Artificial intelligence in content writing can be a boon and a bane. It’s a blessing for volume production, but it can be a curse when it comes to reader engagement.

Let’s face it: Nobody wants to read robotic-sounding content. And search engines don’t like it either.

But content marketing is all about fulfilling search intent. Whether it’s written by humans or machines, content should be reader-friendly and search engine-friendly.

This is why you should add human experiences to your AI content before publishing it.

Enter AI content humanization. 👋

Humanizing AI-generated content is part of trust building — the “T” in our CRAFT series.

Want to learn every step involved in our C.R.A.F.T. framework? You’re in the right place. To learn more about AIO and C.R.A.F.T, read our individual guides:

• C – a full guide on cutting the fluff
• R – a full guide on optimizing your content for SEO
• A – a full guide on adding blog images and visuals
• F – a full guide on how to fact-check
• T – a full guide on how to trust-build in your content

Additionally, subscribe to our blog, watch our C.R.A.F.T. and AIO tutorials on our YouTube channel, and read this blog to understand the AIO model.

In this tutorial, I will teach you how to optimize the body of your article to make it sound human-like so that it speaks to your audience in a personal way. Let’s talk about AI content humanization.

AI Content Humanization: Making Your AI Content Personal

Despite advances in technology, AI-written content often sounds like a college thesis — formal, robotic, basically a snoozefest.

Now the big question is: How do you add human experience or a human point of view (POV) to AI content to make it sound warmer, more personal, and more inviting?

In other words, how do you make it sound like you?

With AI content humanization. 🙋‍♀️

We can start humanizing your content at the most basic level: sentence construction.

AI writing tools are notorious for generating sentences that are too formal, too long, and too mechanical. 

There are two ways we can change this: change the point of view and change the voice.

Write from a Second-Person POV

While editing AI content, I’ve noticed bots create a lot of sentences written in the third-person POV. Pronouns like “he,” “she,” “it,” “they,” “him,” “her,” “his,” and “them” are cues that demonstrate a third-person point of view.

In a third-person POV, the content does not talk to the reader but talks about the reader.

Image source: Scribbr

In the example below, the phrase “businesses can save money” is written from a third-person perspective. 

To make this sound more like you are the one speaking and not the AI, change the word “businesses” to “you” so it reads “you can save money”, which sounds more conversational.

When editing your AI content, think about talking to your reader as if they’re in the room with you. Any time you encounter sentences that talk about your reader and not to your reader, change that to a second-person POV using “you” language.

Use the Active Voice

Another way to make your sentence sound human is to switch from passive voice to active voice.

Image source: University of Arizona

Writing in a passive voice makes a sentence more complicated than necessary. And people don’t talk that way (usually). 

To make AI content sound more human, it has to talk like a human — which is in the active voice. 

In this example, the subject of the sentence is the “AI program” but it’s not written front and center. Instead, it’s buried towards the end, after the verb.

Here’s a big clue that the sentence is in passive voice: when you see the word “by” followed by a noun.

To change this to active voice, pull the noun (the subject) out in front of the verb (the action). Rewrite the sentence to:

“While an AI program [subject/noun] may handle [verb/action] short-form writing more efficiently than a human writer …”

All you have to do is to take the subject of the sentence (AI program) and put it in front of the verb (handle).

Adding Your Own Experience to AI Content

Another way to humanize AI content is to add your own viewpoint, stories, or expertise.

If you have an opinion about the content topic, then sharing that opinion is a great way to add a human touch to your piece. Show your reader that you are THE expert in this field by adding your opinion in places where it adds value or where it’s needed.

In our example article, we’re talking about how the emergence of AI has created a paradigm shift in the writing industry.

If I’m writing this from my perspective, and I’m a writer by profession, this is the perfect opportunity to share my own experience instead of just talking about the general state of the writing industry. I should talk about MY point of view instead of what other people are saying.

I am an expert in this field, so what does this paradigm shift mean for me? How does it affect my work?

All these personal opinions can be valuable in humanizing this piece of content.

Let’s look at the first sentence in this paragraph:

“This new era of automated content production brings both challenges and opportunities for professional writers.”

I can add a paragraph below that to share my own experience.

“For me, as a content writer, this has meant adjusting to a new normal. Now, I’m not the primary writer, I’m the primary editor.”

I would continue to talk about my experience working with AI in content, like how the AI now writes the first draft, taking me out of the tedious brainstorming, research, and outlining processes. Now I’m in the post-draft process which is editing and polishing what the AI wrote.

Remember, all your experiences — your life, your education, what you’ve gone through in your career — these things make you unique and they add a valuable viewpoint that you can share with your audience.

To build trust, you have to be the expert. Insert your opinion where it matters.

Just imagine you were talking to one of your clients, and they need your perspective on a topic. Why not share it? 

Personal experiences are most valuable when writing articles about general topics. 

But sometimes, the entire blog is about sharing your opinion.

For example, this Content Hacker blog is an opinion piece about Julia’s favorite AI marketing tools. 

The entire piece is about her perspective, so she uses a first-person point of view.

When you’re writing opinion pieces, you have to give your perspective unequivocally. Don’t be shy in giving your opinion — whether you love or hate something, make sure the content reflects your feelings on the matter.

Start Adding Human Experience to Content to Build Trust

Adding a human experience to AI content is crucial if you want to create content that truly resonates with your audience. It’s all about injecting empathy, creativity, and emotion into AI-generated text so that you can connect with your reader on a deeper level.

To learn more about how to make AI content appeal to readers and search engines, take a look at all of our AIO — artificial intelligence optimization — resources.

Free Resources to Train Your Writers into AIO

I’ve been personally training agency owners and teams and helping them convert to the AIO way. Want these? You’re in luck – we’re giving them away.

Free Guide

We put together a full guide for AIO’s – an AIO writer’s worksprint, a job template to hire and find yours, links to our best tutorials and training, and more.

Want this awesome resource? It’s called the AIO Writer’s Worksprint. Download now for free.

Free Step-by-Step AIO Training Course

Additionally, after months of putting AIO and C.R.A.F.T. into action (over 40M words are produced each month by our users at Content at Scale, and our Done-for-You client side is another 500,000 words/month! Talk about AIO at scale 🤯 ) – we put together a step-by-step AIO C.R.A.F.T. tutorial.

Ideal for you, your writers, and any content creator ready to adapt to the CRAFT methodology and the AIO way.

Enjoy!

New to the idea of AIO and CRAFT? Read this to understand the innovation behind AIO. 

Want a written guide that has all the CRAFT steps from the YouTube video? Your wish is our content command. Step-by-step AIO writing tutorial, blog version.