You’ve probably already had a go at using AI for your content. You type something in, get something back that is technically fine, but doesn’t really sound like you. It might be a bit flat, a bit generic, or just slightly off in a way you can’t quite put your finger on. So you try it once or twice, decide it’s not for you, and move on.
That’s a really common experience, particularly with local business owners. Most people I speak to have had a brief go with it and quietly abandoned the idea because it didn’t feel right.
The interesting thing is that the problem usually isn’t the tool. It’s the starting point.
A lot of the advice around AI makes it sound like you can just drop in a topic and get something usable back. Write a post about this. Create some ideas about that. The trouble is, those kinds of prompts are so vague that the only thing AI can really do is give you something equally vague in return. It doesn’t know what matters about your business, what you actually say to customers, or what you’re trying not to sound like, so it fills in the gaps with something safe and broadly acceptable.
Which is why so much of it ends up sounding the same.
I use AI quite a lot now, but not in the way most of the advice suggests. I don’t expect it to produce something I can just copy and paste, because if I did that, everything would sound like it could belong to anyone. That’s not much use to me, and it’s definitely not much use to the people I’m writing for.
Instead, I treat it more like something I can work with. I’ll either start with something I’ve already written, even if it’s a bit of a brain dump, or I’ll get it to draft something knowing full well I’m going to change it. Half the time I’m reading through and thinking “nope, I wouldn’t say it like that”, and rewriting chunks of it so it sounds more like me.
That back and forth is where it becomes useful. Not because it gets it right first time, but because it gives you something to react to and shape.
The catch is that this only really works if you’ve got something to bring to it in the first place. If your thinking is a bit vague, the output will be too. If you’re not clear on what matters about your business, or how you normally talk about it, AI has nothing solid to work with. It just reflects that lack of clarity back at you.
You see the same thing happen outside of AI. Give someone a blank page and ask them to write about their business, and you often get the same kind of generic language. It’s not because they’re not good at what they do, it’s because they haven’t quite nailed how to explain it yet.
The tool just makes that more obvious.
Where it starts to become useful is when you bring something real into it. That might be a rough paragraph, a few bullet points, or even something you’ve said out loud to a customer. Once there’s some substance there, you can use AI to tighten it up, make it clearer, or turn it into something more structured without losing your voice in the process.
A simple way to try this yourself
If you’ve tried AI before and it didn’t quite work, it’s worth having another go with a slightly different approach.
Instead of asking it to write something from scratch, start with something of your own, even if it’s rough.
For example, you might type something like:
“Here’s a rough paragraph about what I do. It’s a bit messy, but can you help me tidy it up and make it clearer without changing the tone too much?”
Or:
“I want to write a Facebook post about [what you do]. My audience is [who you work with], and I don’t want it to sound salesy or over the top. Here are a few thoughts — can you help me turn this into something more structured?”
The key difference is that you’re giving it something real to work with, rather than expecting it to come up with everything from nothing.
You can also go back and tweak what it gives you. Ask it to:
- make it sound more conversational
- simplify the language
- remove anything that feels generic
- or adjust it so it sounds more like how you’d actually say it
It’s a bit more back and forth, but the end result is usually far closer to something you’d actually be happy to use.
The difference between those two approaches is huge. One gives you something that sounds like everyone else. The other still sounds like you, just a bit more considered.
That’s probably the simplest way to think about it. AI isn’t there to replace your voice, it’s there to support it. But it can only do that if there’s something there to begin with.
If your first experience of it felt a bit underwhelming, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not for you. It might just mean you were expecting it to do more of the thinking than it realistically can.
Used properly, it can be a really helpful tool. Without that, you’ll just keep getting more of the same.
