AI in Our Writing: Should You Use It, if so How Much?

The Op-Ed That Almost Wasn't

A few weeks ago I was part of an editing group working through an op-ed before it went out for approval. Everything was moving along fine until the person who was actually the voice of the piece ran it through an AI detection check, just as a precaution. The result came back at 60% likely AI-generated.

He wasn't happy about it. Neither would you be, if your name was going on something that read as if it came out of a machine more than it came out of you. He scrapped the draft, sat down, and rewrote it himself. We picked up the editing process again with fresh copy, written in his actual voice.

Was that an overreaction? No. But it raises a real question for anyone who writes for a living: how much AI is too much?

How Much Is Too Much?

My answer depends on what you're writing.

If the piece requires your voice, your name, your credibility, then AI should play a small role. An op-ed, a leadership statement, testimony, anything where the reader assumes they're hearing directly from a specific person - that's not the place to let a language model do the heavy lifting. The whole point of that kind of writing is that it's yours, and authenticity should be the number one goal.

Here's the thing about our profession specifically. Comms people are writers by trade. Writing is the actual skill we're paid to do. When we lean on AI to generate finished copy for the pieces that matter most, we're outsourcing the one thing that makes us valuable in the first place. That's not a productivity hack. That's a shortcut around our own job description.

Now, not all writing carries that weight. Internal notes, first-pass outlines, a rough draft of a routine email, a quick summary of a report nobody's going to scrutinize line by line. AI can be genuinely useful there. It's not about banning the tool. It's about knowing which pieces of writing can't be handed off, even partially, without losing something real.

Three Ways to Keep This From Happening to You

1. Draft the skeleton yourself before you touch AI. Write your own outline and your own opening lines first. Once your voice and argument are already on the page, AI becomes a tool for polishing rather than a source of the actual thinking. This is where AI can’t overshadow your voice. I liken the rest of the editing process to a spell or grammar check; no one bats an eye at that type of editing.

2. Run high-stakes pieces through a detector before anyone else does. If you're going to check your own work the way that colleague did, do it early, not at the finish line. Catching a problem in your first draft saves editing time and protects your credibility.

3. Set a rule for whose name goes on what. Anything published under a named individual, a leader, a spokesperson, or your own byline should be substantially written by that person. Save AI-assisted drafting for unattributed, lower-stakes work. The line doesn't have to be complicated. It just has to exist.

The takeaway: In our business, credibility and authenticity are everything. Important work should have your voice, style, and experience embedded within. That's why your organization hired you! None of this makes AI the enemy. It is just a tool, but the tool shouldn’t include putting words in someone's mouth and calling it their voice.

Thomas Y. Lynch

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