Selling AI Content but Not Being Able to Write with It

Everywhere the same message: AI produces high-quality content. Blog posts, product copy, social media posts, newsletters. Fast, cheap, scalable. The consultants list tools, describe workflows, cite metrics. The tenor is enthusiasm. The future of content is automated.

And then you look at how the same people write their own stuff. By hand. Because the quality of AI wasn’t good enough.

I’ve seen this over and over in the past two years. Consultants who recommend AI content to their clients write their own texts themselves. Agencies that sell AI workflows have humans write their pitch decks. Authors who call AI-generated texts high-quality write their books by hand. The quality apparently isn’t sufficient when your own name is on it.

That’s not a small contradiction. That’s the central contradiction of the entire industry.

There are two possibilities. Either AI-generated content is high quality, in which case you could write your own stuff with it too. Or it isn’t, in which case you shouldn’t call it that. There’s no third option. Except the most obvious one: it depends on who it’s for.

And that’s exactly the point nobody talks about. AI content is good enough for you, but not good enough for me. The recommendation flows downward. The consultants, the experts use it as support, as a draft, as raw material. What they publish themselves, they write differently. But what you’re supposed to publish can come from the machine.

That’s a form of arrogance disguised as advice. It works because nobody notices the contradiction. The recommendation comes in the sales pitch. Their own practice stays out of sight.

In thirty years I’ve seen a lot of consulting. And the most reliable warning sign was always this: when someone recommends something they don’t use themselves. The doctor who smokes. The financial advisor who rents. The consultant who praises AI content but writes his own texts by hand.

What they’re actually saying, without saying it: AI-generated texts are good enough for volume. For mass. For the daily flood of content nobody really reads. For the newsletter you skim. For the blog post you close after three sentences. For the product description that’s interchangeable. For that, it’s enough.

But for something with your name on it? For something that carries your reputation? For something that’s supposed to stay relevant for more than a week? For that, it’s not enough. The people who recommend it know this. They just don’t say it.

The question that follows is uncomfortable. If the content you produce with AI is good enough, what does that say about the content? And if it’s not good enough, what are you selling your clients?

There are texts where the origin doesn’t matter. Forms, standard descriptions, automated notifications. Nobody expects a human voice there. But the industry isn’t just talking about forms. It’s talking about marketing copy, thought leadership, customer communication. The texts where trust is at stake. And recommends a tool for them that isn’t good enough for their own work.

High quality. The term is used like a seal of approval. In practice it means: adequate. Not flawed. Not embarrassing. Passable. It doesn’t mean: good. Not: convincing. Not: something you’d be proud of.

The most honest moment is always when you see what someone does for themselves versus what they do for their clients. That’s where you learn what they really think about it.