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5 easy ways to improve your AI content

Faster content only pays off if it still sounds like you. Here's how to get both.

Copywriting

Content design

How to guide

Realised using AI to 'save you time' is just a big waste of time? You're not alone.

Sound familiar? You asked AI for a blog post, and it gave you 800 words of "in today's fast-paced world" and "unlock your potential". By the time you've rewritten it, you could have written it yourself.

AI can draft in seconds, but if you brief it poorly, you get bland, jargon-heavy copy that customers skim past. Search engines are getting better at spotting it too, so it can hurt your SEO and your reputation.

The good news? Great content has less to do with clever wording than you'd think. It's about knowing your customer, and you can teach your AI tool that.

Here are five ways to brief it so the content it writes helps you sell. Then you can decide whether it's worth doing yourself or handing it to someone else.

1. Identify your customer: What do they want and need?

Before you ask AI to write anything, get clear on who you're writing for. Who are they? What do they care about? What keeps them up at night, and what stops them from buying from you?

Write it down as a short customer profile, and give it to your AI tool every time you brief it. HubSpot's free buyer persona templates are a good place to start if you're not sure what to include.

The payoff: instead of generic content that could be for anyone, you get content that speaks to real problems. And when customers feel understood, they're far more likely to get in touch.

A black and white sign reading 'We hear you'. Credit: jon-tyson-unsplash

2. Talk to them: Be interested, not interesting

Left to its own devices, AI loves to talk about the business: "We are a leading provider of…", "Our team has decades of experience…". Customers don't care. They want to know what's in it for them.

So tell your AI tool to write in the second person, using "you" more than "we". Dale Carnegie's advice from How to Win Friends and Influence People still holds: be interested, not interesting. People warm to those who show an interest in them, and customers are no different. They buy from businesses that understand them.

A mother reading her phone while sitting between two children. Credit: vitolda-klein-unsplash

3. Stick to the benefits: Don’t bore them with features

AI is great at listing features: the specs, the process, the add-ons. But features don't sell. What they mean for the customer does.

There's nothing wrong with including features, but lead with the benefits. Not "24/7 support", but "help whenever you need it, so a problem never holds you up". Ask your AI tool to explain why each feature matters to your customer.

This matters more than you might think. Only 5% of B2B customers are in the market to buy right nowright now. For the other 95%, you need memorable, relatable messaging so that when they are ready, they think of you.

Arial shot of hands writing in a notebook. Credit: cathryn-lavery-unsplash

4. Have a recognisable voice: make sure what you’re saying is consistent

If your website sounds formal, your emails sound chatty, and your LinkedIn posts sound like a robot wrote them (because one did), customers won't know who they're dealing with. Consistency helps people recognise you, and recognition builds trust.

Pick up to three words that describe how you want to sound (confident, authentic and fun, say) and include them in every brief. Add a few examples of copy you love, and a few you don't. If you want to go further, Asana's brand voice guide is a great example of how to set it out properly.

A notebook with the words, 'Empower, Elevate, Leverage and Unleash' written in black marker

5. Ditch the jargon: Speak conversationally

AI loves a buzzword: "leverage", "seamless", "cutting-edge", "elevate". They sound impressive, but they say very little, and customers have learned to skim straight past them.

If your AI copy sounds stiff, ask it to rewrite it conversationally, as if you were explaining it to a customer over a coffee. Then run it through ClearCut, my free jargon checker, to catch the clichés that slip through. If you wouldn't say it out loud, don't write it.

If all this sounds like a bit too much work…

That's what I'm here for. Briefing AI well takes time, and editing its output takes even longer. If your team would rather spend that time on what they do best, I can help.

I'll start with a content audit to see what's working and what isn't, clear your backlog, then keep everything sounding like you, whether it's written by me, your team or your AI tools. You get your time back, and content that starts bringing in business.

Get in touch; let's chat.

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