AI tools have revolutionised how we create content, offering speed, convenience and a seemingly endless stream of ideas at the click of a button. For many, the likes of ChatGPT and Claude have become go-to solutions for generating everything from blog posts to brand profiles.

But here’s the catch: relying solely on AI to produce your content can do more harm than good. These tools are certainly impressive, but they are far from perfect. The text they generate almost always requires human input to make it meaningful and confirm there are no factual inaccuracies.

If you’re simply copying and pasting AI-generated content without reviewing or refining it, you’re likely missing out on the potential for deeper impact and originality. Although some people still like to say otherwise, it’s exceptionally easy to tell whether or not text is AI-generated. Putting obviously AI-generated text in front of your audience, which can include potential customers, could deter them from your brand – especially if it’s clearly a case of a lazy copy and paste.

While these clever algorithms, trained on vast datasets, can string together grammatically correct sentences, they lack the critical elements that breathe life into text: emotional intelligence, creativity, contextual understanding and real-life insights. These things are what make writing that zingy, bubbly, magical thing that has a real impact on people, persuading, inspiring and building a relationship with them.

In this post, I’ll share some of my thoughts around AI-generated text and explain why editing is an essential step for anyone who is serious about achieving meaningful results with their writing.

Just to note that I don’t want to disparage anyone using AI tools to help them write. These tools are incredibly useful in many scenarios, and not all of us can be fantastic creative writers! (I’m certainly not!) It’s about recognising AI’s limitations and understanding the risks of over-relying on gen-AI texts.

Generic copy = generic results

While AI can be a helpful tool for generating text quickly and efficiently, its output often feels more like a composite of existing ideas than something truly new. As a brand or industry expert, you need a strong market position to sell your services. Relying on gen-AI content to do the thinking and talking for you could do more harm than good, rendering you comparable and replaceable.

Tasks requiring genuine creativity, emotional connection and unique viewpoints are best handled by a skilled human copywriter – someone who takes the time to truly understand your values and what you’re trying to communicate. If you don’t have the budget or time to hire a copywriter, don’t be afraid to give writing a go yourself. Get your thoughts down and share your unique knowledge and experience. You can always hire a copyeditor to review the text and polish it for you.

YOU selling you is better than a MACHINE using what everyone else has said and done to sell you.

Ultimately, you need to give yourself an edge if you want to be successful, and AI tools won’t do that for you.

Losing engagement through predictability

AI seems to favour particular sentence constructions, so you end up with a lot of “By doing this, you end up with that” or “It not only does this, it also does that.” After a while, your mind goes into auto-drive. Your eyes scan the page, but your brain has gone to sleep.

It begs the question: as a writer, industry expert, business owner or content manager, is this what you want for your readers? Surely that’s a waste of everyone’s time.

Part of my role as a copyeditor in this era of AI content is to assess how interesting and engaging a text is and inject life into the parts that sound too repetitive and robotic. I edit to ensure each sentence is surprising, engaging and educational. This helps readers truly absorb what’s written.

A broken record that keeps spinning

AI tools don’t just repeat the same sentence structures; they also churn out the same information and phrases, wording them slightly differently each time. This can leave readers bored and disengaged.

This is particularly problematic when people use AI to write long-form content, as you end up with 50,000 words of text that could have been diluted to 5,000 words to avoid repeating the same points again and again and again. The same points are rehashed endlessly in slightly different ways, resulting in text that feels like a looped recording rather than an engaging narrative that takes you on a journey and inspires critical thinking.

So, why does this happen? AI tools rely on patterns and predictions. They analyse vast datasets to predict the next word or phrase, often gravitating towards the most statistically likely choices. This is why gen-AI copy often lacks the variety and nuance that a skilled human writer would bring. Text becomes formulaic, and vocabulary choices may be limited to the algorithm’s comfort zone.

I’d urge brands and businesses to consider how harmful and counterproductive this mechanical repetitiveness can be. If you’re using AI to write an industry report, for example, you might want to consider how rehashing the same points again and again makes you look like you’ve done no real research or analysis. Stating the obvious doesn’t help anyone.

Ultimately, there’s a risk that the people who read your redundant content will lose trust in the expertise or creativity behind it. Worse still, repetitive content signals to search engines that your site lacks depth, potentially hurting SEO performance. (This is something worth discussing with an SEO expert.)

Polished but perplexing

One of my responsibilities as a copyeditor is to ensure that whoever reads your text understands it and gets something out of it. I’m the last line of defence. If I don’t understand it, neither will the reader.

What I’ve noticed about AI content is that it doesn’t really mean much, so it’s incredibly difficult to understand. It’s just regurgitated information. There’s no intent behind it. It reminds me of when someone describes a person as looking “dead behind the eyes” or “soulless”. Gen-AI writing lacks emotion, intention and purpose, so what you end up with is a lot of words that don’t really say anything and a text that’s hard to comprehend.

Eeek. I know that sounds so harsh, but hear me out…

When I’m copyediting and come across something I don’t understand, my approach is to ask the writer to clarify their thoughts. I ask, “What were you intending to communicate here?” I won’t try to edit something I don’t understand – that will only make it worse. With AI-written content, I can’t go back and ask the tool what it meant. I can’t even ask the person who used the tool because they won’t know either. So, instead of collaborating to tweak a text and communicate something in the best way, we have to delete it and start again with a more intentional prompt. I then have to review it again, which costs the client time and money.

Don’t get me wrong – individually, the sentences make sense. But there’s no logic or emotion to tie them together, so they just read like disconnected lists. The proofreader in me loves that there are no distracting typos, poor grammar or ugly formatting, but I would take those issues over a text that doesn’t really DO anything.

Perhaps our brains are wired to process human voices, not those of machines.

Jumbled facts and fractured examples

AI trying to explain something reminds me of someone starting to tell a story and then forgetting what the point was halfway through.

I recently edited an article using a made-up case study to explain a point. The case study was about two businesses; company A was the vendor and company B was the customer. By the end, the companies had swapped roles. The client hadn’t picked up on this, perhaps because they were too close to the text and had read it too many times. Or maybe (probably) they hadn’t read it at all.

To protect your text from confusion and inaccuracies, make sure you give it a thorough read-through. If you find you’re skimming through it and not really taking anything in, that’s a sure sign that it’s too robotic.

You’ll get ultimate peace of mind when you hire an editor to review your AI-generated text. We have a real knack for detecting things that don’t quite make sense and fixing them.

So, what’s good about AI content?

I don’t think anyone should be relying on AI tools to generate content without some level of human intervention. That said, there are lots of advantages to using AI as an assistant in your writing efforts.

  • It can save you time: AI can quickly generate drafts, giving you a solid starting point. This might free up resources for more editing and refining. For basic texts, you won’t need to spend hours trawling through Google to find information.
  • It can reduce your copywriting budget: AI makes it possible for less-skilled writers to create basic copy. This means you won’t always need to hire a copywriter.
  • Say bye-bye to the blank page anxiety: When I used to do copywriting, I dreaded having to start from scratch. AI tools provide a helpful starting point at the beginning of a writing project, which can open the floodgates for your creative flow.
  • It can help create a sensible structure for your text: One thing I see content writers struggle with, especially if they’re not experts in the thing they’re writing about, is coming up with a logical article structure and knowing what to write. AI can certainly help with this and could really save writers time.

As industries and markets change, many businesses and content departments are cutting their budgets and using AI tools to think, write and edit for them. Before, this work would have been undertaken by marketers, brand managers, copywriters and editors. Perhaps that’s the only viable option right now for some, given the current economic climate. However, professional editorial services are, in my opinion, indispensable. This should always be part of your process.

My top recommendation would always be – and this is what will get you the best results – to hire skilled professional copywriters and send the content to an editor as the final step in your content creation process. The number of copywriters who are struggling to find work right now is staggering, and it’s such a shame because these are the people – yes, real people with real brains and real thoughts – who can make all the difference to your business.

Do you want to transform your AI-written texts and make them work for your business? Get in touch to find out about Kingsland Editorial services.