Full Transparency: How I use AI as a Copywriter

I have a confession to make about AI.

I think it’s really important that we be transparent about how we’re using AI, because it’s everywhere, and the assumption is: Everyone is using it. That includes those of us who write for other people professionally. Some of my new clients immediately assume I use AI because they’ve been ‘done dirty’ by other service providers who just fed their info into Chatgpt and handed them the result.

Which, of course, did not sound like them. 

So, here is my confession: in the few weeks before maternity leave, and certainly while in the trenches of caring for a newborn, my energy and mental capacity have been incredibly low. And I’ve been leaning heavily on AI, specifically ChatGPT.

It started with the best of intentions.
“Oh, I’m just going to use AI to do research. I’m not going to let it do any of the writing.”

But then it started turning out some really fun copy, and I caught myself thinking, oh, I like that phrase, oh, I like that paragraph. I started leaning in more and more, and then I kind of fell into the hole.

I fell into the AI trap of becoming a little dependent on it.

My brain was so tired. It was nice to outsource the mental work of putting words together and making it make sense.

But over the course of maternity leave, where I haven’t been creating content as much, and there hasn’t been the pressure to write for clients, I’ve had more time and space to think, and I’ve been consuming more content. (There’s nothing better than Instagram when you’re breastfeeding.)

And I’ve noticed something: I can really tell.

Even if you get rid of the emojis. Even if you strip away the em-dashes. I can tell what’s AI and what’s coming from a human.

Even if you edit it, you’d have to be extraordinarily devoted to remove the specific cadence that AI writing falls into.

If you haven’t been obsessing over this like I have, bless you, but that cadence tends to sound like very short, staccato sentences. 

And then there are AI’s favorite phrases. For example, “You’re not broken” often crops up if you’re using AI to write sales copy for coaches.

When I register that rhythm, even when the ideas in the writing are interesting, I stop reading it like I would read something that I knew was going to provide value to me. I just turn off that part of my brain. I stop paying attention.

It reminds me of what used to happen two decades ago with banner ads that flashed across websites. They were so effective when they first came out because, literally, nobody saw them coming.

And then we collectively learned to tune them out.

I think that’s what’s going to happen with AI-driven content.

We’re going to learn to tune it out.

So that copy that came out of Chatgpt looking so polished? It’s going to read as inauthentic, and that change is going to hit fast (I don’t think it’s there yet, but it’s coming).

Now, the other trap I found myself falling into was this: as I read more AI content, I started to write with the AI cadence. The rhythm of short, choppy sentences had infected my inner ear and leaked into my writing. I started sounding like a bot! 

So just beware of these pitfalls if you, too, are using AI heavily. It’s messing with us. And eventually, I think we’re going to pay for that.

This isn’t to say I’m not using AI at all, but I am going to be very conscious about how I use it moving forward.

You’re not going to see AI-written content in my social media. You’re not going to see it in my newsletter. You’re definitely not going to see it in my client work.

But here’s how I do use AI in a way that feels ethical and helpful.

NotebookLM

You can upload a ton of written documents and use it as a search engine. Sometimes my clients will firehose me with pages they’ve written, interviews they’ve done in the past, chapters of books, previous brochures, blog posts… dozens of pages of content. And they expect me to read through all of it and magically have the answers at the tip of my brain when we’re on a call. Hah! 

If I possessed that kind of genius, I sincerely hope I’d be curing cancer instead of writing copy.

But now, I can upload all of that information into this searchable database and it becomes my own little library that I can sort by client. The more I work with someone, the more information I can add. And then, if I have a question I’d normally have to ask them, I can search for it, because they’ve already given me the answer. I just need to find it.

It saves me so much time. I love the research capability of that kind of app, where you upload your own information and it creates a searchable database.

ChatGPT

I do enjoy it, but I use it differently now.

I no longer let it write material for me. I’ll confess: I had just started letting it do a “dirty first draft,” a rough draft that I’d then use as a starting point and refine with real client language and conversations with my client. But even with careful editing and line-by-line revisions, some of that AI rhythm still crept in.

And now that I’m more tuned into that, I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to hear it in my products or in my client work, or my own business content.

Using AI to write content is starting to sound like reading from a script on a podcast. It sounds scripted. It doesn’t sound genuine. It doesn’t sound conversational. It doesn’t sound HUMAN!

So now, I use ChatGPT the same way I’d prepare for a podcast: I’ll ask it to give me an outline of points to hit.

Then I use that outline to make sure I hit those points in the order I want. I might upload my copywriting formulas, my copywriting templates and workbooks, so it has context and understands how I like to write a sales page.

But I’m not going to have it do the writing for me. It’s just going to tell me, “Paragraph one, here’s the point you need to hit. Paragraph two, here’s what you do. Paragraph three, here’s where you need to go.”

And then it’s my job again to do the thinking and the writing.

That’s what is going to keep my work fresh. You’re not going to get sick of reading it. You’re not going to glaze over because it sounds like everybody else’s.

Even if the ideas are different, the cadence will lull us to sleep eventually because we will become so used to it.

SoundTypeAI

The other way I’m using AI right now is exactly what you’re reading. I’m using a voice-to-text app to get this thought out because I don’t have time right now to sit at a computer and type.

I have to pump. Breastfeeding is a whole thing. It’s insanely time-consuming. Then I have to hold the baby because he won’t stop fussing unless he is held. He will not sleep unless he is held. And a voice-to-text note is the only way I’m going to be able to get something out that is fresh and unique and not written by, you know who.

Then I fed the raw voice to text script to Chatgpt to get rid of the time signatures and put it in paragraph form, and then I edited this piece by hand on a Sunday while my husband crashed on the couch with the baby. 

Final thoughts

If you’re using AI, you don’t have to stop. That’s not what this is about. AI is the equivalent of the first commercially available vehicles circa 1903—sure, you can stick to your horse and buggy for now, but eventually, progress will leave you in the dust. And I love horses and buggies! We are losing something beautiful. I don’t know if we’re gaining something yet, but I do know that technological advancements can’t be ignored.

I know all of us are working with limited capacity in whatever season our lives are in. And we’re looking for something—anything—to be easier. Outsourcing content and copy to a bot who’ll write it for free? In this economy? With everything that’s happening in the world? YES WE WANT IT. 

But when you also need your copy and content to be effective at connecting you to other humans, who are craving human connection… you’ve got to either edit the hell out of it, or hand it over to me and I will edit the hell out of it.

When I edit an AI document, I am not only checking for the obvious tells. I’m checking for how it sounds, the rhythm, the overused phrases, and whether it sounds like you. Does it sound like your clients? Is it based in real client language that you’ve collected? Does it capture your unique point of view, or could I copy/paste it onto a dozen other coaching websites? 

So yes, hand it over. Send it to me, and I will de-AI it and get your client voice back in, your voice back in, and most importantly, make sure your unique point of view is there (because I’ll ask you about it—the old-fashioned way).

All right. That’s my deep thought while pumping. Again. So. Much. Pumping.