40 Questions Copywriters Should Ask Before Trusting AI
AI drafts fast but it drafts obvious. Your job is catching when obvious is actually lazy and when a clever angle is actually the only angle that sells. These questions train you to interrogate what ChatGPT and Claude hand you before your client questions the value of paying for your name on the work.
These are suggestions. Use the ones that fit your situation.
1Does this output sound like the brand or does it sound like an AI version of the brand that has read all brands equally?
2Could this exact headline work for three competitors in the same category?
3What has the client paid you to NOT sound like? Is the AI hitting any of those forbidden notes?
4If I remove every word the AI suggested, what's left? Is there any original thinking, or just original punctuation?
5Does this copy defend why the client is different or does it just state what they do?
6What would a client competitor say after reading this? Would they feel threatened or relieved?
7Has the AI chosen words that are safe in the client's industry but invisible in the client's specific market segment?
8Does the tone match the client's actual behaviour towards customers, or just their aspiration?
9Would a customer recognise the brand from this copy alone, or is it generic enough to be mistaken for something else?
10What problem does this copy ignore because it's not the obvious problem the AI was trained to solve?
Creative Ideation and the Obvious Angle
11Is this the first angle anyone in the meeting would suggest, and if so, why are you paying yourself to type it out twice?
12Did the AI choose the benefit everyone already knows instead of the benefit the customer doesn't expect?
13What contradicts the angle the AI chose? Does that contradiction contain the real story?
14If I read the first line aloud to a copywriter from 1998, would they recognise it as written in the last five years?
15Has the AI picked the pain point that marketing always picks, or the one that actually stops customers from buying?
16What does this copy have in common with the last three campaigns in the category? That's a tell.
17Could I remove the client's name and product name and still know exactly what industry this is? If yes, the angle is too familiar.
18What's the thing the client is terrified of saying about their product? Is the AI steering away from it?
19Has the AI reached for a metaphor or comparison that already appears in three other briefs you've worked on this month?
20What if the angle is inverted? Does the opposite approach surprise you more?
Headline and Hook Writing
21Does this headline make someone stop, or does it just make them not click away?
22If you remove the client's biggest claim from the headline, is there still a reason to read the next line?
23Has the AI chosen a number or statistic because it works on average headlines, not because it's the most shocking number available?
24Can you swap out one or two words and make this headline work for the client's competitor?
25Does the headline promise something the body copy then delivers in exactly the way the reader expected?
26Is the AI hedging with a benefit that's true but so mild that a customer barely cares?
27What would happen if you deleted the headline and used the strongest sentence from the body copy instead?
28Does this hook create curiosity or does it just state a fact that a customer already knows?
29Has the AI chosen sensible when the brief actually rewards bold?
30Would this headline still work if it weren't about this product?
Long-Form Copy and Structural Choices
31Does the copy answer the question the customer is asking, or the question the client wants them to ask?
32Has the AI written every paragraph at the same temperature, or does the energy rise as stakes get higher?
33What customer objection is missing because the AI predicted the wrong obstacle?
34Is the most persuasive sentence in the first half of the copy where it's wasted, or the second half where it matters?
35Has the AI buried the most specific detail in a clause when it should be the headline of its own sentence?
36Does the call-to-action follow naturally from the argument, or does it feel tacked on by a different writer?
37How many paragraphs could you delete without losing the actual persuasion?
38Has the AI softened the case by using qualifiers like 'may' or 'could' where the evidence supports certainty?
39Does the copy address the customer who most needs convincing, or the customer already sold?
40What would a customer who said no to this product tell you was missing from the pitch?
How to use these questions
After Claude or ChatGPT generates copy, write a competing version in 15 minutes without looking back at the AI output. If yours is weaker, learn why. If it's stronger, now you know what your job actually is.
Keep a swipe file of headlines and angles you've written that the client rejected. Run them against the AI's suggestions. Your rejected ideas are often better than AI's accepted ones.
Before you let Claude or ChatGPT refine something, ask which single sentence does the most work. That sentence came from somewhere. Find it. Protect it. The AI will try to bury it in paragraph structure.
When a client asks why they should pay you instead of GPT, the answer is not 'I understand nuance better'. The answer is 'I know what angle your competitor hasn't thought of yet, and I know how to make people care about the difference'.
Run A/B tests on your AI-first drafts against your human-revised versions. The gap between what AI produces and what converts is the gap where your value lives. Make that gap visible.