As AI becomes standard practice, your writing still needs perspective.
Using AI in your writing can make you sound the same as everyone else, which you don’t want.
Communicators need to address this risk, said Karen Freberg, professor of strategic communications at the University of Louisville.
“If we all are using AI, we’re all sounding like each other,” Freberg said during Ragan’s Writing Certificate course. Don’t avoid using it, but integrate new standards, she said.
Here are three ways communications teams can protect their voice while using AI.
- Build a voice bank
A brand voice guide might describe an organization as friendly, bold or conversational. But broad descriptions don’t give AI tools enough direction.
Freberg recommends creating a “voice bank” that includes phrases the organization uses often, words it avoids and signature sentence structures.
She used Liquid Death as an example. The water brand uses strong, sometimes irreverent language that fits its identity. Unlike other water brands, words like “refreshing” or “hydrating” would sound out of place.
“You never have the soft wellness, very fluffy language,” Freberg said. “Absolutely not. That is not Liquid Death.”
Tell AI what the brand would not say, along with what it would, she said.
- Add what only your organization can say
AI prompts usually include the audience, format and desired tone. Freberg said communicators should add another layer of “only you can say this” to the mix.
This could include a firsthand observation, customer story, organizational experience or informed opinion. These details give AI material others can’t replicate.
“AI can generate content, but it can’t really generate perspective,” Freberg said. Without that unique perspective, copy may be neat but still feel empty, she said.
“It’s clean. It’s nice, but it’s not you,” she said.
- Create a human checkpoint
AI output should never go directly from the tool to publication.
There must be a person checking factual accuracy, source credibility, brand alignment, audience relevance and bias, Freberg said. Communicators should expect multiple editing rounds, as they would with any other message.
Ask whether the copy sounds like the organization and whether the audience would care enough to keep reading. Verify every quote, fact and source because AI tools are notorious for inventing references and statements, she said.
“It’s a framework,” Freberg said, “but it’s not the replacement of what we are doing.”
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