It’s the greatest invention since the wheel. It’s the end of human civilization as we know it.
It’s AI.
And in creative circles, it tends to inspire big feelings – and spark some pretty intense debates (none of which we intend to fully settle here).
Despite all the hyperventilating, most writers’ opinions on AI probably fall somewhere between sliced bread and the endtimes.
My flag is probably planted closer to the latter camp. Not only have I been doing the grunt work of writing and editing for a long time, which makes me very protective of a more traditional analog approach, but my technology adoption also tends to run a bit behind the curve (I submit my flip phone as Exhibit A).
And AI in particular has long struck me as something of a deal with the devil.
I also know that the world marches on – with or without me. And I don’t plan to be left behind. So after plenty of internal hand-wringing and soul searching, here are four practical ways I’ve found to use AI in my writing – without sacrificing my voice or my integrity. Not necessarily best practices, mind you, but use cases that I’ve found work best for me.
Let the big feelings and intense debates commence.
1. Use AI to Brainstorm More Content Ideas
One thing AI does very well is churn out a lot of raw material.
Think of that giant dead-eyed shark in Jaws, cruising around the ocean gobbling up whatever it comes across – a tire, a fish, a boat, Robert Shaw. That’s an LLM. It’s a machine that swims across the internet and eats up – then spits out – everything it comes across related to a provided prompt.
The good news is that AI might suggest a format or approach that you wouldn't have otherwise considered. The bad news? A lot of its ideas aren’t worthwhile. But that’s where your good old human expertise steps in. Now your keen editorial eye can single out only those ideas that seem particularly memorable, compelling, or cogent to the point you’re trying to illuminate.
Could you have come up with those winners on your own? Maybe. But even if you only uncover one or two AI-assisted nuggets of inspiration that you might not have come up with otherwise, wasn’t it worth at least checking in with the technological equivalent of Bruce the shark?
2. Use AI to Summarize and Structure Content
From ethical dubiousness to potential editorial malpractice, there are plenty of reasons not to let AI be your writer. Copying big chunks of text from ChatGPT? That gives me all kinds of ick. But what it can be is a great writer’s assistant – particularly when it comes to summarizing and structuring massive tracts of information.
Think about that 60-minute Zoom conversation you had with four subject matter experts. Think about the massive transcript that emerged from that call. Think about turning that into a svelte 800-word piece. Now reach for the aspirin.
Or turn to AI, which can summarize the 15 pages of dialogue from that long and winding discussion into a compact one-pager of targeted notes. Now you have a little direction to get you started, backed by the original transcription for any quotes or illuminating anecdotes you want to pull.
And while AI can compress hours of conversation into something more digestible, what it can’t do is decide what’s actually interesting. That’s still on you. Chalk another one up for humanity!
(Oh, and be sure you double-check that the quotes it highlights actually happened. Otherwise, you’re going to need a bigger unpublish button.)
3. Use AI to Workshop Headlines and Metadata
There are few things I enjoy more than a fun headline or subhead. They’re great places to stretch a bit creatively and get my editorial freak on.
But headlines and subheads are more than just fun and games. Not only do they serve as critical guideposts for those who prefer to skim rather than read deeply (which, it seems, is almost everybody), they’re really valuable for search and LLM visibility.
That said, don’t get me started on meta tags, which are as boring to write as they are necessary to have.
That’s why I appreciate having AI as a tool to help me split the difference between these two impulses of fun and function. As I mentioned earlier, AI is great at producing a lot of material. Ask for a hundred headline options and you’ll get a hundred headline options. Ask for them to be more irreverent or more academic and that’s (more or less) what you’ll get.
Will a bunch of them miss the mark? Probably. Will even the good ones need some tweaking? You bet. But I’ve found that starting with a big list of possibilities to winnow down and inspire me is much better than starting from scratch.
4. Use AI to Strengthen Your Editorial Standards
Long before AI arrived on the scene, we all had an editorial voice. Our writing had certain hallmarks – trademark flourishes of humor, provocation, or personality – that made it distinctly ours.
So what does that have to do with AI, which the naysayers would have you believe (and they’re not entirely wrong) mostly exists to dull and homogenize writing? Believe it or not, AI can actually be a great way to enhance and preserve your editorial voice. No, really! Hear me out.
A custom AI bot (e.g., a GPT or Gem) can edit your work with an eye toward ensuring that all (or most) of the things that are important to you are present in every draft you and your team produce. For example: “Flag any section without a clear point of view” or “Suggest where a real-world example would strengthen the argument.”
You can build your editorial bot to seek out these types of elements in every piece you produce and make suggestions of where and how to include them. And that’s how you use AI to preserve your unique voice, not eliminate it.
AI Won’t Replace Good Writing
AI may be the greatest invention since the wheel.
Either way, it’s not here to replace you as a writer. But it can be used to not only brainstorm ideas, but to actually sharpen your voice as well.
It’s not the first tool to help accomplish these things and it won’t be the last. But for now, that’s why we’re thinking a lot about AI and writing. Get in touch if you’d like to chat about it (or even just discuss why flip phones still make sense).
