AI Here, AI There, AI Everywhere
-By Laurann Franco
Have you noticed the formula?
“Hey customers! <insert megaphone emoji>
[A slightly funny, but not actually funny sentence here.] <insert laughing face emoji>
Emoji bullet point [Here’s why we’re great!]
Emoji bullet point [Here’s why you need us!]
Emoji bullet point [Here’s why you should buy NOW!]
It’s not that we’re doing [this]—it’s that we’re doing [this other thing].
[Cheesy punch line telling you to think this is the best business ever.]”
It’s especially great when the copy and pasting went a bit too far and caught the final line of, “Tell me more about x, y and z, and I can add in a special detail with ‘Here’s what most people miss’.”
<Insert forehead smack emoji here>
I’m making a point of not using any AI tools for editing or idea generation in this particular post. I feel myself overthinking how to make sure it actually sounds human, which feels more difficult now that I’ve been reading AI posts over and over for the past year. It’s as if the AI writing style is becoming expected as the standard way to present a business online, and it almost feels wrong to break the new mold.
It has started to seem like every business has the exact same tone and look to every post. It feels like the way we think business posts sound should have a certain cadence or rhythm even.
I understand why AI is so heavily used, and how it has caught on so quickly. And I use it myself. Usually, I try to use it as a second set of eyes, or as a supercharged spellcheck.
“Back in my day” we only had Word Docs or PowerPoints with those cheesy 3-D fonts. No one would have dreamed of using them in a professional setting like an advertisement or on a logo.
Admittedly, my own logo for FeatherNote is currently AI-generated. I couldn’t afford to hire a graphic design artist right away, and I didn’t have the software to design things like it myself. I do hope that in the next couple of years, I can have a real human help us with a re-design for FeatherNote to give it a more personal touch.
Of course, we also have the ethical side to consider with using AI (environmental impact, loss of jobs for humans, potential for world takeover by the robots etc.) but I can’t get into all of that here.
I’ve found that AI is especially useful for difficult or highly detailed email exchanges. The more you use a certain AI platform, you can also ask it to make it sound more like your own natural style, rather than the generic-sounding original text that it automatically generates. This has saved me a lot of time and mental energy.
As an experiment, I am also plugging in the above text of this blog post to see how my AI platform of choice would change it. Does it sound better? About the same? Like a whole different person?
After redacting the part about avoiding using AI (I don’t want it to think I’m a liar!), here’s what it spit out. I hate to say it, but I prefer this version overall:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
AI Here, AI There, AI Everywhere
By Laurann Franco, Owner of FeatherNote Bookkeeping Services LLC
Have you noticed the formula?
“Hey, customers! 📣
[Insert a slightly funny, but not actually funny, sentence here.] 😂
👉 Here’s why we’re great!
👉 Here’s why you need us!
👉 Here’s why you should buy NOW!It’s not that we’re doing [this]… it’s that we’re doing [this other thing].
[Insert cheesy punch line telling you this is the best business ever.]”
You know the one.
And it's especially great when the copy-and-pasting goes just a little too far and accidentally includes the AI's final instructions:
“Tell me more about X, Y, and Z, and I can add a special detail with ‘Here’s what most people miss.’”
Oops.
I’ve started to wonder if I’m overthinking all of this.
Lately, I find myself trying to make sure the things I write actually sound human. And somehow, that has become more difficult the more AI-generated content I read.
It’s almost as if AI writing has become its own recognizable style—and we're beginning to treat that style as the standard for how a business is supposed to sound online.
Every business seems to have the same cadence. The same structure. The same enthusiastic punctuation. The same three bullet points explaining why you absolutely need whatever is being sold.
After seeing enough of it, you start to wonder: Is this what professional business communication is supposed to sound like now?
And I get it. I really do.
AI is incredibly useful, and I use it myself.
I usually think of it as a second set of eyes or a supercharged spellcheck. It can help me organize a thought, catch something I missed, or take a painfully awkward email and turn it into something that actually makes sense.
For difficult or highly detailed email exchanges especially, it can be a lifesaver. And the more you use a particular AI platform, the better you can get at asking it to sound more like you rather than the generic version of “Professional Business Person™” it might produce on the first try.
That has saved me a lot of time and mental energy.
But I think there’s a difference between using AI to help communicate your ideas and letting AI decide what your communication should sound like in the first place.
And maybe that's the part that bothers me.
“Back in my day,” we only had Word documents and PowerPoints with those wonderfully cheesy 3-D fonts.
Nobody would have dreamed of putting those things in a professional advertisement or slapping them on a logo.
…Okay, some people absolutely did.
And, admittedly, I have my own bit of irony here.
My FeatherNote logo is currently AI-generated.
When I was getting started, I couldn't afford to hire a graphic designer, and I didn't have the software or skills to create what I had in mind myself. AI gave me a way to get something together and move forward.
But I hope that in the next couple of years, I'll be able to have a real human designer help me redesign the FeatherNote brand and give it an even more personal touch.
Because I think that's what I'm really getting at.
I don't think AI is inherently bad.
I think it's a tool.
And like any tool, what matters is how we use it.
There are also plenty of bigger ethical questions surrounding AI—environmental impact, the effect on jobs, copyright, privacy, and the possibility that the robots will eventually decide we've been terribly inefficient and replace us all.
But that's probably a whole different blog post.
For me, the biggest concern is much simpler:
I don't want everything to start sounding the same.
I don't want every small business owner, artist, consultant, plumber, bookkeeper, coffee shop, and dog groomer to sound like they were all handed the same marketing template.
I want people to sound like themselves.
I want the occasional awkward sentence. I want a little personality. I want someone to say something that isn't perfectly polished but feels genuine.
Because sometimes the most professional thing you can do is simply sound like a person.
And if AI can help us do that—great.
Just don't let it do all the talking.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Here’s the real Laurann again… snapping back into the reality of how I actually sound. Which isn’t as catchy by any means…
I hadn’t written a real ending yet. Now all I can think of is the ending line the AI has prompted me with.
How can we make sure AI isn’t doing “all the talking”?
At this point in time, nearing the end of 2026, it’s harder and harder to stand out online when it feels like everyone is doing the same things with the same tools. It’s part of why I haven’t made a blog post in a few months. I’ve been overthinking what to say and how to say it, and how to not sound the same as every other business post out there.
I think the most endearing side of any business will be the familiar feeling of interacting with another human mind. Maybe we’ll end up making some more “mistakes” by not sounding perfectly polished, but I think maybe that’s okay.
Here’s to being Human <insert little TM because real Laurann has no idea how to format that without a lot of Googling or using AI first>.