I know, I know, you’ve worked hard on that brand voice guide.

Maybe you even hired someone to write your copy. You’re trying to sound authentic and conversational and relatable.

And somehow, you still sound like literally every other brand and their grandma, and their grandmas cat’s Instagram. 

The same cadence, phrases and perfectly structured thoughts that feel just slightly... off.

Why? Because you all hired the same copywriter. It's called ChatGPT. And it shows. Whether you think it does or not. I can always tell baby.

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This is called AI homogenisation.

You know it when you see it, even if you can't quite name it. It's the brand copy that opens with "Let's be real" or "Here's the thing." It's the false casualness that's trying so hard to sound human that it loops back to sounding robotic.

Often it lists things in threes or fives, has the same sing-song cadence, repeated sentence structures that are painfully obvious, and of course, em-dashes.

It kind of sounds like it was written by someone who learned English only by reading marketing blogs. Technically correct, vaguely friendly and completely forgettable.

Once you start noticing you won’t be able to stop. It's everywhere. Your competitors sound like this, the brands you admire sound like this… and I hate to break it to you, but you probably sound like this too.

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It's not a conspiracy. It's just convergent evolution.

Every brand wants to sound authentic and conversational, so they prompt AI to write that way. The problem is we’re all using similar prompts. "Make this sound friendly but professional." "Write this in a conversational tone." "Make it relatable." “Make me sound authentic and not too polished.”

And AI delivers. It gives you exactly what you asked for: copy that sounds friendly but professional, conversational but polished, relatable but safe. Just like whatever it’s spitting out to everyone else.

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We know that AI is trained on what already exists. It learns from the average of everything it's seen.

So, by definition, it recreates the middle, which is by default, the safe zone. That is why it’s the version of brand voice that's already been done a thousand times.

It can't be genuinely weird without human direction. It can't be specific in the way that actual humans are specific. It smooths out the edges that make a voice distinctive because those edges look like errors to a model trained on correctness.

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So then, how do you make sure you sound different?

Write like you talk to a specific person.

I don’t mean your “target audience” member that your 2nd year comms lecturer told you to conjure up when creating campaigns. I mean a very specific human you know. You know how your voice changes when you're talking to your best friend versus your boss (well, I’d hope so anyway), versus a stranger at a party?   Pick one person and write to them. The specificity will make you sound more human than a "conversational tone" prompt.

Embrace your weird.

AI smooths out quirks, or, if you ask for them, it sounds like Elon Musk that time on SNL.

You need to add them back in. Yes, YOU. Because those things are like your little digital thumbprint; your tangents, parenthetical asides, your slightly too-long sentences that break writing rules but sound like how you actually think (guiltyyy.) There are phrases only you use, references that won't land for everyone, maybe even a little sloppiness. But hey, that’s one thing that AI can’t do, and it’s personality.

Have a point of view that pisses people off.

Trust me, I’m an expert on this one. Ask everyone who knows me. AI is conflict-averse by design. It wants everyone to be happy in the world that’s currently full of rainbows and butterflies!

But brands with actual voice have opinions. They take a stance and are willing to alienate some people to deeply resonate with others. If your copy could come from any old brand in your industry, you don't have a voice yet.

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If you want to sound different, you have to be willing to sound wrong.

To break the rules and be specific in ways that won't resonate with everyone. To let your actual personality - with all its quirks and imperfections - show up in your copy.

Because here's the thing (see what I did there?): nobody remembers the brand that sounded professional and friendly and conversational in exactly the way they expected. They remember the brand that sounded like an actual human with an actual perspective. Humans resonate with humans. Humans rarely resonate with bots.

 -Sophie Randell, Writer

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