There's no doubt that artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming content creation. AI writing tools help us create content more quickly and efficiently. However, they are not a replacement for human writers.
AI-generated content often falls short in creativity and engagement compared to the nuanced and emotionally resonant work of humans.
So, the challenge isn't just about generating text—it's about breathing life into it.
In this article, I'll go over practical ways you can add the human touch to AI-generated text, ensuring it resonates with readers and aligns with Google's E-E-A-T guidelines.
What you will learn:
- How to humanize AI content following Google's E-E-A-T guidelines.
- How to personalize AI prompts for more accurate outputs.
- How to spot and rewrite over-used AI phrases to avoid AI detection and boost engagement.
- How to humanize AI text with personal insights, real-life examples, and more.
- Why it's necessary to fact-check AI content.
What is AI-generated content?
AI-generated content refers to text, images, videos, or any other type of media content created by artificial intelligence algorithms.
These algorithms leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine Learning (ML) technologies to generate new content that mimics human-like output.
Nowadays, AI content is widely adopted by businesses, with 85.1% of AI users leveraging the technology for article writing.
So it's not uncommon to see AI tools cited as authors or blog post contributors.
AI writing tools can greatly enhance efficiency in content creation by generating ideas and drafts quickly, allowing for scalability as content demands grow.
They also serve as a creative lifeline, helping writers overcome the dreaded block by providing fresh perspectives and prompts.
Why should you humanize AI content?
Despite the advances in AI, human oversight is necessary to ensure the quality, accuracy, and relevance of AI written content.
Humanizing AI content is also crucial to avoid detection by search engines and AI detection tools, particularly in light of Google's crackdown on the misuse of AI for content manipulation. This is a main theme in Google's latest core update.
The issue is that AI-generated content often lacks the human touch, resulting in a narrative that can come across as bland and lacking in personality.
Here's a short blog post introduction I asked ChatGPT to write:
As you can see, it starts with the dreaded "in the fast-paced realm of the digital age" and includes many overused AI terms like "delve into", "today's digital landscape", and "in an ever-evolving digital world".
I bet you've read similar intros dozens of times. It feels dragged out, lacks originality, and causes readers to lose interest.
Although Google has nothing against AI-written text, it will penalize sites that use AI content to hack search engine algorithms or provide little to no value to readers.
AI algorithms are fundamentally limited to the data they have been trained on, which means they can't provide truly novel ideas or innovative thoughts that haven't been previously expressed.
They lack the ability to draw from personal experiences or make intuitive leaps that are often the hallmark of human creativity.
By adding a human touch to AI-generated text, you can maintain authenticity and provide value to your readers, which aligns with Google's emphasis on valuable content.
As Google states:
However content is produced, those seeking success in Google Search should be looking to produce original, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities E-E-A-T.
10 tips to humanize AI content
Here are nine practical tips to transform your AI-generated text into content that resonates with readers and search engines alike.
1. Personalize your prompt
If you want to get better results from AI content tools, then you need to give it better instructions. The quality of the output is largely dependent on the quality of the input.
Be specific with your prompts and provide the AI with detailed custom knowledge by asking it to:
- Adopt a persona
- Use a specific tone of voice
- Include specific facts and examples
- Exclude certain terms and phrases
- Stay within a set word count
Let's head back to the introduction above and see how a few tweaks in my prompt changed the output.
Finding the perfect prompt might require some tries, which can be time-consuming.
That's why Surfer AI has standardized the prompting process.
Before Surfer AI starts writing an article, you can:
- Set your preferred tone of voice from a list of 13 voices
- Add specific sources, knowledge, and URLs
- Pick which competitors to base the article on
Personalized instructions allow AI to produce content that reflects a deeper understanding of specific topics, leading to more nuanced outputs.
2. Share personal insights
People love stories—and Google does too. You can weave into your content stories of success, failure, or learning moments that are relevant to the topic.
It's a powerful way to differentiate your content in a sea of AI-generated articles. Sharing a personal story can be much more impactful than generic advice.
Just look at this example from QuickSprout. Such personal insights demonstrate the author's direct involvement in the field, making the advice all the more credible.
You can also share personal viewpoints on current trends within the industry, including how those trends might evolve and their potential impact.
This is a great way to show expertise in the eyes of search engines. As part of its E-E-A-T guidelines, Google emphasizes the importance of demonstrating expertise in content creation.
3. Communicate authority
Another way to humanize AI text is by incorporating relevant statistics or case studies to reinforce your statements.
Let's look at an example from Optinmonster. The post links to real-life examples to demonstrate how effective guest posting is and help readers better understand the strategy's benefits.
Rather than simply saying, "Guest posting is an effective marketing strategy," the phrase "Buffer used guest posting to attract 100,000 customers" and linking to the case study adds a lot more weight and credibility to the content.
Simply enter your keyword into Google search followed by "statistics" or "case studies," and you're all set.
- [keyword] statistics
- [keyword] case studies
Alternatively, you can ask AI to effortlessly weave such references into the article. Look at how Surfer AI has used the Custom Knowledge I inputted in the first step into the final article.
Just don't forget to always cite your sources in the end.
4. Include real-life examples
Integrating photos, self-made charts, infographics, and videos enriches your content and provides compelling evidence to support your narrative.
These visual elements can transform abstract concepts into concrete examples, making the message more digestible and memorable.
For instance, Brand24 uses real-life examples to illustrate the importance of advertising in appealing to the audience's emotions.
And as you might tell, I'm also including real-life examples throughout this post to illustrate and support our point.
Besides, no one likes to read through huge blocks of text—visual elements help break up monotony and create a more engaging reading experience.
Moreover, examples prove the author's direct engagement and practical knowledge of the subject matter, effectively showcasing the 'Experience' aspect of Google's E-E-A-T guidelines.
Just look at this post from Landingi, which teaches users how to set up their Google Analytics 4 (GA4) accounts so they can track micro-conversions.
In contrast to a text-only step-by-step format, the visuals give users practical extra guidance on what they need to do and how to do it—showing that the author has first-hand experience in the topic.
5. Use first-person pronouns
Since 2023, Google has emphasized 'Experience' as part of its E-E-A-T guidelines, highlighting the value of content created from direct, personal encounters or hands-on knowledge in a particular field.
Alongside personal insights and examples, using first-person pronouns can help you convey direct experience with the subject.
Zippy's case study found that content containing first-person pronouns like "I," "my," "we," and "ours," often ranks higher in search results.
Here's how Pack Hacker uses first-person pronouns alongside images to show their reviews are based on real experience.
This can also act as social proof for readers—first-person pronouns remind them that expert human writers are behind the content.
5. Rewrite overused words and phrases
As I mentioned earlier, AI-generated content tends to repeat itself.
There are quite a few words AI tools like ChatGPT like to use—and they're a dead giveaway to AI detectors.
You need to spot and rewrite them to make your AI-generated text sound more human-like.
Here's a short list of words and phrases you should watch out for:
- "In today's world," "In the world of," "In today's era"
- "Unlock," "unleash," "unveil," "unravel," "uncover"
- "Critical," "crucial," "essential," "it's important to"
- "Delve," "embark on a journey," "pave the way"
- "In conclusion," "in summary," "ultimately"
- "Furthermore," "moreover," "additionally"
- "Bustling," "vibrant," "hustle and bustle"
There's even a Reddit thread on this exact topic.
As a general rule of thumb, look for pompous adjectives that sound like they come from someone who tries to show off his "intricate" vocabulary—there's no need for that anyway.
You can also plug in your AI-written text through an AI detector like Originality. Although not always accurate, most AI detectors highlight sentences that are likely AI-generated, giving you a better idea of what you need to rewrite.
6. Use the active voice
AI text is typically heavy on passive voice, which makes the content much harder to read.
Here's a brief example:
- Passive: "The content was written by him."
- Active: "He wrote the content."
The second sentence is straightforward, fluff-free, and more engaging.
Rewrite content in an active voice to make it sound more natural. Or you can use an AI tool like Surfy, our AI writing assistant, to do it for you.
Simply highlight the text and tell Surfy to rewrite it in active voice.
And in seconds, you'll have a natural-sounding, more engaging paragraph.
7. Fact-check AI content
AI content isn't always accurate, and misinformation caused by AI-generated text is not unheard of.
The online world is filled with stories like this one:
That's because AI tools don't understand the context and meaning behind prompts the same way as human writers would—they see them as just strings of words.
They reply to your commands by analyzing your prompts and picking words that are statistically more likely to provide the answer.
This process can lead to inaccuracies, which is why it's crucial to fact-check AI content against credible sources and provide citations to ensure accuracy and consistency.
This enhances trustworthiness and adds depth to your content, showing readers that you've done your due diligence.
8. Edit like a real person
If there's one thing I've emphasized throughout this post, it's that you should treat AI-generated content like a first draft rather than a fully-fledged blog post. So, don't skip the editing phase.
Edit the content to align with your brand's voice and supplement it with personal insights and examples, ensuring the final output is engaging and authentic rather than generic and automated.
To make AI writing feel more natural, vary the length of sentences and paragraphs; this mirrors the ebb and flow of human conversation.
Additionally, replace jargon or less common words with simpler, everyday language that readers are more likely to use and understand.
As such, you get to win your readers' trust and reduce the chances of being picked up by AI detectors.
Let's see a practical example. Here's a short blog introduction I created using ChatGPT:
Here's how I would edit it:
"Fun fact: Google's name is a misspelling of the word 'googol,' a mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros, which hints at the search engine's endless resources of information. But there are a lot more to the story of Google! Let's have a look at the tech giant's history and see how a small garage project turned into a company that now rules the internet."
The intro is now more direct and conversational, but it still maintains a large portion of the ideas generated by the chatbot.
9. Choose the right AI content tool
Choosing an AI tool that writes human-like content ensures the output is engaging and doesn't trip AI content detectors.
There are several factors you should weigh when choosing the right AI content generation tool, including the specific requirements of your content, the level of customization you need, and the tool's efficiency in content production.
Let's look into each of these factors.
Content needs
Are you looking to produce general text, or are you aiming for SEO-optimized text that performs well in search engine rankings and drives traffic to your site?
While tools like ChatGPT are good at generating coherent text, they lack built-in SEO functionalities, which are crucial for content optimization.
In contrast, AI tools like Surfer AI have features specifically designed to enhance SEO, such as keyword analysis and content structure optimization, to ensure the content not only reads well but also performs well in search engine results.
Customization options
The quality of the AI-generated output will depend on the quality of the input. So it's important to choose a tool that allows you to customize the input.
Prompt-based tools practically allow infinite customization options. It's just a matter of finding the right prompt and customizing it with each request.
But infinite options without a structure are not necessarily a good thing. They can be hit-and-miss.
Meanwhile, Surfer AI has standardized the customization part. So, every time you follow the same path:
- Enter the keyword(s) you want to rank for
- Choose the type of article you want to write: blog post, product roundup, or a single product review
- Select your preferred tone of voice from a list of 13 voices
- Choose your organic competitors from a list of preselected SERPs
- Add custom knowledge in the form of insights, facts, examples, or links
Based on the above, Surfer AI will generate a content outline, which you can further customize.
This is the moment you can implement the tips from this article. You can add personal anecdotes, statistics, and examples, which the AI will seamlessly integrate into the final article.
Efficiency
The primary objective of AI writing tools is to streamline the content creation process, enhancing efficiency and productivity for writers and businesses alike.
While prompt-based AI tools can be powerful, they often require considerable trial and error to refine the prompts and achieve the desired output. This back-and-forth can be time-consuming, potentially offsetting the efficiency gains they are designed to provide.
This is not the case with Surfer AI. By following a structured approach to content creation, with Surfer AI you can create a cohesive first draft in less than 20 minutes.
10. Use an AI humanizer
An AI humanizer, also known as an anti-AI detector tool, works by analyzing text for common AI writing patterns—such as repetitive phrasing, overuse of certain words, or an unnatural flow—and then suggests changes to make the content read as if it were written by a person.
By employing such tools, you can:
- Adjust tone and style to more closely match human writing
- Replace overused and technical jargon with conversational language
- Vary sentence structure to mimic the rhythm and cadence of natural speech
- Introduce colloquialisms or idiomatic expressions that AI might not typically use
Using an AI humanizer can save time during the editing process and ensure your content maintains the engaging, relatable quality that readers expect from human authors.
Can search engines and readers differentiate between AI and humanized content?
Both search engines and readers can tell the difference between AI and human-written content.
While Google has clarified that it doesn't inherently disapprove of AI-generated content, exploiting it solely to manipulate search engine algorithms will lead to penalties.
Remember, Google prioritizes actionable, value-packed content—simply churning out AI-generated content as a quick fix for volume won't impress Google.
Meanwhile, readers are already familiar with the bleak and unengaging text specific to AI content generators.
That said, AI content that lacks a human touch will likely cause visitors to leave your page immediately, which will hurt your SEO efforts and brand reputation.
Key takeaways
- Enhancing AI-generated content with a human element is important to captivate users and comply with search engine guidelines.
- Google's E-E-A-T guidelines provide a valuable framework for infusing AI content with a more human touch.
- Personalizing AI prompts, sharing personal insights, and using first-person pronouns can significantly enhance the human touch in AI content.
- Editing AI-generated content to include real-life examples, authoritative sources, and active voice contributes to its authenticity and credibility.
- Regularly fact-checking and rewriting overused phrases in AI content can prevent detection by AI detectors and maintain a natural flow.
Conclusion
While AI writing tools offer a remarkable boost in efficiency, real magic happens when we infuse the content with our human essence.
By implementing the strategies outlined in this article, such as personalizing prompts, sharing personal insights, and editing with a human touch, you can elevate AI-generated content to meet the standards set by Google's E-E-A-T guidelines.
Remember, the goal is to publish content that resonates with readers on a personal level, providing them with value, authenticity, and a sense of connection.
