Have you noticed every brand suddenly sounds the same? Writing that hits every keyword but leaves no impression. It’s everywhere now, and your customers are already tuning it out.
We get the temptation. The pressure to produce more with fewer resources has made AI feel like the answer. But by handing your brand voice over to a machine, you’re adding to the noise and risking the audience you worked hard to build.
Why does it all sound the same?
AI models are trained on the aggregate of everything. They’ve absorbed every brand voice, every blog post, every thought leadership piece ever written. When you ask them to write something, you get the statistical mean of all brand writing. The result is content that is thoroughly forgettable.
By now, everyone knows about the excessive em dashes. They’re practically AI’s calling card. But they’re far from the only giveaway.
Once you know what to look for, AI-generated writing becomes almost comically obvious.
“Quietly” shows up everywhere
Companies are ‘quietly transforming industries.’ Products are ‘quietly changing the game.’ AI models lean on the word to add an artificial sense of nuance and drama.
The “It is not X, it is Y” formula
‘It’s not just a tool, it’s a mindset shift.‘ ‘Not only does it save time, it also improves quality.’ These patterns aren’t wrong on their own, but AI deploys them so often that they’ve become a tell.
Rhetorical questions
‘The best part?’ ’The result?’ ‘Honestly?’ They’re meant to make the copy sound more conversational, but they just create noise.
Everything is groundbreaking
AI writing exists in a state of permanent amazement. Approaches are “revolutionary.” Solutions are “powerful.” When everything is described with the same level of excitement, nothing stands out.
Overly formal vocabulary
AI loves words that sound important. It doesn’t “use” things, it “utilizes” them. It doesn’t “help,” it “facilitates.” Strip all that out and half the sentences collapse, which tells you they weren’t saying much to begin with.
Throat clearing
‘It’s worth noting that…’ ‘It’s important to consider…’ ‘Here’s the thing:’ AI loves to warm up before making a point. A good writer just makes it.
Hashtag overload
AI still loves ending social posts with a pile of hashtags. While hashtags once helped people discover content, their value has declined as algorithms have become smarter at understanding text, images, and video. (More on that in Is the Hashtag Dying? The Evolution of Social Media’s Most Iconic Symbol)
Good writers use these too, just not all at once
None of these patterns are wrong on their own. Good writers use em dashes. Good writers ask rhetorical questions. The difference is that good writers make choices. They reach for a pattern because it serves the sentence. AI just reaches for whatever pattern fits the slot.
The opportunity
Customers buy from brands they recognize, trust, and feel something toward.
Because so many brands are publishing optimized mush, the bar for sounding human is now surprisingly low. A single paragraph with a real opinion, a weird metaphor, or a touch of honest uncertainty will outperform a thousand polished nothing-sentences.
AI is a genuinely useful tool for drafting, researching, and scaling output. Here are 5 ways to use AI responsibly. But your brand voice still has to come from a human who has something to say.
Need help finding your brand voice? That’s what we do. Let’s talk.
