When Humans Write for Machines: Creating a Style Guide for AI Projects

Last week, I fell down a Reddit rabbit hole. A post in r/marketing had sparked a fierce debate: "Is AI content killing creativity or saving us from mundane writing tasks?" The thread was hundreds of comments deep, with battle lines clearly drawn.

"I published 120 blog posts last month using AI and my organic traffic is up 200%," boasted one user. "Nobody can tell the difference between AI and human writing anyway." The responses were brutal: "I clicked three of your posts. They all started with 'In today's fast-paced digital landscape' and included the phrase 'game-changer' at least twice. Anyone with a pulse can tell it's AI garbage."

Another chimed in: "The problem isn't that AI writes badly—it's that it writes blandly. Every article reads like it was written by the same cautious, mildly informed intern who's terrified of saying anything wrong... or interesting."

I wrote this guide after watching too many smart people write boring things, staring at a wall of corporate speak that said nothing while using many words, and reading AI-generated content that felt like eating cotton candy—sweet at first taste but ultimately unsatisfying and insubstantial.Good writing isn't magic. It's craft.

This guide won't make you Hemingway, but it might save your readers from the special hell of wading through another forgettable wall of text.

The Strange New World of AI Writing

The rise of AI writing tools has created an odd paradox: the more machines write like humans, the more valuable distinctly human writing becomes. When ChatGPT can generate a perfectly adequate 500-word blog post in seconds, adequacy is no longer enough.According to recent statistics from SurveyMonkey, 68% of marketers now use AI tools for content creation, yet 73% of consumers say they can identify AI-written content—and 62% trust it less than human-written material.

In 1946, George Orwell watched politicians twist language to hide atrocities. He responded with six rules for honest writing that still form the backbone of good style guides today. These rules weren't meant to create beautiful writing—they were meant to create honest writing. Writing that doesn't hide behind fancy words or vague phrases. Writing that says what it means.Working with AI requires a similar commitment to clarity. Whether you're developing an AI strategy for your business or editing AI-generated content, the principles remain the same: strip away pretension, force precision, respect the reader's time.

Recognizing Machine-Made Patterns

AI-generated content often follows predictable patterns. To maintain a human voice when working with AI tools, learn to recognize and avoid these "tells":

• Formulaic transitions: "In today's rapidly evolving landscape..."
• Overused setups: "Let's dive deep into..."
• Artificial balance: Forced "on one hand... on the other hand" structures
• Empty intensifiers: "Incredibly important" and "absolutely essential"
• Generic keyword usage: "Best practices for content marketing strategy"

These patterns emerge because AI learns from existing content—including all the mediocre writing we've collectively published online. Without careful editing, we risk creating an endless loop of increasingly generic content.

The Digital Marketing Institute reports that while AI adoption in marketing continues to accelerate, with 85% of businesses now incorporating some form of AI, content that maintains authentic human voice consistently outperforms purely AI-generated content in engagement metrics.

Building a Style Guide for the AI Era

A good style guide for AI projects serves two purposes: it helps humans write better prompts, and it helps humans better edit AI-generated content. Here's what to include:

1. Voice and Tone Definition

Define what makes your writing distinctly yours. Is it warm intelligence? A trace of satire? A slightly sideways perspective? Whatever it is, be specific enough that you can identify when AI output doesn't match.For example: "Our writing contains unexpected observations and makes connections others miss. We might introduce an article on modern work culture with an anecdote about medieval monastic schedules."

2. Patterns to Avoid

Identify the AI patterns that don't align with your voice. This helps both in writing better prompts and in spotting elements to edit in the output.

3. Strong Beginnings

AI tends to start broadly and narrow down—the opposite of engaging human writing. Specify how you want content to begin:

• With a specific historical anecdote
• A surprising fact that challenges assumptions
• A personal observation that illuminates something larger

4. Word Choice and Sentence Structure

Provide clear guidance on:

• Preferring simple over impressive words
• Being specific rather than vague
• Avoiding clichés and business jargon
• Varying sentence and paragraph length
• Incorporating target keywords naturally

5. The Humanity Test

After editing AI content, apply this test: Would I naturally say this in conversation with a knowledgeable colleague? Does this reflect a perspective that could only come from genuine experience? Will readers feel like they've encountered a person, not just information?

Implementing Your Guide

A style guide is only valuable if it's actually used. Here's how to implement it effectively:

1. Start with examples, not rules. Show what good writing looks like in your context.
2. Keep it concise. If your style guide is longer than this article, it won't be read.
3. Make it a living document. Update it as you discover new AI patterns to avoid.
4. Use it actively when writing prompts. The quality of AI output directly correlates to the quality of your instructions.

The goal isn't perfection in AI writing—it's humanity. Humans are imperfect, distinctive, and occasionally brilliant in ways machines can't replicate.Our approach to content marketing has always emphasized authentic human connection, and this becomes even more crucial in the age of AI. Similarly, when developing your marketing operations, incorporating style guidelines for AI tools should be a priority.

Download Our AI Style Guide Template

We've distilled the insights from this article into a practical, customizable style guide template that you can adapt for your organization's needs. This downloadable resource includes:

• A framework for defining your unique voice and tone
• Checklists for reviewing AI-generated content
• Prompt templates that encourage more human-like outputs
• Examples of before-and-after AI content editing

Download the AI Style Guide Template →Good writing disappears, leaving only your meaning behind. When readers notice your writing more than your ideas, you've failed. In the age of AI, this principle becomes even more important as we navigate the uncanny valley of almost-but-not-quite human text.

The ultimate test remains the same: does your writing communicate exactly what you intend to exactly the person you intend to reach? If so, you've succeeded—no matter how much help you had from AI along the way.