Imagine this scene
A draft comes back from a junior teammate. Structurally it’s fine. Technically it works. But something feels off. You read it and think: This isn’t wrong… but it doesn’t sound like us. That reaction — instinctive, editorial, hard to quantify — is at the heart of communications work. And it’s exactly where AI needs the most guidance.
Left to its own devices, AI defaults to what we all recognize as “generic corporate.” Polite. Over-explained. Slightly soulless. That’s not because AI is bad at writing — it’s because it has no idea who you are, how your organization sounds, or what your audiences expect.
Voice lives in patterns: sentence length, word choice, confidence, restraint. AI can mimic those patterns — but only if you show them.
One of the most effective techniques: provide an example. Rather than saying “make this sound more human,” paste a paragraph that already does sound right and say, “Rewrite the draft to match this tone.” AI responds extremely well to this approach because it’s pattern-based.
Ask AI to: make something shorter without losing meaning, remove jargon, soften corporate language, increase or decrease formality, adjust emotional tone (calm, confident, empathetic). Instead of wrestling sentence by sentence, you can shape tone at scale.
The first rewrite is rarely the best one. You can refine in passes: first clarity, then tone, then brevity. Each pass sharpens the message without starting from scratch.
The Mindset Shift
AI doesn’t define your voice. It reflects the standards you set.
Teach AI your voice — by showing it, not describing it.
Find a piece of writing from your organization that sounds right — a past message, announcement, or brief that hits the tone you're aiming for.
Find a draft that doesn't quite land — something too stiff, too casual, too generic, or simply not "you."
Paste both into AI and prompt: "Rewrite the second text to match the tone and style of the first. Keep the same meaning but adjust the language and feel."
Review the output. What improved? What still sounds off? Edit the result with your own instincts — this is where your editorial judgment does the work AI can't.
Try one more pass: give AI a single specific instruction to change something further — shorten it, raise the confidence level, or soften the opening. Notice how quickly you can refine through iterations.
