The most common complaint about AI writing is that it doesn't sound like you. It sounds like a press release, or a LinkedIn post, or a brochure written by someone who has never visited your shop.
That's not a flaw in the tool. It's missing information — and it takes one paragraph to fix, permanently.
Why does it sound generic in the first place?
The tool has never met you. It doesn't know your city, your customers, whether you're formal or blunt, or that you'd never in your life use the word "delighted."
With no information to work from, it writes toward the average of everything it has read. The average is bland. That's the whole explanation.
What's the fix?
Write one paragraph describing your business the way you'd describe it to a new employee on their first day. Save it. Paste it above every request you ever make.
CUSTOMERS: [who they are, what they care about].
VOICE: [3–4 words — e.g. warm, direct, never salesy].
NEVER USE: [words and phrases you'd never say].
ALWAYS: [what you emphasize — e.g. the people, not the product].
Here's a filled-in example:
CUSTOMERS: Local families, many Arabic-speaking, who've been coming for years. They care about freshness and being remembered by name.
VOICE: Warm, plain, a little proud. Never salesy.
NEVER USE: "delicious," "amazing," "mouthwatering," exclamation points.
ALWAYS: Mention the people who make the food, not just the food.
People spend hours learning prompt formatting tricks. For a local business, none of them matter as much as this paragraph. Context beats technique, every time.
How do you find your actual voice?
If you're stuck on the VOICE line, don't invent one. Find it in what already exists:
- Read your last ten text messages to a customer. That's your real voice.
- Read your three best reviews. How customers describe you is often better than how you describe yourself.
- Say out loud what you'd tell a friend about your business. Write that down. That's the tone.
What should go on the never-use list?
This line does more work than people expect, because certain words instantly signal machine-written text. Common ones worth banning outright:
delve, elevate, unlock, seamless, robust, leverage, journey, game-changer, delighted, thrilled, in today's fast-paced world, we're excited to announce
Add anything you personally can't stand. The list is yours.
📋 Do this today — 10 minutes
- Fill in the five-line template above for your business.
- Save it in your phone's notes, named so you'll find it.
- Test it: generate one caption with the brief, one without. Read both aloud.
- Adjust the VOICE and NEVER USE lines based on what sounded wrong.
Reading aloud is the test that matters. If you wouldn't say it, don't post it.
What if you work in two languages?
Write a separate brief for each. Voice doesn't translate — a tone that reads warm in English can read stiff or overly formal in Arabic, because written Arabic defaults to a register nobody uses in conversation.
Add a line to the Arabic brief specifying conversational phrasing rather than formal written Arabic, and have a native speaker read the first few outputs. Two briefs, not one translated.
What to remember
One paragraph, written once, pasted above everything. That's the whole lesson. It takes ten minutes and it changes every piece of writing you generate from here on.
Quick answers
Why does AI sound generic?
No context. Without information about your business it writes toward the average, and the average is bland.
How do I fix it?
One saved paragraph covering business, customers, voice, banned words, and what you always emphasize.
What words should I ban?
Anything you wouldn't say aloud. Start with delve, elevate, seamless, delighted, journey.
Do I need prompt engineering?
No. Context beats technique for local business work.