Don't Let AI Kill Your Analog Intelligence

Look, I get it. AI is everywhere. It's writing your emails, generating your creative briefs, and probably composing better headlines than most junior copywriters. Hell, maybe it even wrote this sentence. (It didn't, but you had to wonder for a second, didn't you?)

But here's the thing that's been gnawing at me lately: In our rush to embrace artificial intelligence, we're accidentally lobotomizing our analog intelligence. And that's a problem. A big fucking problem.

Ann Handley nailed it when she said: "Analog Intelligence isn't a throwback. It's not nostalgia. Analog is rooted in the physical: It's how we experience something directly, without a screen or algorithm butting in and mediating the moment."

Read that again. Without a screen or algorithm butting in.

When was the last time you experienced something -- really experienced it -- without immediately reaching for your phone to document it, Google it, or ask ChatGPT to explain it? When did you last sit with discomfort long enough to actually think your way through a problem instead of letting some AI tool solve it for you?

We're outsourcing our thinking. And not just the mundane stuff … we're outsourcing the messy, uncomfortable, beautifully human process of figuring things out.

The Death of Productive Struggle

Remember struggling with a creative problem? I mean really struggling. Sitting there, frustrated, cycling through terrible ideas, feeling like your brain was broken. Then suddenly, breakthrough. That moment when the right idea finally clicked, when all the pieces fell into place, when you knew you'd found something real.

AI is stealing that from us. Not maliciously, but efficiently. It's giving us answers before we've even learned to ask better questions. It's solving problems before we've developed the muscles to solve them ourselves.

Your analog intelligence is what happens in the space between the problem and the solution. It's the messy middle where real thinking lives. It's where you develop intuition, where you learn to trust your gut, where you build the creative confidence that no algorithm can replicate.

The Texture of Real Experience

Analog intelligence isn't just about unplugging. It's about texture. It's about the way a pen feels in your hand when you're sketching out an idea. It's about reading the room in a client meeting, picking up on micro-expressions and energy shifts that no video conference can capture. It's about the serendipitous conversation that happens when you're standing in line for coffee instead of ordering through an app.

It's about failure, too. Real, analog failure. The kind where you can't ctrl+z your way out. The kind that teaches you something about resilience, about iteration, about the difference between failing fast and failing smart.

Digital tools give us perfect drafts. Analog intelligence gives us perfect intuition.

The Paradox of Efficiency

Here's what nobody wants to admit: The most efficient way to solve a problem isn't always the best way. Sometimes the scenic route teaches you more than the highway. Sometimes the wrong turn leads to the right insight.

AI is optimized for efficiency. It's trained on existing solutions to give you the most probable next word, the most likely successful outcome. But breakthrough ideas don't come from probability. They come from the improbable connections your analog intelligence makes when it's allowed to wander, to wonder, to waste time.

The best creative work I've ever seen came from people who knew when to ignore the data, when to trust their instincts over the algorithm, when to choose the harder path because it felt more true.

Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bandwidth

I'm not saying AI is evil. I use it. It's useful. It can be a powerful tool for extending human capability. But it should be extending, not replacing.

Use AI to handle the routine so you can focus on the remarkable. Let it make suggestions on the first draft so you can spend your time making the second that much better. Ask it to organize your thoughts, not do your thinking.

But for God's sake, don't let it mediate every moment of discovery. Don't let it rob you of the productive struggle that builds creative muscle. Don't let it smooth away all the beautiful rough edges that make your work uniquely human.

Exercising Your Analog Intelligence

So how do you keep your analog intelligence sharp in an AI world?

Start small. Take notes by hand sometimes. Walk to think through a problem instead of typing it into a chat window. Have conversations without looking anything up. Sit with not knowing for a while.

Read books -- actual books -- that challenge you. Books that don't give you quick answers or bullet-pointed takeaways. Books that make you think harder, not faster.

Engage with the physical world. Touch things. Make things with your hands. Notice how materials behave, how light changes throughout the day, how people move through space.

Most importantly, defend your right to be inefficient sometimes. To take the long way. To figure things out for yourself, even when there's an AI tool that could do it faster.

Because in the end, your analog intelligence isn't just about being more creative or more human. It's about being more you. The messy, imperfect, beautifully analog you that no algorithm can replicate.

And that's worth preserving.

 _________________________

"Students who use AI tools to complete assignments
tend to do better on homework—but worse on tests.
They’re getting the right answers, but they’re not learning."

Daniel Oppenheimer
Professor of Psychology and Decision Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University

"But our new so-called tools no longer lighten our load.
They do our load for us.
This makes AI no longer a tool,
in fact, but a usurpation."

George Tannenbaum
Copywriter & Blogger

4 Pieces of Unsolicited Advice for Marketing Writers

Just because you didn't ask for it, doesn't mean you don't need to hear it.

1. Thick Skin

Grow some armor. Because one day you’re gonna walk into a meeting and watch your precious idea get ripped apart like a piñata at a six-year-old’s birthday party. That’s the gig.

Everyone at the table’s got to earn their paycheck, so they’ll take a swing: “Wait, wait, I’ve got it.” Which loosely translates to “Your idea sucks.” Get used to it.

Your job? Be ready. Have the brief tattooed on your brain and use it like a shield. Or hell, just have a better idea in your back pocket … that’s how you got good enough to get in the meeting in the first place.

2. Editing

Hack at it. Then hack at it again. Then perform precise surgery. Picture a cranky little bastard in your skull screaming, “Get to the fucking point!” and listen to him.

Every extra word is dead weight. Drop it.

Now read it out loud. If it sounds like something a writer wrote, you’re screwed. If it sounds like something a human said, you’re onto something. 

3. Content Strategy

If someone sidles up and asks you for some “content,” like it’s peanut butter you can just spread on their stale toast, run. Fast. Brands don’t need to be vomiting words into the void 24/7. Nobody’s impressed by a constant drizzle. They remember the thunderclap.

Every time you open your laptop, you’ve got a shot at something that could actually matter. Doesn’t matter if it’s a monster billboard on the highway or a Tweet that barely fits in your palm ... swing like you’re trying to knock it out of the park.

Forget the hamster wheel. Forget the quota. Quality beats quantity every single time.

4. THE Question

Every killer ad starts as an answer to a question. And the only question that matters is: What’s in it for me? Why the hell should I give a damn about your brand?

Here’s the rub: most clients can’t answer that without sounding like a spreadsheet. They’ll drown you in logic, features, bullet points. Bless their left-brain hearts. But people don’t buy logic. They buy the hit. The laugh. The goosebumps. That little electric jolt of feeling something. 

So when you’re grilling a client, stop asking, “What do we want to tell people?” Instead, ask the only thing that counts: “How do we want to make them feel?” Because if it doesn’t move 'em, it won’t move product either.

Writing for Your Prospect, Not Your Boss

 

Content is supposed to be for readers. 

Painfully obvious, right? 

And yet, wander through the content halls of most organizations and you’ll see something different. Something noisier. Something that looks less like “a delight machine for readers” and more like one of those overengineered Rube Goldberg contraptions ... except instead of marbles and pulleys, it’s approvals and compromises. Every stakeholder pulling a lever, everyone with a title wanting a piece of the copy.

What comes out the other end isn’t useful. It’s… safe. Neutered. A word casserole designed to reassure your VP that their pet phrase made it onto the page.

Here’s the thing: machines only produce what they’re set up to produce. If yours is wired for internal politics, you’ll keep getting content that serves the org chart instead of the prospect.

Of course you can’t ignore the boss entirely. Nobody’s saying write your case study in crayon and skip the legal review. But given the current state of things? You might want to lean hard the other way. Overcorrect. Build for the people outside your building who are actually trying to figure something out.

Clear. Useful. Human. 

That’s the stuff prospects read, remember, and maybe even act on. That’s the whole point.

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.