One of the questions I get asked most as a writer is whether I use AI in my job. The answer is yes. But.
Perhaps the better question would be how I use AI in my job.
Having watched this space since Jasper was Jarvis, the novelty’s all but worn off. Surprisingly, while the tools have evolved substantially, the challenge for marketers hasn’t: Google still rewards content written by humans, for humans. Meanwhile, AI’s still producing technically correct copy from an emotional vacuum.
That doesn’t mean you can’t bend the rules and build a hybrid workflow, creating human-like content that satisfies both the algorithm’s need for structure and the reader’s need for something to sink their teeth into. Here’s how to do it.
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What Makes ChatGPT Sound So Robotic?
ChatGPT sounds robotic because it’s a robot (or more accurately, a statistical prediction engine).
Rather than knowing things, it can predict which word is mathematically most likely to follow the last one. Unfortunately, that math is based on a massive average of digital noise, which means the output defaults to a people-pleasing neutrality. It’s programmed to be liked. While real people have bad days, fail and get annoyed, AI is just happy to assist.
The robotic tone shows up in predictable sentence structures. You’ve seen the rhetoric: “It’s not just about X; it’s about Y.” It’s a classic, vacuous AI pivot. Then there are the formulaic cliches: the high-octane strategies, the tapestry of ideas, the single source of truth.
Undoubtedly, it’s following these rules to be correct, which is exactly what makes the output so mechanical. By aiming for the mathematical center, AI optimizes for mediocrity. That lack of apparent cerebral function is as much a stylistic failure as a search risk.
Google prioritizes helpful, value-added content written by humans, for humans. While some 100% AI content manages to claw its way to the No. 1 spot, leaning too heavily into AI-native copy can get your content flagged as spam, which fundamentally hurts your SEO.
The goal here isn’t to hide the fact that you used AI. Just make sure the machine didn’t have the last word, and that you’ve polished the copy in a way you’re happy to publish. You need to edit ruthlessly and inject the kind of subjective, first-person friction that a predictive model can’t calculate.
Prompting Tips To Make ChatGPT Sound More Human
The issue with most AI copy isn’t the machine itself; it’s that it’s written by a machine trying too hard to be a good student. If you want to break the cycle of sterile, predictable outputs, stop asking the AI to be perfect. Prompt it to be a bit of a mess. Here’s how:
1. Use Short, Uneven Sentences
AI defaults to a boring rhythmic, medium-length cadence. It puts readers to sleep. Instruct the model to vary its pace, using the occasional three-word punch or adding in a long, winding thought. These unpredictable patterns mimic the natural burst of a human brain, portraying a more organic type of imperfectionism.
2. Allow a Little Imperfection
Speaking of imperfectionism, real writers make small mistakes, use colloquialisms and find prepositions to end sentences with. Prompt the AI to add nuanced flaws, such as a split infinitive or a dangling thought. Ironically, when you give AI the space to be wrong, it starts sounding more right.
3. Inject Subjective Adverbs
Robots are programmed to be objective and safe. Everyone knows that safe is boring. To break the neutrality, explicitly prompt for words like frankly, surprisingly, unfortunately or honestly. These words imply judgment, suggesting the writer has an opinion and a pulse.
4. Introduce First-Person Friction
A predictive model doesn’t have a past. It doesn’t have a mortgage, and it definitely hasn’t been doing this since 2019. To break the third-person neutrality, introduce first-person friction. Ask the AI to write from a stance that includes “I” and “me,” referencing a struggle, passing thought or a contradictory opinion.
People also get distracted often. A slightly off-topic logical non-sequitur breaks the predictability wedged between ChatGPT and a decent article.
5. The “One Beer” Rule
Tell the AI to write as though it’s had precisely one beer. Seriously, try it and see what happens. This is a personal favorite and highly effective, besides the fact that it might mention the “beer it drank” in the copy. Easy enough to edit out.
6. Prompt for the Shitty First Draft
AI loves to polish copy before showing it to you, so ask for the unpolished version. When AI knows it won’t get fired for being unprofessional, it’ll stop hiding behind “repetitive high-octane tapestries” and start getting to the point.
Is There an AI Text Humanizer for That?
Lately, a new breed of humanizer plugins and platforms has emerged to do some or all of the above. You might have seen the humanizer plugin for Claude that basically uses Wikipedia’s AI-spotting guide as a checklist of what not to do. Grammarly also released a clever AI humanizer in 2025, alongside a suite of other new tools.
I’ve experimented with these types of solutions, and while they are great for a quick structural cleanup, most will lack your brand’s inner dialogue. That’s because a robotic humanizer is still a robot.
Then there are platforms like contentmarketing.ai, designed specifically for marketing use cases and with brand voice constraints built in. It sidesteps the usual people-pleasing vibes by building information density and thought leadership from the jump.
In the end, even with the best tools, you should still apply a final human pass and make adjustments as necessary.
Editing Tips To Make AI Copy Sound More Human
ChatGPT output gets you 70% of the way there. But the final 30% happens in the edit. If you aren’t willing to unleash a bit of editorial violence on your AI drafts, you’re participating in your own redundancy. Here’s how the best human editors lean into the mess:
- Embrace the contraction: AI writes like it’s trying to avoid a point deduction on an academic essay. It loves “do not,” but nobody else does. Don’t do it. Contract words for a more natural feel.
- The strategic aside: Humans think tangentially. We get distracted by our own thoughts. Adding a brief parenthetical thought (not to be confused with a paratactical one) disrupts the predictable cadence of AI-generated writing.
- Pick a lane: AI’s popularity-thirsty persona leans into neutral grounds, usually resulting in equivocations that say absolutely nothing. Pick a side. Build your authority on conviction.
- The WordHippo intervention: AI has a limited vocabulary that it leans on like a crutch. Keep a thesaurus open (I love WordHippo, others on the team use thesaurus.com and ChatGPT works just as well) and swap the generic descriptors for something with teeth.
- The 20% slash: You’re going to come up against a ton of overt and insidious repetition. Both forms are unnecessary and will undermine your brand’s authority. Aim to slash around 20% of your ChatGPT text.
- Tone vigilance: Sometimes AI takes a conversational tone too far, making your brand sound accusatory or upset. I’m talking, “This is where [subject] goes to die,” and “You’re a firefighter, not a leader.” Nothing’s stopping you from keeping it, provided it works — just use your judgment.
- The rule of 10: When you hit a generic sentence that feels like filler, use AI as a rewording tool and generate 10 alternatives. It’s usually in versions 7 through 10 where the machine runs out of cliches and gives you character.
Final Thoughts on Creating Human-Like Content With AI + Human Hybrid Workflows
Time for the full disclaimer: I wrote this article using AI, then spent a bunch of time editing it.
To round it off, let’s talk about how the experience went.
- I created the outline manually.
- I reprompted each section several times before AI produced something workable. Occasionally, it stole voice and ideas from the examples and reverted to generic robo-speak.
- The original copy was 2040 words. Post-editing and optimization, it was south of 1600.
One thing I’ve noticed about using AI in content workflows is this dissonance where I can’t fault the execution of a sentence, yet it’s nothing like what I’d naturally say. Watch out for this. When we become too familiar with textual patterns that are not ours, there’s a risk of losing voice.
On that note, here are three things I do to sharpen my human writing skills while using AI:
- Study vocabulary: Communication is a nuanced expression, not a commodity. You can only express as far as your grasp on a language permits. When AI chooses those words for you, it prevents you from exercising the neurons required to color your self-expression with the “self.” Actively make and learn lists of new words.
- Read more books: AI language is just one boring script. I add authors with drastically different voices to my reading mix to broaden linguistic influences. Lester Bangs, Tom Robbins, you name it.
- Read books about writing: Roy Peter Clarke’s “Writing Tools” and William Zinsser’s “On Writing Well” provide tricks of the trade to build skills. Pick one tactic and edit both AI and human writing, focusing on that. It’ll make you a better writer.
So there you have it. Integrating team robo into your workflows is a big yes in the content marketing world — and there are many ways to produce decent content without alienating humans or having Google flag it as spam. I encourage you to give it a go and remain firmly in the driver’s seat to keep it real as you scale your content creation with AI.
