How to Improve AI Writing With an Emotional Intelligence Audit
By Nick Usborne

If you worry that AI is going to replace you as a writer, relax.

That’s not happening any time soon. At least, it needn’t. Because you have a superpower no AI can match.

You’re human.

You feel. You love. You mourn. You can taste ice cream. You can stub your toe. You can fall in love. Autumn leaves remind you of your childhood. A good horror movie still makes you scream. You smile while sharing stories with old friends.

This is what it means to be human. We are emotional.

AI models are not emotional beings and can never have sensory experiences the way we do.

When we add emotion to our copy, we set our content apart from anything written by AI.

Yes, AI models know what human emotion is about. They have read the script for the movie Love Story. But their expression of emotion lacks depth and nuance … because they can’t feel anything themselves. It’s all second hand.

For us, step one is to set ourselves apart by including emotion in everything we write.

Step two is to formalize this process, so we can describe and sell the approach to our clients.

That’s why I always talk to companies about conducting an Emotional Intelligence Audit on all AI output.

By calling it an audit, I’m framing it as a repeatable process a company can apply again and again. With my expert help.

Here are five elements you can include in your own audit process:

Element #1: Does the copy sound conversational?

The best copy and content sound conversational. Good writers connect with and engage their audience by writing as if they were talking. It feels like a one-on-one conversation across the kitchen table.

AI can’t do that, because it has never sat at a kitchen table and chatted with a friend over coffee. It’s never had that experience, or felt the emotions associated with a conversation like that.

Sure, it can do a reasonable job of copying a conversational writing tone, but it’s never quite the same. Never quite good enough.

Element #2: Is the tone empathetic?

Great copywriters empathize with their audience.

What is empathy? Empathy is the ability to understand, share, and respond to another person’s feelings, thoughts, and experiences.

Empathy is about seeing the world through the eyes of our prospects and customers. It’s about acknowledging and respecting their feelings.

Great copy is always empathetic. It cuts through the noise and appeals to our readers at a deep, emotional level.

And empathy does more than just engage readers, it also increases trust, which, in turn, results in greater conversion rates. Yup … more money in our clients’ pockets.

Again, AI models have read about empathy and understand its value, but they really don’t “get it” the way we do. Why? Because they have no emotions of their own. They feel nothing.

Empathy is a rare and deeply human quality.

Element #3: Does the copy include stories or anecdotes?

Read a feature article in your favorite magazine, or the first paragraphs of each chapter in a business or self-help book, and you’ll find many of them start with a short story or anecdote.

Why? Because stories are a great way to engage with a reader. Stories have universal appeal across all ages, genders, and cultures. We loved stories as kids, and still like to share stories around the coffee station at work.

Stories are a universal connector.

AI models don’t understand this, because they never had a mother or father to read them a bedtime story. Come to think of it, they don’t have bedtimes either. Or pajamas. Or favorite stuffed toys to snuggle.

Element #4: Is the copy honest and accurate?

If you let an AI write all on its own, with no reviews or human oversight, you might occasionally find its output includes factual errors and inaccuracies.

It’s not that the AI is inherently dishonest or incompetent. It’s simply picking up on errors in the dataset it was trained on. In other words, when AI models are trained on data from the internet and social media, they will absorb some human-created information that’s inaccurate or just a downright lie.

Sometimes an AI will recognize these inaccuracies or untruths and correct them. But not always.

When a reader comes across an untruth in your copy, the trust they felt can quickly evaporate. And without trust, they’ll no longer feel comfortable making that purchase.

Hence, the need to include this element in your Emotional Intelligence Audit.

Element #5: Is the copy gender- and culture-sensitive?

We encounter a similar problem here.

If you ask an AI image-creation model to show you a picture of the most beautiful woman in the world, it will likely create an image of a young woman with blond hair and blue eyes.

Again, the AI isn’t biased, but it is trained on human data that’s biased.

For the same reasons, an AI can create copy and content that’s gender-biased and culturally insensitive, right up to and including being outright racist.

If a company relies on AI too heavily, and allows any of these biases to slip though unnoticed, it can do their brand enormous harm.

Design your own Emotional Intelligence Audit and share it with your clients.

I’ve included five elements in my version of this audit. You may think of other elements to include in your own, depending on your niche and its specific sensitivities.

Once you’re done building your own version, give your audit document a cover and use it when prospecting for new clients.

This is a great way to futureproof your business, because however capable AI models become, you’ll be demonstrating to your clients that you … as a highly trained and deeply emotionally human … are still indispensable.