AI & What I'm Noticing As An Agency Owner

& Now Everything is Written by ChatGPT — Can't You Tell?

I don’t know if it’s just me (it’s not), but lately I can spot AI-generated copy from a mile away. And I hate it. People’s website bios, brand newsletters, LinkedIn posts, Instagram captions, and more. It’s all starting to sound the exact same. The same polite-but-bland cadence and the same “modern elegance” or “timeless sophistication” descriptors, and always, always an em dash.

Delete your dashes, people! It’s the #1 AI giveaway.

It’s like there’s a secret global thesaurus and everyone agreed to pull from the same five pages.

Look, I use ChatGPT. A lot. I’m constantly putting together blogs, emails, website copy, proposals, and captions for clients and for myself. It’s an incredible tool. But the difference is, I edit. Actually, I edit the hell out of it. I move things around. I remove sections and em dashes. I inject voice, context, personality. I make sure it still sounds like a human sat down and thought about the words before hitting publish.

What I’m seeing out there isn’t that. It’s complete copy-and-paste content, straight from the machine, without a second pass. For me, it’s an immediate trust killer. If you can’t put in the extra five minutes to make it yours, why should I believe you care about the details anywhere else?

I’m truly seeing this everywhere. And, as an agency owner, I have clients who think copy-and-paste from AI is the solution. I’ve had calls with clients where I’ve pulled up their latest email newsletter or their website and parsed through each piece of the copy that screams “ChatGPT”. If you want your personal content or brand content to really resonate, make it yours. Please.

This isn’t about “AI is bad” or “AI is good.” Like I said, I use it all of the time. It’s about using it as a starting point, not a finished product. The irony is that in a time when technology can make things faster, easier, and more polished, the brands and people who will stand out are the ones who still sound like themselves. You can’t replicate voice or personality and that’s what people connect with most.

Because if everything is AI generated, uses the same phrases, and neatly em-dashed into place, what’s left for me to connect with? Why would I buy into what you’re selling if you don’t even care enough to make it yours?

Sometimes it’s better to publish nothing than to post something that could have been written for anyone by anything. I always say, less is more.

Ok — rant over. 😉

Laura