I Didn't Ask AI to Write This Article. We Wrote It Together.

I’ve been writing content for websites for a long time.

More than 31 years, in fact.

And I have to tell you something.

I’ve never particularly enjoyed the process.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy communicating ideas. I like explaining things, sharing experiences, and helping people understand something they might not have considered before.

But sitting down in front of a blank screen and trying to manufacture an interesting article?

That’s work.

You stare at the cursor.

You write a paragraph.

You rewrite it.

You wonder whether anyone will actually read the thing.

And eventually, if you’re persistent enough, you produce something that hopefully has some value.

Then artificial intelligence came along.

And suddenly, you could generate an entire article in about thirty seconds.

Problem solved, right?

Not quite.

Because there’s a difference between producing content and having something worth saying.

And that distinction has become increasingly important.

The Problem With AI-Generated Content

Let’s be clear about something.

AI can write remarkably well.

It can structure an article, explain complicated subjects, suggest headlines, and produce grammatically polished prose faster than any human writer.

But there’s a problem.

If you ask AI to write an article about, say, five ways small businesses can improve their marketing, you’ll probably get a perfectly respectable article.

It’ll have an introduction.

Five numbered sections.

A conclusion.

Maybe even a motivational closing paragraph.

And it’ll probably sound remarkably similar to thousands of other articles being published that same day.

That’s what people are increasingly calling AI slop.

Content that’s technically competent but has very little originality, personality, or genuine insight.

The problem isn’t necessarily the technology.

The problem is that nobody brought anything particularly interesting to the conversation.

If you ask AI to manufacture both the ideas and the writing, you’re leaving out the most important ingredient.

You.

What If We Started With a Conversation Instead?

A little while ago, I decided to try something different.

Instead of asking AI to write an article, I started talking to it.

Literally.

Using the voice conversation feature in ChatGPT, I began discussing a marketing topic I’d been thinking about.

No outline.

No carefully engineered prompt.

No list of keywords to include.

Just a conversation.

I explained what I was thinking.

The AI asked questions.

I answered them.

Sometimes I wandered off on tangents.

Sometimes I told stories about experiences I’d had working with clients.

And sometimes the AI challenged something I’d said or suggested a connection I hadn’t considered.

It felt less like writing and more like having an interesting conversation with a colleague.

Or, perhaps more accurately, like being interviewed on a podcast.

And that’s when something clicked.

I wasn’t struggling to write an article anymore. I was simply talking about something I knew.

That’s a completely different experience.

The Magic Happens in the Middle

Here’s the part that surprised me.

The best ideas didn’t necessarily come from the topic we started discussing.

They emerged during the conversation.

For example, in one recent session, we started talking about artificial intelligence and how it’s changing marketing.

I was concerned that AI-generated content was making everything look and sound increasingly similar.

The AI asked me what I thought businesses should do about that.

That led to a discussion about reputation.

Then customer loyalty.

Then a story I’d heard Seth Godin tell about a furnace repair technician who won a customer’s trust without making a sales pitch.

Somewhere along the way, I started talking about music.

I’m a musician, and I’ve always been fascinated by how digital recording technology allows us to make performances technically perfect.

But sometimes, when you remove every imperfection, you remove some of the character that made the performance special.

That led to another thought.

Maybe the same thing is happening with marketing.

Maybe businesses are becoming so focused on producing flawless content that they’re losing the human qualities that make them distinctive.

And suddenly, we had something.

Not just another article about AI.

A genuine argument about the future of small business.

But we weren’t finished.

Then the Conversation Took Another Turn

We started discussing how businesses should prepare for the changes AI will bring.

I compared the coming transformation to a tsunami.

We’re seeing the early signs, I suggested, but the biggest changes may still be ahead.

Then I made a joke.

Instead of drowning, maybe we should grab our surfboards and hang ten.

The AI picked up on it.

We laughed about it.

And eventually, that became the working title of the article:

AI Tsunami PSA: Grab Your Surfboards!

Now, here’s what’s interesting.

I didn’t sit down intending to write an article with that title.

I didn’t even know that was the article I wanted to write.

We discovered it.

Through conversation.

And that, to me, is where this process becomes genuinely exciting.

It’s More Like Jamming Than Writing

I’ve been a musician for much of my life.

And there’s something about this process that reminds me of musicians getting together to jam.

Someone plays a riff.

Someone else responds.

Maybe the drummer changes the groove.

Maybe the guitarist introduces a chord nobody expected.

And suddenly, something interesting starts happening.

Nobody necessarily knows where the music is going.

But everyone is listening, responding, and contributing.

That’s how I think about these conversations with AI.

I bring the experience.

The stories.

The opinions.

The occasional ridiculous analogy.

The AI brings an extraordinary ability to recognize patterns, organize thoughts, explore connections, and ask questions that move the discussion forward.

Sometimes it challenges me.

Sometimes I challenge it.

And sometimes one of us says something that makes the other stop and think.

That’s when the interesting stuff happens.

The conversation becomes more valuable than the original idea.

And the article is simply the record of what we discovered.

The AI Isn’t the Author of My Experience

I think this distinction matters.

When I talk about 31 years of working with small businesses, that’s my experience.

When I describe conversations I’ve had with clients, those are my memories.

When I talk about music, technology, marketing, and how I think the world is changing, those are my opinions.

AI didn’t live those experiences.

It didn’t develop those opinions over decades.

And it certainly didn’t spend 31 years running a marketing business.

What it can do is help me articulate those experiences and opinions in ways that might be more interesting, more organized, and more useful to someone reading them.

That’s a powerful distinction.

I’m not outsourcing my thinking. I’m amplifying it.

And I suspect that’s one of the most valuable ways people will learn to use artificial intelligence.

Not simply to produce more.

But to think better.

Why Voice Changes Everything

There’s another ingredient to this process that I think is important.

We’re talking.

Not typing.

And for me, that makes an enormous difference.

When you’re typing, there’s a tendency to edit yourself constantly.

You think about sentence structure.

You worry about grammar.

You delete things.

You second-guess yourself.

But when you’re talking, ideas tend to flow more naturally.

You tell stories.

You make connections.

You occasionally say something completely unexpected.

And because the AI can respond conversationally, it can keep the discussion moving.

It can ask for clarification.

It can explore an interesting tangent.

Or it can recognize when you’ve said something particularly important and encourage you to develop it.

It’s almost like having a podcast host who’s endlessly curious about what you have to say.

And unlike a conventional interview, the conversation doesn’t have to end when the recording stops.

You can take the transcript, turn it into an article, review the draft, and continue refining the ideas.

The writing becomes the final stage of the process.

Not the beginning.

The First Draft Isn’t the Finished Product

I should mention something else.

Just because AI produces a draft doesn’t mean I automatically publish it.

I read it.

I question it.

I change things.

Sometimes I disagree with the way an idea has been presented.

Sometimes I realize that something important from our conversation didn’t make it into the article.

And sometimes the AI comes up with a sentence that captures exactly what I was trying to say.

That’s part of the collaboration too.

The AI isn’t making the final decisions.

I am.

And that’s important because, ultimately, my name and my business are attached to what gets published.

The technology can help me express myself.

But the responsibility for what I say remains mine.

Something Remarkable Is Happening

I’ve been working with computers since long before the internet became a household utility.

I’ve watched technology transform how businesses communicate, advertise, sell products, and serve customers.

But I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything quite like this.

For the first time, I’m interacting with technology that can participate in the development of an idea through natural conversation.

Not just execute instructions.

Not just retrieve information.

But help explore possibilities.

And I find that remarkable.

Of course, AI doesn’t think or experience the world the way humans do.

It doesn’t have my memories, my career, or my personal stake in the outcome.

But it can still be an extraordinarily useful creative partner.

And perhaps that’s the point.

We don’t have to be the same to work well together.

In fact, the differences may be precisely what make the collaboration valuable.

The Best Use of AI Might Be the One We Haven’t Thought Of Yet

Most businesses are still approaching artificial intelligence by asking a fairly straightforward question:

“What tasks can AI do for me?”

That’s a reasonable place to start.

Can it write emails?

Can it answer customer inquiries?

Can it generate reports?

Can it automate administrative work?

Absolutely.

But I think there’s another question worth asking.

What could I accomplish if I had an intelligent conversational partner available whenever I needed one?

Someone—or, more accurately, something—that could help me explore ideas, challenge assumptions, organize complicated thoughts, and turn those thoughts into something useful.

That’s a different proposition.

It’s not just about saving time.

It’s about expanding what you’re capable of doing.

And the more I experiment with it, the more possibilities I see.

And Here’s the Punchline

There’s something wonderfully ironic about this entire exercise.

The article you’re reading right now was created using the very process it describes.

I didn’t sit down with a detailed outline.

I didn’t spend hours researching how to write about AI collaboration.

I simply had a conversation with an AI assistant I’d started calling Zoe.

We talked about how much I enjoyed the process we’d developed.

We compared it to musicians jamming.

We discussed why the resulting articles felt more authentic than conventional AI-generated content.

And eventually, I said something along the lines of:

“Hey, why don’t we write an article about how we write articles?”

So we did.

And if you’re wondering whether this approach might work for your own business, I’d encourage you to try it.

Pick a subject you know well.

Something you have genuine experience with.

Something you care about.

Start a voice conversation with AI.

Ask it to interview you.

Tell your stories.

Follow the interesting tangents.

Don’t worry about sounding polished.

And when you’ve explored the subject thoroughly, ask AI to help turn the conversation into an article.

Then review it carefully and make it your own.

You might be surprised by what comes out of it.

I certainly was.

Because after more than 31 years of working with technology, I’ve discovered something I never expected.

Writing articles has become one of my favorite things to do.

And the funny thing is, I barely feel like I’m writing them.

I’m just having a conversation.