9 Ways I Use AI Without Losing My Voice (From Someone Who Thinks About This Every Day)

Everyone is either terrified of AI or completely obsessed with it — and I think both camps are doing it wrong.

I’ve been using AI in my content writing business basically every single day for the past couple of years. And here’s what I can tell you: the people who are losing their voice to AI are using it as a ghostwriter — literally a co-writer, literally a copy-and-paste, “do the work for me” kind of tool. In my opinion, that is becoming a saturated space, and it is going to be increasingly hard to get people to pay you based on regurgitated information.

So today I’m pulling back the curtain on ways I use AI — and there are nine different ways I use it specifically for writing, without losing my voice. They’re not in any particular order, but make sure you listen to the end, because even if some of them feel basic, I can guarantee there’s at least one new strategy in here for you.

1. I treat AI output like a rough draft from an intern.

I know everyone says this, but I don’t copy and paste from AI — I go in and edit it. And as AI tools are getting better, I’m not necessarily anti-copy-and-paste when the output is actually good. I just think most of the time it’s not publish-ready.

That said, I also think we as business owners cannot obsess over making sure none of our content has any AI “tells.” I actually saw a reel this morning that was like, are we seriously not allowed to use the word “honestly” anymore? It’s out of control. Some of the so-called AI tells were just… good copywriting a year ago.

Can AI write a great paragraph for you? Part of an email? Sure, sometimes it’s close to copy-and-paste. But can one prompt spit out a perfectly written blog post in ChatGPT? I’m going to say no — no matter how good your prompt is. Anything you create with AI, you’re going to want to go in and edit. It’s just not human-like enough. Yet.

2. I treat AI like an intern — and I actually tell it about my business.

This is something I took from my interview with Kinsey back on Episode 42 (seriously, where is time going?). That episode was all about how to make AI sound like you, and the concept she brought to the table was: why are we not telling AI anything about our business, and then expecting it to spit out something good?

I actually bought her Brand Blueprint for ChatGPT because I think it’s so good. It walks you through your mission, your vision, all of it. It takes about four hours to go through, which I know sounds like a lot, but considering how much time it saves you once you’re uploading that document into your AI tools? Totally worth both the time and the money investment she’s asking, which honestly is so small.

The Brand Blueprint helps you compile information about your business beyond just tone of voice. Because here’s the thing — the very basic version of “making AI sound like you” is copy and pasting past content and saying “write like this.” What I’m actually doing is uploading information about my business, my services, my personal stories. That’s what makes the difference.

3. I use AI for the parts I hate — and the parts where voice doesn’t really matter.

I cannot tell you the last time I wrote a meta title or meta description from scratch. I cannot tell you the last time I did alt text from scratch. These things just don’t need to be deeply human. Even podcast episode titles — I’ll always have AI brainstorm options. Even if I already have a title in mind, I’ll still ask it to make it better or give me alternatives.

That’s one of the coolest things about AI: it can spit out a bajillion options and make you see things differently, whether you use the final output or not. For my photographers who might include a hundred images in a blog post — AI-written alt text is not going to make you lose your voice. Use it all day long.

4. I feed it examples of my past writing before asking it to do anything.

But I want to take this a step further, because here’s something I’m noticing: a lot of people have been using AI long enough that they’re now feeding AI-written content back into AI as their “tone of voice” reference. And I think it gets a little messy.

My ideal situation for capturing tone of voice is uploading a transcript of something I’ve actually talked out. I have a podcast, so this is easy for me — I have a ton of transcripts of me just chatting. But if you don’t, you could record a sales call, you could voice note your phone and go on a rant about something you’re passionate about, then upload the transcription. That’s going to give you a much more authentic tone reference than anything you’ve written.

I also give it past examples of my formatting. You might have noticed my podcast show notes have looked exactly the same since the beginning — a few paragraphs of text in first person, bullet points of what’s covered, then the links. I’ll screenshot a few past episodes and say “I want the show notes to look like this.” Same with my weekly emails. I’ll screenshot my email layout and say “this is what my emails look like — can you help me write the podcast section?”

Because here’s the thing: beyond specific word choices, ChatGPT just has a few ways of writing that feel like AI. I’m thinking of captions where you have one-word sentences stacked on top of each other — it sounds punchy in a way that feels inorganic. People were writing like that before AI, but now it’s become a tell. So formatting matters just as much as word choice. If I dropped this transcript into AI and asked it to write an email in my tone of voice, the words might be right but the formatting would give it away.

5. I voice note constantly.

We talk so much faster than we write — even me, someone who writes all the time. Voice noting is just a great way to let your AI tool understand your actual thought process. You’ll naturally give more context when you’re talking because you can, versus when you’re typing and unconsciously giving the minimum.

Sometimes I’ll do a voice recording into my phone and ask for the transcript. I also have a shortcut on my laptop where I can hit caps lock and just start talking directly into my Claude window. I think on a Mac you can just hit control twice and it’ll do it natively — but honestly, just Google it if you’re not sure. I’m not an expert, I just have it and love it.

6. I ask it to ask me questions — and push back on what I’m telling it.

I was watching a YouTube video about growing a Youtube channel (I’m really trying to get better at YouTube), and it suggested prompting AI to ask you 20 questions about your personal brand. So I tried it. And here’s the thing: if I had typed out my answers, I would have given those 20 questions the laziest responses possible. Instead, I started a voice recording on my phone and just talked through them — “Okay, question one, here’s my answer. Question two. Question three, skip…” I ended up answering 16 out of 20. The other four just didn’t feel relevant, and I wasn’t going to BS something.

I love asking AI to ask me questions. Even beyond that specific example — if I’m writing a blog post about quitting Instagram, I’ll ask: “What questions do you need from me in order to put together a solid outline?” This is so good because it will ask for context I might not have thought to give it on my own.

This is actually one of the reasons I’ve been switching to Claude. Claude will naturally prompt you with questions, but I take it a step further and explicitly ask: “What information do you need from me to do this well?” And after I give it something, I’ll ask it to push back — “If you were going to poke holes in this, what would you say?” It just gives you a more thorough, more in-depth response.

In the age of AI-generated medium-ish content, this extra layer of effort is really what’s going to separate good content from bad. I was actually talking about this in a recent YouTube video on marketing for introverts — depth is what introverts are good at. This is our time to shine. If you’re going to use AI to help you script, outline, or brainstorm, asking it to push back and ask questions is a great way to do that without losing your voice in the process.

7. I ask it for options instead of answers.

For this podcast episode specifically — I did not go to Claude and say “help me brainstorm topic ideas.” Instead, I gave it data. I downloaded my podcast stats from Airtable and asked: “Based on the topics that have already done well on my podcast, what are some gaps in the content that you think would perform well?” It gave me 20 ideas. Most of them were garbage, being honest. But this one — ways I use AI without losing my voice — I was like, you know what, I actually have a lot to say about this.

I asked it to give me 20 ways I might use AI, and I picked the ones I actually do. I pulled seven from its list, then added two ideas of my own. That’s how I landed on nine.

The context it gave alongside each idea was basically made up, because it doesn’t actually know how I use AI. But that was fine — I just needed something to get my wheels turning faster. If you think about what this process would have looked like five years ago — sitting and thinking for 20 minutes, trying to come up with the perfect list — this is just so much faster.

And the word I want to leave you with here is discretion. When AI can spit out a 20-page marketing plan in seconds, knowing what to keep and what to throw away is everything. Discretion might be the number one skill we all need to practice right now.

8. I use AI to repurpose my content.

Using AI to repurpose your own intellectual property — your existing content, your unique frameworks, your ways of thinking — will always outperform anything AI generates from scratch.

I’ll take a piece of content and drop it in and ask for Pinterest titles and descriptions, pin text, thread posts, whatever I need. Sometimes I’ll put a podcast episode in and ask: “How do I rework this so the content still works for YouTube?” — because YouTube is a different audience for me, typically more beginner-focused and shorter form. AI helps me speed up that thinking without changing the actual content, because the content is still mine.

And while I’m on the topic: if you’re podcasting and not turning those episodes into blog posts, you are doing 90% of the work and leaving so much on the table. You could be getting so much more out of what you’re already creating. (Shameless plug: that last 10% is literally what I do.)

I also want to be real about something. I keep seeing the message that human creativity is going to have more value because of how much AI content is out there — like if you create something without AI, it’s a shining beacon of light that people will naturally gravitate toward. And I just don’t think that’s the reality.

The amount of content, both in quality and quantity, that we as business owners are expected to put out just to have a chance of standing out in 2026, in a market with an incredibly low barrier to entry? There is no shining beacon.

If you already have an established audience, I can appreciate an anti-AI stance. But if you’re still building, it is going to be extremely difficult to produce the quantity and quality of content that today’s market requires without it. That’s my opinion, and I reserve the right to evolve on it — but that’s where I stand.

9. I read my AI drafts out loud.

This might be the most important one. If you want to use AI without losing your voice, read your drafts out loud and flag anything that doesn’t sound like something you’d actually say.

When I have AI write a script and I start talking through it, I immediately notice the parts I’m getting stuck on — the parts that sound too cheesy, too stiff, too “this is this, that is that.” You just notice it when you say it out loud. If you can’t read it out loud naturally, it doesn’t sound like you.

One extra editing tip: edit backwards. Read your conclusion first, then work back through your points. When we read start to finish, our brain fills in the gaps because we already know what we’re trying to say. Reading backwards interrupts that and helps you catch what’s actually on the page.

How I Use AI In My Business

All of this comes down to one thing: we all have to write more. AI is helping me speed up the process, yes, but I’m also genuinely using it to create better content, not just faster content.

Here’s a quick recap. As you read through, think about one or two ways you’re either not using AI yet, or skipping a step to save time and decide how you want to incorporate it going forward.

1. Treat AI output like a rough draft — it’s usually not a finished product.
2. Treat AI like an intern and give it more context than you think is necessary.
3. Use it for the parts you hate that most people aren’t really reading anyway.
4. Feed it examples of your past writing — not just for tone, but for formatting too.
5. Use voice notes and set up a shortcut so it’s as frictionless as possible.
6. Ask it to ask you questions, then ask it to push back on what you’re creating.
7. Ask it for options, then use your discretion to pick what actually fits.
8. Use it to repurpose your existing content.
9. Read your AI drafts out loud — if it sounds clunky, it probably doesn’t sound like you.

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