Ok AI, we have a problem...
So I’ve been working with copywriting for a nice long time now. I got into it back in 2020 when I took a course with Max Hamm on 7FSA and the whole AI thing for creators was booming.
I remember iterating 4-5 versions of long and short copy to prepare for A/B testing campaigns, and that it also took a good amount of time to get the “ok, ready to post” feeling.
Yesterday I was working on a blog entry and I remembered my husband talking about this site that tells you when you’ve written a piece of content with AI. It gives you the percentage of AI inside the text and even highlights the parts suspected of being AI-generated.
So I go to test my entry, and oh, the surprise. It throws a 96% chance of written with AI result.
“What in the actual…”, I’ve just poured my mind onto this piece and an AI system is telling me my copy sounds robotic?
So I’m re-reading my entry and I go to ChatGPT and prompt it to rewrite it improving grammar and correcting any sentences that might be unclear and rerun it through the AI detector.
87%, “What do you mean 😢”
So here are my two cents on the matter:
ChatGPT, Claude AI, Gemini, and other AI tools work with a continuous online learning model and a lot of copywriting processes include a grammar checkup (I use Grammarly), and with every “grammar improvement” the system saves the tone or cadence to use in further prompts. So give it a few million users and you end up having amazing pieces sounding the same, with ChatGPT lingo and making statements like “unwavering”, or “next level” obsolete since it’s a given once you read those that it’s an AI-produced content piece.
Here’s what I think that got me:
The formatting, social media algorithms, and copy formula.
Those are things that don’t really change much. You format just as you learned from your English classes, add a few pointers or emojis according to social media styles, and have the usual copy formula:
Your buying persona pain points
Your value offer and solution
CTA
And you’ve got yourself the trending social media copy template that AI has been reproducing like hot pizza on a Sunday after payday.
So here’s what I think: this is the era of going back to the basics. If an AI detector says my writing feels robotic, just imagine what a potential client might feel. 🫠
It’s time to retake your writing habits just for the fun of it, for the joy of telling a story. To remember what you sound like as a relatable human being (and if you’re on marketing might be a good time to remember the old good practices of traditional marketing), and put your mind to work.
From one marketer to another, this might just get us to 70% since it’s a lot of unlearning, and most of us have tons of unlearning to do. But I like to believe that the same formula won’t get you different results.
Here’s to retaking good old practices and testing. Good luck on your writing journey! 🤭
