You can’t outsource your sense of purpose to an AI

AI tools are changing what we write, how we write, but not (yet) why we write.  Benefits come from using these tools with purpose.  And purpose remains the preserve of the human behind the keyboard.

When I’m training and coaching people in bid writing, I start with ‘Why?’.  Identifying your goals in any piece of writing is a critical step in getting the results you want.  In a bid, a laser focus on writing the best answer for your client is crucial.  Think about it – you could write anything, so why are you writing this, specifically?

Once you know why you’re writing, AI-powered writing tools are going to blast through the writing task itself.  Let’s start with what to write.  AI tools are brilliant at boosting creativity by suggesting ideas that you may never have thought of.  I’ve found that this is a great jumping-off point – the tool suggests something that triggers even better ideas.  It’s a brainstorm-in-a-box.

You’re then ready to create polished prose, and again, the tools are simply amazing at creating clear, concise and compelling content.  Far faster – and probably better – than I could.  What I find most powerful is the ability to rewrite at the push of a button, without the fear of messing it all up.

But neither use case works unless you have your purpose clear.  Deciding on what to write is a choice – taking the AI-generated suggestions may not be the best thing for you, however good the content looks.  The how also benefits from knowing your intent – editing and rewriting is such a fundamental part of the creative process, and again involves intentional choices in how you express ideas.

Most people now seem to agree that these LLM-powered AI tools are best used to augment a human writer.  Assistance with what and how we write is a making a tremendous improvement to productivity and quality, but has it’s limits – it’s not just about power, hence the rise of specialist writing tools like AutogenAI for bids.  Even OpenAI thinks bigger models don’t always mean better.

Finding your ‘why?’ is still the hardest part of any writing assignment, but at least for now it’s where I can add value.