From AI-Generated Drafts to Polished Prose: Mastering the Art of AI Content Editing
- Lori Maupas, ETMG Writer
- 10 hours ago
- 7 min read
We’ve all been there: It’s late afternoon, and that blog promoting a new product feature or customer win has to go live at 8:00 am tomorrow. Five years ago, you may have stayed up half the night pounding away at your keyboard. Today, there’s ChatGPT. A few well-crafted prompts, and you have copy in minutes.
Is it good copy? “It will do,” you tell yourself – but a little voice in the back of your mind is warning you that your readers will notice.
At ETMG, we’ve become experts in the art of using AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Jasper, and others to increase efficiency and productivity as we create compelling, engaging content for our clients – without over-relying on them. AI, we know, is a tool that helps generate drafts quickly, but polished content requires human expertise.
In this blog, we explore how to refine and optimize AI-generated drafts into compelling, brand-aligned assets that leverage human creativity and ingenuity to educate – and resonate – with real audiences.
Understanding the Value (and Limits) of AI-Generated Content
For a growing number of marketers, AI has become a powerful tool, especially when it comes to generating ideas quickly, producing first drafts, assisting with research, and maintaining consistency across content. Nearly two-thirds of marketers now use AI writing tools daily, reporting a 59% reduction in time spent on content creation and up to 77% increases in content output within six months.
And, AI gets smarter every day. The more data it receives from content writers worldwide, the better the content it creates. So it’s just a matter of time until we can put content generation on autopilot, right?
Not quite – and maybe never.
While AI delivers efficiency, it doesn’t always achieve connection. Untouched by humans, AI-generated content can read flat and generic, failing to engage readers or drive them to action.
Consider this example: We asked ChatGPT to write an intro sentence for this blog. Here’s what we got:
AI-Generated drafts are a useful starting point, but they need human editing to be effective.
This sentence is well-written and descriptive, and it clearly states the main point of the article – but it’s boring, flat, and forgettable. To write an engaging hook, a good content marketer’s unique viewpoint and flair are essential.
6 Key Steps to Polishing AI Content
Despite its benefits for content creation, AI can’t capture subtle nuances, master your brand’s unique voice, or bring deep subject-matter expertise to the table. To really hit the mark and drive audience engagement, it needs a little help from humans.
That’s why today, 62% of successful marketing teams use a hybrid model, blending AI tools with human creativity to deliver stronger content.
But what’s the best approach? Below are 6 key steps to polishing AI-generated copy into unique, relevant, and compelling marketing content.
Step 1: Align Content With Audience and Intent
Aligning content with your audience and intent means that every piece of writing should map directly to specific persona pain points, buyer journey stages, and overarching campaign goals. Without this alignment, your copy won’t address what your audience actually cares about or where they are in their decision-making process.
AI often produces copy that is too generic or misaligned with audience needs, because it lacks the awareness you and your team have about buyer intent and role-specific priorities. That’s why you should treat AI output as raw material that needs to be molded and reshaped, not used as-is.
For example, instead of publishing a generic “features list,” look for ways to incorporate your insider’s knowledge to edit the copy and transform the list into a benefits-driven narrative, tailored for your intended audience.
Step 2: Humanize the Tone and Voice
Even when AI produces technically accurate content, it can lack your brand’s personality or the warm and approachable tone of a trusted partner or advisor. Those are some of the nuances that help you connect with your audience.
Look for ways to humanize the tone and voice of the AI-generated copy by infusing your brand’s distinct personality. What are your brand attributes? Authoritative? Bold? Empathetic? Academic? Does the tone change depending on the intended reader?
Making these subtle changes increases authenticity, and helps to ensure your writing is consistent with the way your company communicates across other channels.
Part of this process is eliminating the give-away phrases that can make content sound AI-generated and robotic. Watch out for the following:
Repetitive phrasing
Too many sets of three (e.g. “efficient, productive, and cost-effective”)
Filler transitions like “in conclusion” or “on the other hand”
Vague buzzwords or overused phrases like “In today’s fast-paced digital world” or “Unlock the power of…”
Too many hyphens or throwaway phrases such as “not only…but also” or “needless to say”
Cliches such as “game changer” or “cutting-edge solutions”
Lack of effective transitions between sections.
Repetition, especially in conclusion sentences.
In addition, be sure you read the draft aloud to catch any awkward phrasing and identify opportunities to change the passive voice into active voice to add energy and urgency. You can also weave in anecdotes and real-world examples to customize the content to your brand.
Step 3: Enrich With Industry Depth and Proof
Nothing screams generic like copy with no credible proof points. Be sure to include proprietary insights from subject matter experts, your product team, analyst data, or real-world customer examples. These insights provide context and authority that AI on its own cannot replicate.
Additionally, statistics, case studies, and expert quotes can help substantiate your claims.
By reframing the content from a generic overview into more of a thought leadership piece, you show your audience that you understand the nuances of the market and have the experience to guide them.
Step 4: Structure for Engagement and SEO
AI can help a lot with optimizing your content for search – but it needs the right information. This requires careful keyword research ahead of time. It also requires a marketer’s expert knowledge of how to optimize metadata and CTAs for discoverability.
For example, you and your team probably have specific anchor links you want to include. AI won’t know your organization’s priorities or the gems in your content library that you want people to find. Your edits and input are essential here.
Another thing to keep in mind is that AI won’t necessarily know how to best organize your draft. You know your customers and prospects best. What resonates with them? Bulleted lists? Narratives? Diagrams?
While AI can suggest how to structure your content, only you have the intel on what approaches work best with your audience.
Step 5: Fact-Check and Guard Against Hallucinations
One of the biggest pitfalls of AI-generated content is its tendency to produce confident-sounding but highly inaccurate statistics and citations. Even when the draft looks polished, the details can be misleading or entirely fabricated.
These errors – sometimes called hallucinations – occur when AI fills gaps in its training data by generating information that sounds plausible but isn’t actually true. Large language models (LLMs) are designed to predict the “next best word” rather than fact-check themselves, so they can unintentionally invent numbers and sources, or use unrelated statistics to substantiate claims with convincing authority.
OpenAI’s tests show its AI models hallucinate often – from 33% to 79% of the time, depending on the model. Even Chat GPT (4.5) has been found to hallucinate over 37% of the time. Many experts say that’s a problem that will never be fixed, which is why you have to verify every claim, statistic, and source AI provides prior to publication.
If you’re using AI, be sure to establish an internal review process that includes your subject matter experts. Skipping this step can lead to serious reputational damage if incorrect information reaches customers, especially in the high-tech industry where credibility is essential for building trust.
Step 6: Add Your Own Creative Flair
There’s a difference between writing and storytelling. Relaying customer experiences, analogies that simplify complex ideas, and use-case scenarios in a narrative fashion helps your readers to relate to your value statement and messaging.
Multimedia also plays a critical role in storytelling, because not everyone consumes information in the same way. For some, a diagram will get your message across; for others an image is worth 1,000 words. Using charts, infographics, or video snippets can break up text-heavy sections and make your content more scannable and digestible.
Pairing these creative elements with an emotional hook that’s unique to your audience links the solution to outcomes that truly matter. By combining storytelling, visuals, and emotional resonance, you can transform AI-generated, functional copy into inspiring content that drives people to take action.
Using AI to Strengthen Human-Written Content
There’s a growing body of research that suggests the strongest content begins with a human-written first draft. Starting with your own words preserves authenticity and voice – two qualities that are hard to replicate artificially.
Once you have a draft, AI tools can be powerful partners for refining your tone, tightening the structure, or suggesting alternate hooks and intros that give your writing new energy, without stripping away its originality.
The choice is yours: Some creators thrive by leaning on AI for an initial draft, then layering in their expertise and creativity. Others prefer to write everything themselves and use AI as an editing and polishing tool. The key is to choose the workflow that best fits your style and goals.
AI Can Be a Starting Point – Not the Finish Line
AI can speed up content creation, but it’s only the beginning. The best content combines AI’s efficiency with the empathy, creativity, and strategic thinking only people can bring.
If you do choose to begin with an AI-generated draft, here’s a recommended workflow for putting your personal touch on the copy:
Generate the AI draft: Use AI to quickly create a first version or starting point. But be careful! Be sure not to feed your AI tool any trade secrets or proprietary information. AI tools are not designed to keep information confidential, and providing it with sensitive data can lead to unintentional exposure, loss of legal protection, or even intellectual property theft.
Apply an editorial lens: Refine the draft to ensure it aligns with your audience, brand voice, and content structure.
Fact-check and enrich with expertise: Verify claims, add subject-matter depth, and include supporting data or examples. Add proprietary data, if available, to strengthen your credibility.
Add a touch of creativity: Humanize the tone, layer in storytelling, and ensure consistency with brand guidelines.
Get input: If there’s time, always ask trusted team members to review your work. Leverage AI again to tighten sentences or make suggested improvements – ChatGPT can be a good editing partner!
If you consistently follow this process, you’ll benefit from all the efficiency and productivity gains AI has to offer while delivering the quality, accuracy, and authenticity your audience expects.
Get in touch with ETMG to learn how we can help with AI-generated content editing.