The Truth About AI and Marketing Writers: Why "Fake" is the Wrong Word

 

I used AI to help write this post.

I also used: My brain. My thirty-plus years of marketing experience. My judgment. My sense of humor (debatable). My vocabulary. My understanding of my audience. My ability to tell when something sounds like garbage. My knowledge of what makes people click, buy, and share.

Which part makes it "fake"?

Here's the thing about our industry: we love our sacred cows. We worship at the altar of "authenticity" while creating campaigns for products we've never used, for audiences we don't belong to, in voices that aren't our own. But the moment someone mentions AI, suddenly everyone's a purist.

It's ridiculous.

You know what I've been using for years without anyone questioning my authenticity? Autocorrect. Grammarly. Google. Wikipedia. That thing where you ask your creative partner to read something back to you because your brain is fried. Hell, I've been stealing ideas from other writers since I learned what a portfolio was.

But AI? That's where we draw the line?

The Real Power Move

The truth is that very soon, AI transparency is going to be the new power move. The writers who figure this out first are going to eat everyone else's lunch.

Think about it. While half the industry is clutching their pearls about the "integrity" of the craft, the smart ones are learning to wield this thing like a secret weapon. They're using it to generate ten headlines instead of three. To write copy in voices they've never tried. To research audiences they don't understand. To iterate faster than they ever thought possible.

And here's the kicker … their work is getting better, not worse.

The Skill Isn't Avoiding AI

The skill isn't avoiding AI. The skill is knowing how to use it well.

Any monkey can type "write me an ad for shoes" into ChatGPT and get something that looks like copy. Most monkeys do. That's why most AI copy sounds like it was written by a robot having a stroke.

But a real writer? A real writer knows how to prompt. How to refine. How to take what AI gives you and make it actually good. How to use AI to solve the blank page problem, then apply years of experience to make it sing.

The best AI-assisted copy doesn't sound like AI copy. It sounds like the writer, just faster and with more options.

We're Missing the Point

The handwringing about AI replacing writers is missing the point entirely. AI isn't replacing writers. It's replacing bad writers who think their job is just putting words in order.

Good writers have always been editors. We've always been idea machines. We've always been translators between what the client thinks they want and what will actually work. AI doesn't change any of that. It just gives us a research assistant who never sleeps and doesn't steal our lunch from the office fridge.

The New Reality

Here's what I think happens next: The writers who embrace AI now become unstoppable. They deliver better work, faster. They explore creative territories they never would have found on their own. They solve problems they couldn't solve before.

Meanwhile, the purists are still sitting in coffee shops, waiting for inspiration to strike, convinced they're preserving the integrity of the craft while their careers slowly bleed out.

Which group do you think clients are going to choose?

A Personal Note

I’ve been using AI for a while now. Not because I thought I needed help writing … I've been doing this long enough to know I'm pretty good at it. I started using it because I was curious. Because I'm not an idiot. Because when a tool this powerful shows up, you either learn to use it or you get left behind.

And you know what happened? My work got better. Not because AI made me a better writer, but because it made me a better thinker. It forced me to articulate what I wanted more clearly. It showed me angles I hadn't considered. It let me try a hundred bad ideas quickly so I could get to the good ones faster.

I'm still the one making the decisions. I'm still the one who knows what's good and what's garbage. I'm still the one who understands strategy and audience and brand voice.

AI is just helping me do all of that better.

The Bottom Line

The future belongs to the writers who figure out how to be human + AI, not human vs. AI.

Everything else is just fear disguised as principle.

And honestly? In an industry built on selling people things they don't need using emotions they barely understand, getting precious about "authenticity" is the most inauthentic thing of all.

So stop pretending you don't use it. Stop apologizing when you do. And for the love of whatever deity oversees failed banner ads, stop calling it fake.

It's a tool. Learn to use it.

Your career depends on it.