You might have noticed that a lot of AI writing sounds the same. You ask for an email or a blog post, and you get back something that feels a little too perfect, a little too polished, and completely devoid of any personality. It’s frustrating when you’ve spent years building a reputation on your specific point of view, only to have a tool water it down into something anyone could have written. The most reliable way I’ve found to fix this is to create an AI voice file, which is just a simple document that teaches the AI how you think and write before you ask it to do any work.
It’s a tiny adjustment to your process that makes a huge difference in the quality of what you get back, and it saves so much time in editing.
Why does most AI writing sound the same?
When we give an AI a simple instruction like “write a friendly email” or “be professional,” we’re asking it to draw from a massive, generalized pool of information. The AI’s idea of “friendly” is the average of millions of examples of friendly writing it has seen, which tends to be bland and a bit corporate. It doesn’t know your specific version of friendly, which might be warmer, funnier, or more direct than the average.
The problem is that these simple prompts lack any specific brand context. The AI has no access to your past writing, your client conversations, or the particular words you would never use. Without that context, it has to guess, and its guess will always be the most common, generic version of what you asked for. This is why so many AI-generated first drafts feel like they need a total rewrite, because you have to add the personality back in yourself.
What is a voice file, and why does it work better than single prompts?
A voice file is a dedicated, reusable document that acts as a style guide for your AI. Instead of reminding the AI of your style at the start of every new conversation, you can just paste the contents of this file in, giving it all the context it needs in one go. You are essentially giving the AI a job description and a training manual for how to be your writing assistant.
This works so much better because it’s built on clear examples and constraints. It gives the AI a rich, specific dataset of your voice to work from, and it also tells the AI what to avoid. By providing both positive and negative examples, you create a much clearer picture of your voice than a few descriptive words ever could. It’s the difference between telling a new team member to “be helpful” and giving them your company’s complete customer service guide.
Step 1: Find three to five examples of your best writing
The foundation of a good voice file is your own work. You don’t need to invent a description of your voice from scratch, because you can find it in the things you’ve already written. Your goal is to find a few pieces of content where you felt you sounded most like yourself.
Look for places where your writing felt easy and natural. Good sources are often sent emails to clients, articles you’ve published, or even internal notes to your team where you were explaining something clearly. You’re not looking for perfection, but for authenticity. Find three to five samples that you can copy and paste directly into your file. These will serve as the core examples that teach the AI your rhythm, sentence structure, and vocabulary.
Step 2: Create your “never use this” list
Just as important as showing the AI what to do is telling it what not to do. This is where you can head off most of the generic corporate language that makes AI writing feel so flat. Think about the words and phrases that you read in other people’s marketing and immediately dislike.
Start a list of these words. It might include things like “streamline,” “optimize,” “leverage,” or any of those empty business words that don’t mean much. Add phrases you find yourself constantly editing out of drafts, like “in today’s digital landscape” or “it’s a game changer.” This “never use” list is one of the most effective parts of a voice file, because it forces the AI to find clearer, more direct ways to say things, which probably sounds a lot more like you anyway.
Step 3: Put it all together in a simple text file
Once you have your good examples and your “never use” list, you can assemble them into a simple document. I recommend using a plain text or markdown (.md) file, because it’s easy to open, copy, and paste without any formatting issues.
Organize the file with clear headings so you, and the AI, can understand its structure. This simple organization helps the AI process the instructions more effectively. It doesn’t need to be complicated, it just needs to be clear.
A template you can copy and use
Here is a very simple structure that you can use for your own voice file. Just copy this into a plain text editor and fill it in with your own examples and words.
AI Voice and Style Guide for [Your Name/Brand Name]
About My Voice
[This is optional, but you can add a short paragraph describing your voice in your own words. For example: "I write in a warm, plain, and direct way. I use medium to longer sentences that flow together, and I often connect ideas with commas, and, and so. I want to sound like a helpful advisor, not a corporate marketer."]
Positive Writing Examples
Here are three to five examples of my writing. Please analyze them for tone, style, sentence structure, rhythm, and vocabulary to learn how I write.
Example 1
[Paste a good writing sample here.]
Example 2
[Paste a good writing sample here.]
Example 3
[Paste a good writing sample here.]
Words and Phrases to Never Use
Never use any of the following words or phrases in your writing. Find a simpler, more direct alternative instead.
• word
• phrase
• another word
• another phrase
How to use your new voice file with different AI tools
Using your voice file is simple. In a tool like ChatGPT, you have two main options. For conversations you have often, you can paste the entire contents of your markdown file into the “Custom Instructions” section of your settings. This tells the AI to apply these rules to every new chat you start, so you don’t have to think about it again.
If you are working on a specific project and don’t want to change your global settings, you can just copy and paste the text from your voice file directly into the chat window at the very beginning of a new conversation. You can preface it with a simple instruction like, “Before we begin, please use the following voice and style guide for all of your responses in this conversation.” Then, you can proceed with your request.
You are still the editor
Creating an AI voice file will make your first drafts from AI significantly better and will save you a great deal of editing time. It helps the tool produce content that feels much closer to your own voice from the start.
But it’s important to remember that the AI is your assistant, not the final author. You should always be the final editor. Read through the output, make your own tiny adjustments, and ensure that the final piece truly represents you and your thinking. The goal is to make the tool more useful, not to remove yourself from the process entirely.
The whole point of this is to help you grow your business with AI without losing the personal voice your clients and customers trust. Giving the AI clear instructions is the best way to do that.
If you want more practical advice on using AI in your business, you might like my weekly newsletter. It’s called The Clarity Letter, and it’s one short read a week to help you make sense of it all.
