Make AI Your Writing Ally Without Losing Your Human Touch

My grandmother used to bake yeast rolls from scratch. Though they always tasted delicious, their consistency varied, and they took her forever to prepare. 

She decided to experiment one Christmas, secretly substituting her yeast rolls for Sister Schubert rolls. No one noticed — until she told us all after dinner. 

After that, she never made yeast rolls again. She opted instead to spend her time on activities that had a higher value to our family, such as playing cards with her grandchildren when she would have otherwise been rolling out the dough. 

Just as my grandmother replaced her original rolls with a store-bought variety, PR professionals are increasingly more comfortable using tools like ChatGPT, Jasper, Writer and Claude to improve the speed, efficacy and creativity of their writing. 

According to a 2024 survey by WE Communications and the USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations, two-thirds (66%) of communicators said they now use AI frequently, and nearly all (95%) have a positive outlook on AI. 

According to Muck Rack’s most recent State of AI in PR survey, the number of communicators who questioned whether they would use generative AI in their workflows decreased from 24% to 8% over a nine-month span in 2023. 

Ensuring quality control

While some skepticism about AI remains, leveraging it as a tool allows PR professionals to reclaim time for the higher-value critical thinking only humans can do. I like to think of it as having a writing assistant or colleague.

 Ultimately, we are all responsible for the work that we produce for ourselves, our organizations, and/or our clients, even if other team members are assisting us. It’s up to us to train, oversee and validate everything we do. 

If we consider responsible usage of AI as another way to ensure quality control, then it’s much easier to ethically integrate these tools into your workflow while maintaining your integrity and unique expertise. 

By treating AI as a collaborator rather than a replacement, we can focus on what truly sets us apart as our communications professionals — our strategic thinking, emotional intelligence and storytelling expertise.

If you can’t tell by now, I’m a big proponent of leveraging generative AI in my writing and everyday tasks. Most days, I use it for writing first drafts of emails, brainstorming content ideas, refining social media posts and rephrasing clunky phrases. But I always ensure that the final product reflects my voice, perspective and intention. 

Showing how AI can help

If you’re in the early stages of experimenting with generative AI and curious about where the human touch ends and AI assistance begins in this column, then you’re in luck. I’m pulling back the curtain to show exactly how ChatGPT contributed to this piece as a co-pilot — not the one steering the plane. 

• Creative brainstorming 

When coming up with ideas for this column, I put this prompt into ChatGPT: “I’m considering a thought leadership piece for a PR trade pub for the edition focused on writing and storytelling. 

I want to write something about ‘X ways AI can save you time, ethically, when writing’ or ‘How to use AI to improve your writing without sacrificing your soul.’ Help me come up with a brief outline and punchy title for each.” It gave me two decent outlines and headlines that I used as thought-starters for my piece. But, as you can see, the direction evolved based on my own creative flow.   

• Research curation 

Statistics lend credibility and relevance to any piece, so I asked it to pull some with this prompt: “For the same column, I need to include a few data points about PR professionals’ perceptions about using generative AI in their work. Please include any recent (2023 or later) surveys, key findings and links that can help me paint a picture for readers.” 

The results cited the Muck Rack survey repeatedly but not the one from WE Communications and the USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations, which was more robust and recent. While I wanted the results saved in my history rather than multiple browser tabs that I eventually closed, this is a clear example of how we will always need to apply a lens of human intuition and critical thinking when using AI writing assistants. Given the intense industry focus on AI, I knew there had to be more, and I’m glad I kept searching.   

• Idea clarification and phrase refinement 

Sometimes, we know what we want to say, but finding the right words is challenging. For example, the paragraph leading into these examples originally started as: “With this knowledge, some of you may inevitably read this column and be curious about what the human version of me wrote vs. an algorithm. 

So, I’m pulling back the curtain and sharing how ChatGPT did and did not help me write this piece.” AI helped me make my point more clearly and succinctly above. Think of it as asking a colleague, “What’s a better way to say…?” In other types of writing, I find this particularly helpful when writing quotes that are ultimately countless variations of reiterating a central key message. 

Even though ChatGPT lent a helping hand, the essence of this piece is all mine. For example, while the initial brainstorming gave me a springboard for the outline, my judgment determined the final direction. 

When considering a lead, the warmth and emotion of the memory about my grandmother lived inside my heart and mind. And, while I often find it helpful to ask generative AI to reflect a particular tone (professional, punchier, funnier, etc.) — particularly when writing emails and social media posts — the tone here is personal and authentic. 

In short, while generative AI has its limitations, it also unlocks opportunities to amplify what makes us uniquely human, including our creativity, critical thinking and storytelling. 

With a thoughtful mindset and intentional use, we can and should openly embrace AI as a powerful writing partner, enhancing our work without compromising our integrity.