There used to be a day where we could get away with AI writing all of our content and no one noticing, and unfortunately that day was 2 whole years ago.

These days, if you’re caught having AI write everything for you, (as harsh as it sounds) your peers lose respect for you. And I want to help prevent that from happening.

In today’s article I’ll talk about some of my favorite recent AI topics:

• What stage of AI knowledge are you today?

• The top 5 “tells” I notice when AI has written your content

• The “sweet spot” in how I use AI

• My list of favorite AI tools today

After helping hundreds of women integrate AI into their lives and businesses, I've learned that the most successful women treat AI as a thinking partner rather than a ghostwriter.

AI can either support your authentic voice or completely overwrite it. The difference comes down to how you use it.

My Journey Into AI

My own relationship with AI began unexpectedly at the end of 2023.

I was in the process of closing my portrait studio in California when a friend connected me with someone who needed an integrator for their AI consulting business.

With my background in marketing and tech, I thought, "I can do that", and what started as a single project has evolved into training hundreds of entrepreneurs on how to use AI to reinvent their marketing. You could absolutely say it’s my dream job.

Through this work, I've discovered that using AI without losing your voice isn't about avoiding the technology, it's about understanding how to direct it.

Our biggest problem in AI is that it’s an overwhelming landscape to say the least.

As a result, most of us assume we’re "behind" on AI when we’re actually much more capable than we think. The key is knowing where you currently stand so you can move forward strategically.

Here's the framework I use to help people assess where they are in their AI journey:

Understanding Your AI Development Stage

Stage 1: Exploration & Questions

This is where you use ChatGPT like a smarter version of Google. You're asking everyday questions: "What is 130 lb in kg?" or "Can you explain this concept to me?" This might seem basic, but it’s powerful. I still do this daily. This stage builds comfort, and it’s more valuable than it seems.

You might feel like you’re behind or that other people are doing something more advanced. You’re not behind. This phase often passes quickly (2-3 weeks tops), but the time you spend here lays a solid foundation. The people who rush through it tend to miss how AI thinks, and this understanding becomes essential later.

The key here is to experiment with it and spend time with others who are using it and a little more advanced than you. Every question you ask and every person you watch teaches you something about AI’s strengths and limitations. Don’t downplay the value of this phase.

Stage 2: Roles, Friction, & Refinement

Most people sit in this stage for a while. This is the moment where you realize you can assign AI roles: “Act as my marketing strategist” or “Help me think through this like a business mentor.” One cool one I’ve seen is “You are a billionaire giving me advice from your past successes and failures…” Seeing AI as a role you can delegate to opens up huge possibilities.

But this is also where some people hand over too much of their thinking. They start relying on AI for every idea and lose connection with their own insights, and eventually, this backfires. Your content starts to feel off, decision-making feels harder, and you start to notice tension between what you want to say and what AI is suggesting.

This friction is a good sign (as much as it might frustrate you). It means you’re hitting a growth ceiling in your own leadership with AI.

It sparks a phase of refinement where you move past your frustration and decide to genuinely improve your ability to prompt and direct AI. You start learning about tone, context, examples, and constraints, and discover that AI responds better when you give it more specific direction. This is where you develop your unique "AI management style" that reflects your thinking patterns and specific needs.

Stage 3: Strategic Integration & Partnership

At this level, you’re not just using AI for tasks; you’re building systems. You’re mapping out entire projects from start to finish, you’re creating custom GPTs, having experts build out automations. You’re working with other people who use AI at a high level (maybe partnered with an early adopter of AI who is advanced in their knowledge of what’s possible). You’re thinking about what’s next, even if it doesn’t exist yet.

Thinking in systems and partnering with others is where your creativity grows at an exponential rate. You then stop thinking of AI as just a tool and start seeing it as a collaborator, you’re more focused on outcomes than outputs, and specifically as a writer, you’ve built in the editorial maturity to decide when AI is helping and when it’s drifting from your unique voice.

The Top 5 AI “Tells” To Avoid In Your Writing

Because I work with AI every day, I’ve learned to spot content that was AI generated rather than carefully crafted by a human. What I spot isn’t necessarily bad content, but there are patterns you can recognize that show AI was doing the writing, rather than the actual writer.

These patterns weaken your credibility and make your audience tune out. Here’s what to look for:

1️⃣ The Life-Altering Contrasting Statement

Overuse of contrasting statements like "It’s not about X, it’s about Y" are everywhere in AI-generated content. One of my best copywriting mentors taught me everything about using these to take your audience's breath away. But that's the key, they should be used strategically, at the right moment, when you want to create genuine impact. If you spot more than one in your own writing, tighten your editing to avoid this “tell”.

2️⃣ The Tension-Cutting Question

Rhetorical Questions That Cut Tension Questions like “The real reason?” or "The giveaway?" are meant to create dramatic effect. But most people don’t write this way naturally. AI uses this technique often, and it stands out when it’s overdone. It can make content feel more like a script than a sincere message.

3️⃣ Overuse of Em Dashes

Em dashes are one of the more elegant elements of written English—they can create beautiful rhythm and flow when used appropriately. But AI has developed an obsession with them—scattering them throughout content without understanding their proper application. For now, when editing I take out all em dashes and replace them with a “,” or a “;” when necessary.

4️⃣ Snippy Sentence Structures

Short bursts like:

“Something is shifting.
And when it does?
It’ll happen quickly.
The question is…
Are you ready?”

…might feel impactful, but when scattered too frequently, they create a choppy rhythm that pulls attention away from your message and makes it clear that AI wrote this for you. Use this structure sparingly and only when it reflects your true voice.

5️⃣ Word’s That Sound Compelling, But Aren’t

AI has developed an attachment to certain words that it thinks convey depth and authenticity, but after overusing this for a lot of peoples’ content, it actually does the opposite:

• "Performing" has become AI's go-to word for discussing authenticity versus pretense. While there's truth to this concept, the word has become so overused in AI-generated content that it's lost it’s meaning. If this word appears in your content and you didn't specifically choose it, your audience will likely recognize it as AI-generated.

• "Becoming" was once powerful in personal development content, particularly for women. It captures the heroine's journey: revealing who she was meant to be rather than conquering external challenges. But AI has co-opted it so thoroughly that it now appears in generic content everywhere, diluting it’s impact.

• "Letting it land" is a newer addition to AI's vocabulary borrowed from sophisticated writers and speakers. The phrase can be meaningful when used intentionally, but most people don't naturally speak this way. When it appears in business content, it usually signals AI involvement.

• "The unseen" is another fluffy term AI employs when trying to sound profound. While there are certainly invisible aspects of life and business, this specific phrasing has become an AI cliché. Very few people use this term naturally in conversation.

• "Rooted" appears constantly in AI-generated content, usually in contexts where it doesn't quite fit. Unless you naturally use this word when speaking to friends or colleagues, avoid letting AI insert it into your content.

The underlying principle is simple: if you wouldn’t naturally say these words in a conversation, don’t let them show up in your written content. Your audience can sense the disconnect between AI’s words and your genuine expression.

The “Sweet Spot” In How I Use AI

Now let’s talk about what works. AI can sharpen your thinking, organize your ideas, and help you move faster, and if you want to stay authentic in your writing, your voice has to be the thing that leads (not the AI).

Here are 3 principles I stick by when I’m collaborating with AI:

Principle 1: Create With The 10/80/10 Rule

What is the 10/80/10 Rule?

• When creating something with the help of AI, the first 10% of effort is all you. You’re the one who defines the message, clarifies the point of view, and lays out the key ideas. This is where your expertise leads.

• The middle 80% is the collaboration. You give AI your framework and let it help you shape, structure, or brainstorm. It can suggest stories, generate outlines, do research, and explore angles you hadn’t considered.

• The final 10% is where you refine everything (and the part most people are too lazy to do). In this step, you bring it back into your voice. Sometimes you work with what AI gave you, sometimes you completely start over from scratch. You adjust the tone, insert your personal stories, and rewrite what doesn’t feel aligned. This is where the content becomes unmistakably yours. This is the step that pushes us as creators and reveals how much we care about what we’re writing and how much we’re willing to let bad content slide for the sake of “getting something out the door”. Once you get good at working with AI, your next job is to get really really good at this last 10% of refinement.

Here’s an example. You’re preparing a keynote speech:

• Your 10% might be: “I want to speak to women entrepreneurs about scaling without sacrificing family time. I’ll cover the myth of work-life balance, the power of systems, and how saying “no” creates growth.”

• The 80% might involve asking AI to structure the points, give research-backed statistics, draft transitions, or suggest relevant stories.

• The final 10% is where you read through it’s suggestions, write more, and revise your writing. You make the final parts of the structure and language your own. You may add stories from your experience and swap out anything that doesn’t reflect how you speak.

Principle 2: Push Yourself When It’s Time

If AI isn’t giving you what you want, it’s often a sign that your prompting skills need to level up. Instead of getting stuck in frustration, see this as an opportunity to push yourself and your ability to lead AI (as well as others). You’re going to have to become a Master Prompter.

Better prompting means better results, and most of the time, people who seem to get incredible output from AI are just better at giving input.

They’re specific, they provide examples, they give clear context, and they are tight with the constraints they’re asking of AI. This is a skill to develop (and one I’m still working on myself), and it improves the more you practice.

Principle 3: Maintain Your Creative Integrity

This one goes without saying, but AI should not replace your own thinking. Creative integrity is a rare thing to come by these days with everyone trying to get as much content out the door as fast as possible, but at what cost?

Humanity is a precious thing, and if we get comfortable and lazy with what we’re creating, not only will our work have less impact on others, but we’ll allow AI to take over the meaning of who we are.

My invitation to you today, is to inspire others to seek originality in their message because you did the hard work to keep your original message intact.

My Favorite AI Tools Right Now

To finish out today’s article, there are a few tools that I have consistently used in the last 2 years, and a few more recently than others (but I keep coming back to these tools over and over for my daily creation):

For Everyday Tasks & Writing:

• ChatGPT (Free Account): Great for daily questions, organizing my ideas, occasional therapy, and streamlining creative ideas. Also good for quick image generation.

• Claude (Free Account): Ideal for more creative or emotionally intelligent writing without all the cliche writing patterns I mentioned today. I generally do not ask ChatGPT to help me write anymore.

For Research and Business/Project Development:

• Manus ($19/m): Helps with deep research when validating new business ideas. For instance, I’m researching Realestate business models right now for my investing journey, Manus has been incredible with it’s power to find the right information I need, very quickly.

• Founderpal (Free Trial - For Marketing and Business): This tool is a gem. It combines very specific customer persona development, messaging clarity, and market research all in one. Good for businesses at any level.

For Visual and Technical Tasks:

• Gamma (Free Trial): Quickly builds visual presentations that look polished and professional. Never spend time creating another Powerpoint ever again.

• Ideogram ($7/m): Creating AI generated images (ChatGPT also does well with images these days). On Ideogram, you can see other peoples’ images and use their prompts to inspire your own images as well, great for learning how to prompt better.

• Genspark (Free Account): Similar to ChatGPT but is better at creating visual graphics, websites, and simple coded tools for your website (ex: a calculator). Join with my link and receive free credits.

• Lovable ($25/m): Lets you build full apps without needing to code.

For Growing Your Personal Brand:

• Delphi (Free Account): Allows you to create your own AI-powered digital clone for extended brand interaction. You can talk to you, and your clients can talk to you, as if you were their coach in their back pocket.

If you’ve gotten this far, I’ll leave you with this:

Before you hit publish on your next piece of content, ask yourself: Would someone who knows me well immediately recognize this as mine?

Thanks for reading today, I’ll see you in next week’s article.

xo, Lauren

PS: I’m launching my Magnetic by Design Offer Course soon, it’s my 60-minute training on how to define your mini offer using only 3 AI prompts and will be only $22 for the pre-launch. Get on the waitlist to be notified when it gets published.