top-to-bottom brand messaging + custom website copy process right here.