Is AI Making Your Business Sound Like Everyone Else?
Updated: Oct 5
4-minute read
Perfectly polished. Entirely forgettable. AI has made writing quicker than ever.
Need a blog post? Done in minutes. A social caption? Easy. A website paragraph? No problem.
But there is a catch.
AI is brilliant at getting words onto a page (we love our AI co-pilots at FFL HQ).
But without the human touch, those words could belong to absolutely anybody.
“Exceptional service”, “tailored solutions”, "going above and beyond" and “passionate about quality” appear everywhere. They are not wrong. They just do very little to help anyone remember you.
These phrases sound reassuring until you try to work out what they actually tell you. Above and beyond what? Will you answer the phone? Explain the invoice? Rescue my cat?
Compare two descriptions of an accountant:
“We provide bespoke financial solutions for small businesses.”
“Bring us the shoebox of receipts. We’ll sort it out, explain what you owe and help you stop dreading January.”
The second gives you a customer, a problem and a reason to enquire. You can picture the relief.
Specifics do the work that adjectives merely wave at.
Why does AI reach for the beige?
AI writes by recognising patterns in huge amounts of existing text.
Ask it for a blog post about your industry and, unless you give it strong direction, it will often produce something close to the average of everything else it has seen. Familiar language is an easy destination.
The result. It's a bit like buying a birthday card with the message already printed inside, and without a handwritten note. The sentiment is there. Perfectly pleasant. Technically correct. Not especially personal.
AI can give you words. That does not automatically mean it gives you your words.
Why that matters
People do not choose small businesses purely because their grammar is tidy.
They choose businesses they understand, remember and feel some connection with.
The specific things matter: the phrase you always use with customers, the way you explain something complicated, the little story behind a service, the opinion you have earned through experience. Those details are what stop your business sounding interchangeable.
And from a search point of view, useful, original content also gives Google and AI tools more substance to understand what makes your business different.
The fix: brand voice
“Brand voice” sounds like something requiring a workshop, deep pockets, and too many hobnobs.
It simply means writing online in roughly the same way you would speak to a good customer.
That might be warm and chatty. Straight-talking. Dryly funny. Reassuring. Expert without being formal.
What do you reassure them about? What do you wish they knew sooner? What have you learned after doing this hundreds of times?
That is your raw material. A friendly tone helps, but real knowledge makes the writing yours.
The useful part is that AI can learn this style surprisingly well but only if you give it something distinctive to work with.
What to do next
Record a one-minute voice note. Answer a question customers regularly ask. Capture your natural explanation.
Give AI something concrete. Include a real example, a useful tip and an opinion you can explain.
Set boundaries. Ask it to keep your phrases, avoid empty claims and invent no facts, results or customer stories.
Apply the competitor test. Could another business publish this unchanged? Add a detail that makes it unmistakably yours.
Read it aloud. Rewrite anything that makes you sound like you’re accepting an award for services to synergy.
The takeaway
AI can save you hours. It can also make your business sound remarkably similar to everyone else’s.
The difference is the material you give it. Your experience gives people something worth reading.
Before you press publish, ask: what will my customer know after reading this that they didn’t know before?
If the answer is merely that you’re passionate, have another go.
Use AI for the typing. Keep the personality. Cheers to that!
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