--- title: "AI Content Writing: How to Stop Sounding Like Everyone Else" description: "Sanjana Balaraman, Founder of ChapterOne Creative, uses AI a little bit everywhere, but her rule is to not let it do your thinking. On Pipeline, she…" url: "https://thepipelinepodcast.com/episodes/do-the-thinking-before-you-go-to-ai-with-sanjana-balaraman/" image: "https://thepipelinepodcast.com/img/7a9c52f2b8682094-share.jpg" --- Pipeline · Episode 5 · Oct 23, 2026 · 27 min # AI Content Writing: How to Stop Sounding Like Everyone Else [Sanjana Balaraman](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjana-balaraman/), Founder of [ChapterOne Creative](https://chapteronecreative.io/), uses AI a little bit everywhere, but her rule is to not let it do your thinking. On Pipeline, she explains how to keep AI content writing from sounding like everyone else's: form a point of view first, bring human conversations into the prompt, direct it, ask for verified sources, and edit before anything goes out. With [Sanjana Balaraman](https://thepipelinepodcast.com/guests/sanjana-balaraman/), Founder at [ChapterOne Creative](https://chapteronecreative.io/) - [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/do-the-thinking-before-you-go-to-ai-with-sanjana/id6812917691?i=1000797756799) - [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/599tpCX1Al4wvwUbk65a5l) - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yQeuFMpKDA) ## Key takeaways - Before you prompt, write down your thoughts or record them in a voice note app, as Joseph Lewin suggests, so you go to AI with a point of view. - Tell AI the main point, the things the draft needs to cover, and give it a transcript of a call, or several, to pull from. - Add one line to research prompts telling AI to verify its sources and say where each number came from. - Check the first draft for missing context, such as the ICP, before you spend any time editing it. - Keep a list of words that read as AI and check every LinkedIn post against it before it goes out. ## Chapters 1. 0:00 Why AI pulls content toward the median 2. 1:07 Do the thinking first, then let AI draft 3. 3:50 Where AI does the grunt work and where it doesn't 4. 8:36 Why every piece needs your lens on it 5. 12:34 Get ideas from your head and from customers before prompting 6. 17:24 Tell AI to use verified sources 7. 19:57 Editing the first draft to sound like you 8. 23:33 What ChapterOne Creative helps with ## Transcript (0:10) Joseph Lewin Everybody is using AI at this point, and really, if you're in sales and marketing, there's absolutely no way around it. If you're not using AI, you're, you're definitely falling behind at this point. But then the challenge is, especially with content, the more that you use AI, the more that your content is gonna look like everybody else's. And AI is really good at getting to the median. So if your content is below average, it's gonna probably bring your content up, but then it's just kind of bringing it to the average and adding to the noise. So I'm super excited to have Sanjana on today to be helping us understand how to think about content better. Welcome to Pipeline. I'm your host, Joseph Lewin. So Sanjana, thank you so much for joining me today. I'd love for you to just kinda lay a foundation of where do you see that sales and marketing people should be using AI in their content? (1:03) Sanjana Balaraman Of course. Uh, thanks for having me, first of all. Happy to be a part of this. Um, I think, uh, just to give everyone a frame of reference of why I'm maybe a good person to talk to about this, I spent the last two and a half years in an AI startup, um, and we were living, breathing, eating AI while we were working. Um, and I think, uh, when I, I said it a little earlier when we were chatting, um, I think it's very hard in today's world to not be using AI in a professional context. Uh, if you're not using it, you're probably falling behind, uh, and that's not great for the rest of your career, right? Um, but that being said, like you said, AI is a great equalizer with content. If you're great at content, it kind of brings you down. If you're okay at content, it raises you up a little bit. So when it comes to people who specialize in content, like me, um, AI becomes something that a lot of people were initially afraid of, right? (2:05) Sanjana Balaraman Um, they, they weren't-- like, there was a lot of fear-mongering initially that, oh, it's gonna take copywriters' job, uh, et cetera, and I think we've seen that that's not so much the case. Um, but I will say that I, I s- very strongly believe that there is a right way to use AI, um, and that is, uh, to not allow it to do your thinking. Uh, you need to form a point of view. You need to do the thinking ahead of time and go to AI with that thought process, and maybe it writes the draft. And even that draft, you don't leave it as the AI draft. You take it then, and then you edit it. You make sure it sounds like you. Everyone has their own vocabulary that they use, uh, something that makes it, makes the content uniquely them, and that's the same case with an organization. There is terms that you use. Uh, there's usually a content style sheet of some, some sort. If you're not putting guardrails in place when you're using AI with content, you're gonna end up sounding like just everyone else. (3:08) Joseph Lewin So then where do you, as you've been, you know, in an AI startup, you're a content person, so, you know, I think for everybody, I, I used to be an in-house content person, and I'd write 7,000-word blog articles from scratch, you know? It was ve- Sometimes it'd take three months to write an, you know, a super researched article and, you know, all that kind of stuff. So now that you've been using AI for a while, where do you, where do you really like AI? Where do you feel like this is something that, whether you're in sales writing your own, you know, social content or emails, or you're in marketing, where do you feel like AI is just non-negotiable? Like, you, you would never wanna go back to the old way of doing things (3:50) Sanjana Balaraman Uh, I'm gonna say something that's a little controversial or kind of a hot take, I guess. Um, I, I use AI a little bit everywhere, right? Um, and I think that's how you should be using it, uh, in work, especially if you have a smaller team or if you're working with just one or two other people. It's, it's almost impossible-- I, I, I was talking to a bunch of marketers recently, and so many people were talking about how folks on their team have been laid off, how they're taking on more than one role. Um, I don't think it's uncommon nowadays to talk to someone who is not just doing product marketing, they're also doing brand, they're also doing positioning. Um, you know, there, there is so much load being put on marketers nowadays, um, that… And, and, and I'm, I'm in this unique position of having started my own consultancy, so I'm doing everything plus, you know, the admin stuff, et cetera. (4:48) Sanjana Balaraman So, so there, there's no getting around using a little bit of AI for everything. Um, but I think you need to be kind of smart with it, otherwise you do lose your voice, uh, you do lose your edge. What makes you a good marketer, what makes you a good content person? Um, there was a point of time where I kind of had to check myself and take a step back and say, "Hey, this is-- You need to set guardrails. You need to have rules on how you approach this." And I think, uh, everyone needs to find those, uh, guardrails for themselves, um- Non-negotiable, I think let it do the grunt work, right? Any research that you were doing, any… 100% check what it's doing because AI, AI makes mistakes. Uh, like for example, prepping for this podcast, I, I might have done a check on like, who, who is J- Joseph, uh, Lewis, right? Like they-- it might have picked up a completely different Joseph Lewis and given me a, given me a, a download. (5:50) Sanjana Balaraman So it's on me to make sure that it's choosing the right person and giving me the right background. So AI can do that work, but you need to constantly be checking it, uh, to make sure that it's giving you the output that it does. Um, it-- you can-- the grunt work is one thing. The first drafts, right? You talked about, uh, working on a 700-word bl- blog, um, end to end on by, uh, by scratch, right? I think, um, in my previous organization, I once worked on a blog. I had, I had the keywords that I needed to write on. I had the POV that I needed to write on. Uh, it was a product focused blog, so I had all of the content for the product already somewhere on the website or in documents. And, um, it took me end to end to write that blog, edit it, and get it ready to be published. It took me end to end maybe half an hour to 45 minutes, right? So, um, if you're using it the right way, if you're using it effectively, and at the end of the day, no one who read that blog would've come to me and said, "This sounds like AI." (6:59) Sanjana Balaraman They, uh, in fact, they didn't. Like I, I wasn't the person who owned SEO. There was someone else who did it, and when I handed it over, they were like, "Oh, this, this is great." There was someone else who'd been struggling for a bit with it and like this half an hour work kind of fixed it. So everyone has AI in their toolbox. Not everyone uses it effectively, and being able to use it the right way will set you apart like 100 and 100%. (7:26) Joseph Lewin yeah, and I mean, I, I'm probably using AI in some capacity for, like, 80% of what I do on a daily basis. And so I definitely agree that it, it needs to be used throughout. So yeah, I'd love to hone in a little bit more, and I think this might help to, to split it a little bit and, and bring some more clarity. And I totally agree, like on the research portion of it, that used to be a huge part of what I would do. And then also just taking all of that research and consolidating it in into how it should be structured, and then going back to your research over and over again, and then kind of reshuffling. This should probably be up here, this should be down here, and, you know, just kind of editing the overall flow of, of a post. And now you can pretty much do the research and the, that initial structure super well, like you're, like you're saying, and I, I, uh, I totally agree on that piece. (8:22) Joseph Lewin So where do you see, uh, AI, um… Or let me phrase it this way: Where do you see the most value in a human actually being involved in the copy? (8:36) Sanjana Balaraman Uh, I know I said earlier that I use a little bit of AI everywhere There's a little bit of me in everything as well. Like, it's, it's impossible to put good content, good quality content that sounds human, that sounds like it has a point of view, uh, that sounds l- if you're a company then that sounds like the organization without sounding like 100 others, without there being a set of eyes on it, reviewing it, checking it, um, editing it as it goes out, right? Um, yes, my blog writing process went down from maybe like half a day to half an hour. But 25 minutes of that half an hour was me sitting with the blog draft that it had given me to start with and being like, "Edit, edit this part of it, change the wording here," or taking it out altogether, putting it in a Word document and just making changes on my own, right? Um, it can be either/or. (9:37) Sanjana Balaraman Uh, a lot of people kind of chat with AI and make the edits in the chat itself. Some people take it out, do it on their document and kind of finish it up there. Um, I don't think there's a right way or a wrong way to do it, but, um, there's nothing that should be going out, uh, without your lens on it. Um, I think you, you mentioned podcasting. I think, uh, another really good use case, a- and I'll, and I'll bring this up here because I'm sure there are sales folks listening to this as well. But any conversation you're having with the client nowadays, it's getting recorded. There's a transcript, there's a, um, AI note taker, right? Um, having-- There, there are tools like Gong, et cetera, that do w-what it, like it, it's specifically made for this. But, uh, I, I mean, I wouldn't knock on, uh, for a smaller company, something like a ChatGPT or Claude is probably what they have access to. And it's actually… (10:36) Sanjana Balaraman I, I use it now for my own work. It's supremely helpful to like have a Granola or something connected to your Claude and be able to pull up meeting transcripts just to keep up with what are the action items that are left, what do you need to work on next, what did this person share in their point of view that you need to kind of bring in here, especially in my line of work, in content line of work, right? Where you need to be showcasing a specific voice, showcasing specific terms. It's so important to bring, uh, human conversations into your input, um, whether that is customer conversations or, um, you know, a conversation y- that you're having with your boss where you discuss feedback and reviews on, on a specific piece of content. Um, those points of views all add up within an AI context, right? Because AI itself doesn't have a point of view. Whatever it's building, it's shaping from what you're giving it. (11:32) Sanjana Balaraman So give it the right information and the right context and it will do a better job (11:39) Joseph Lewin This episode of Pipeline is brought to you by Podcast to Pipeline. We help you book meetings with target accounts through an account-based podcast. Instead of reaching out cold to target accounts and trying to get them to book a demo, if you reach out to those same accounts and invite them on a podcast, it makes getting in front of them and starting a conversation much easier. You're adding a ton of value to people on your target account list and starting that initial relationship with them at the same time. We've helped our clients book meetings with companies like Capital One, Netflix, LinkedIn, Amazon Web Services, Zoom, and helped them to drive millions of dollars in revenue. If you're looking to drive pipeline and revenue in your business, reach out to me, Joseph Lewin, on LinkedIn or go to podcast2pipeline.com. Yeah, so let me see if I can pull on this thread a little bit, 'cause you're, uh, you're talking about a, uh, a, a couple different angles, and I, I wanna bring it home, and then you can correct me on, on, you know… (12:45) Joseph Lewin But this is kinda… You're hitting on some things about how I've, I've been thinking about this, uh, also. So when w- one big issue with using AI super heavily is you can outsource your thinking to AI, and that's not gonna turn out very good for you, both on an individual level, like the… Maybe you could get some content out that's okay for a little while, but then you as a person, you're not gonna be able to think through and problem solve and figure things out. So I think it's still really valuable to just sit down and write, even if it's not for the purpose of a blog post or something like that, just to develop your own thoughts. And some people, uh, I've developed that skill over time to be able to write my thoughts out, and it, it's helpful now 'cause I've done it enough. But if you're not, then get a note, uh, g- get a voice note app out on your iPhone or whatever and just record your thoughts out that way. (13:39) Joseph Lewin But just thinking out loud or writing, writing down your ideas and your thoughts first so that you are coming up with a point of view. And then the other piece of that is kind of leaning on what you said. There's only so much information out there, and a lot of the most valuable information is in the heads of the subject matter experts that you're working with or, you know, the, y- you're a content expert, and so now me interviewing you on the podcast, you're gonna be sharing things. So a huge part of the human element is in that prep work where you're asking the right questions and, and you're looking for those gaps that you know another person is also going to have. Because AI is good at, like, what's the general overall idea that pain points or whatever in the market, and it can help you hone that in, but it doesn't know the specific pain points for the audience that you're going after. (14:30) Joseph Lewin And so taking that time to first get your own ideas out, and then going to other people, whether that's experts, uh, in, in your field or customers, and asking them the right questions and starting to, to get them to talk. And the more that you get somebody to talk, they're gonna be sharing all kinds of information that becomes the basis for whatever that piece of content you're going to put out is. And then at that point, now you've kinda got the point of view, you've got the main pain points from the customer. That's a much better starting point to say, "Hey, write me a first draft where this is the main point. Here's the things that we need to make sure that we're covering, and then here's a transcript of a call or several transcripts of calls to pull from to write that first draft." So am I kinda thinking about that correctly? (15:13) Sanjana Balaraman Yeah. Uh, and I think I, I like what you did at the end there. In your prompt, you kind of-- you didn't just say, "Here's the transcript." You said, "Here's the transcript. This is how I want it laid out. This is where, what context you should take from there." Like, even if you have all of that information that you're dumping in AI, you can't just dump it in there and expect it to do a good job. It needs to be directed. It needs to be prompted properly. And, um, I know there was a, there was a, a point of time when prompt engineering was, like, this big thing. Everyone was super worried about it and, like, training for it. I, I don't think it's a very complex thing to learn. In fact, it, it's something you can even use AI to help yourself do better. Like, if you give AI a prompt and say, "Make it better so that it does X, Y, and Z job," it does a really good job of refining that prompt, right? (16:07) Sanjana Balaraman Um, I, I think it, it's so-- like, it's so underrated having a good prompt to shape an output because a lot of people, uh, especially now, I think it… people were doing it better a little earlier, but especially now that, uh, when Claude has become your best friend or, you know, ChatGPT is, is, is your colleague at work, everyone kind of chats with it as if it's, it's human. It, it's not. Uh, it's not thinking like us. It doesn't make the reasoning leaps that we do. We need to lay it all out for it in order to, for it to do a good job, and it's something that you really need to keep in mind, uh, as you do it. Um- (16:49) Joseph Lewin so now, now we've got that, well, we've done some thinking ourselves, we've gotten our ideas out, or depending on the situation, we've talked with subject matter experts, we've talked with customers, we're getting that main point of view so that we're not leaning on AI. And then maybe you say, "Okay, take all of this. Now I want you to go research and find, you know, different things to support this claim," whatever. Now you go get other research and other things you can backlink to, to back up what you're saying, or even have a challenge like, is this correct? Is it not? And, you know, have, have AI go do research at that point to pull in other points of view. And then, yeah, you had a thought. (17:24) Sanjana Balaraman a tip there. Uh, always make sure that you tell AI to ensure that they're verified sources. 'Cause when it does research, it, it, it'll pull from everything, including random blogs, including, uh, you know, authorities that aren't really, like, uh… They don't have any credibility. So always mention verified, like make sure if you're, if you're asking me to do something or if you're giving me this point of research or a number, a lot of people use, use AI to find numbers. You need to specifically mention, get it from, like verify their source and tell me where it's from, and that you will be surprised by how much AI does not give you when you put in that one line in your prompt. Uh, sorry I interrupted you. (18:14) Joseph Lewin No, no, no, that's great. So then, yeah, just to kind of put a bow on this so that as people are, are working through this, and I know that at this point somebody who's in sales might be like, "Oh, this isn't super practical," but it is. I mean, this comes down to any cold outreach messages you're gonna write. If you're writing with, uh, the pain points and problems from the market and, you know, you're… I, I mean, another recommendation that I would have in all of this is go study, even if you're in, in sales, go study some really great copywriting, and it doesn't mean you have to go do that yourself. This is a great area for research. What are all the top, you know, copywriting tips? And then you're gonna start to learn about who the, who some of the great legends in copywriting is, and then, or are. And then, a- um, what AI is really good at is then being able to take a structure that works, whatever that kind of structure would be, and you find one where you're like, "Oh, I like this argument style that a certain type of copywriting uses," it can then write the post in that structure or using the principles from a certain copywriting technique or whatever. (19:16) Joseph Lewin So that could help you also get a much better draft. So if you're in sales, it's not that you have to become… Th- this is what's nice about AI, is you don't have to become a copywriting expert to be able to get it to add a ton of value, but you do have to do the extra work of figuring out what, what are the arguments that you want it to make, what are the structures that you want it to have that work, and then you can test that in your cold outreach, in writing personal brand posts or whatever. So, okay, we've gotten it to that point. It writes the first draft, and then I think this is the part where, uh, there's probably a lot more that you're doing maybe than you even realize but what's your next step? So you get that first draft, uh, written. What are you thinking at that point with that, you know, with a post? (19:57) Sanjana Balaraman Um, if, if I take it as a LinkedIn post, my, my thought is around, um, you know, how do I, how do I now edit this to make it sound more like me? Are there words in here I wouldn't use? Are there words in here that are very… Now- nowadays, AI-- everyone has an AI, uh, button. Like, there are specific words that if you use, they're like, "Oh, this is AI." So, you know, it's im- uh, it's unfortunately become important to kind of keep track of that list, uh, and make sure you're not show-- tho- those words aren't showing up too much in your content. Um, that's for a LinkedIn post. Uh, for something like… A- and you mentioned sales specifically. For something like a cold outreach or an email that's going out, your check would be to kind of make sure you're injecting humor maybe, or you're, you're kind of, you're, you're injecting something that's very you. Because at the end of the day, uh, the person who responds will jump on a call with you. (20:58) Sanjana Balaraman And if you're able to establish some kind of connect between the message that went out and the person they're talking to after, then that's, that's, that's like, uh, a, a 10% more, uh, wa- warmer kind of intro than if you were going in and, like, had a complete disconnect with the message you sent out, right? Um, (21:18) Joseph Lewin Absolutely (21:19) Sanjana Balaraman yeah, I think, I think it's, uh, m- the, it sounds very, uh, uh, you know, easy to say, but, like, what you do after the first draft is make it more human. Or sometimes that first draft comes back completely, completely wrong. Uh, either you've forgotten to mention an ICP going into it or, you know, you've forgotten to, uh, categorize it further. So you really need to spend time making sure that first draft is where you want it to be before you even start the editing. So I think that's, that's, that's how my process typically is, um, after that first draft comes out. (21:59) Joseph Lewin Yeah. Then another piece of that is the, um, just the hook. Is the first line or the first couple lines interesting and engaging enough? And that's another area that's probably, uh, or almost always worth the time to iterate on. And if you're not great at hooks yourself, that might just be taking just the hook itself and, and iterating on that one piece of it, and then tweaking it a little bit. And I, I totally agree on making sure that you're using words that you actually use or that your company uses. And I mean, I've never been good at kind of the overarching brand language and always keeping that in my head, so that is another area that AI is really helpful, is just being able to put some of those things in and, and then it's injecting those words throughout. But you do have to double-check and make sure that it's actually doing that. Um, and then I think another one is making sure that you're not using the common AI structures, um, 'cause it, it just has certain structures and arguments that it likes. (22:57) Joseph Lewin That goes back more though to the different copywriting styles and argumentation style, and, um, making sure that you're not using the one that AI's decided is the best. 'Cause even if it was the best before or the best practice before, it's not really anymore 'cause now everybody's doing it. Um, so yeah. Sanjana, and tell, um, uh, how can people find out more about what you're up to? And if they're like, "Hey, you know, we're using AI, it's getting to an okay point, but we need some extra help. We need a human who's better at writing," uh, what are you up to and how can people find out more about you? (23:33) Sanjana Balaraman Yeah, sure. Uh, so like I mentioned, uh, uh, early on in the conversation, I just, uh, started my own narrative-led content consultancy, uh, called ChapterOne Creative. Um, the thing I kind of help with is what we talked about. Uh, you know, a lot of organizations nowadays, uh, their websites look identical, they sound the same, their LinkedIn posts are stale and very obviously AI-generated. I think, um, a lot of them have folks in-house, some of them have folks in-house, some of them are founder-led with much smaller teams, junior people who don't necessarily, necessarily know how to guide the story or even keep it consistent acro- I think you mentioned it earlier, like, uh, not being great at always keeping the brand language consistent. Like, something like that is, uh, is something-- is stuff I've worked on before, like in organizations that I've worked at, we set up skills that would make sure, like whether you're a salesperson or a marketing person or a product person, you're using the right language that is, uh, across the organization, right? (24:38) Sanjana Balaraman Um, so that's what I come in and help with. Uh, I also do a lot of other stuff. If people want me to ghostwrite, if they need longer articles, uh, it's all things I help with. But yeah, Chapter One Con- uh, Creative is my new venture that I've kind of started out now. (24:56) Joseph Lewin I love it. Yeah, and you're on LinkedIn so people can, uh, can check you out there as well, and we'll have links in the show notes and everything like that. Um, okay, so before we started talking, you said, you said you like food. So if you're gonna, if you're gonna go out and get some food, uh, on, on a, just a typical evening out, are you gonna go sit down at a restaurant and, and get some food? Or, or are you more of like a street food kind of person? (25:21) Sanjana Balaraman Oh, I'm, I, I mean, I'm more of a restaurant person. Um, but actually it depends on the day. It's either an order in or a restaurant. Like I, I, I love my lazy days as well. So sometimes you just don't feel like leaving the house. You, you get something that would be good as, as takeout and you sit at home and you eat in front of the TV or, uh, yeah, I enjoy, I enjoy getting dressed up and going to the restaurant as well. So it bo- both work for me. For me, it's all about the type of cuisine you go for rather than (25:53) Joseph Lewin Yeah. So what's your, what's your go-to, like your tried and true meal that you love? (25:58) Sanjana Balaraman Um, so if, if I'm ab- like, if I'm abroad, like in, in the US, I, I tend to go for Mexican because you don't get great Mexican food in India. Um, it, it's one of, like, the biggest things I feel bad about after moving back. Um, but, uh, if I'm here in India, the Chinese food. Like, we have, we have a whole fusion style of it called Indian Chinese, and it's, it's brilliant. (26:25) Joseph Lewin Interesting. Well, next time I'm in India, I'll have to give that a try. I've never heard that before, but I could imagine. I, one time was in Mexico, and at the place we were staying at, they had an Italian restaurant, and it was not very good at all. So it's probably kind of similar where it's like, maybe we'll just stick to the Mexican food in Mexico, and that was really good. But trying to get Italian food in Mexico, so sounds like it might be a similar thing, Mexican food in India, maybe, (26:50) Sanjana Balaraman Yeah. No, I mean, the, the, the sad part is it's, it's not, um, it's not mainstream yet. There are a few, few decent places, uh, but yeah, noth- nothing like, uh, nothing like the places out, out in the US, yeah (27:05) Joseph Lewin Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me and for everybody listening in, really appreciate you taking the time to listen to this episode. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, and we'll see you on the next one You've got a LinkedIn post due and a cold sequence to write, so you open [ChatGPT](https://chatgpt.com/). What comes back reads fine, and it reads like every other post in your feed. I talked with Sanjana Balaraman on this episode of Pipeline. She spent the last two and a half years in an AI startup and uses AI a little bit everywhere. Her rule is not to let it do your thinking: form a point of view, then go to AI with it. When her blog writing dropped to half an hour, 25 minutes of it went to editing the draft. ## Why does AI make your content sound like everyone else's? [Joseph Lewin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-lewin/), host of Pipeline, says AI is good at getting content to the median. Sanjana Balaraman, Founder of ChapterOne Creative, calls AI "a great equalizer with content": it lifts weak writing and pulls strong writing down. Joseph's point is that the more you lean on it, the more your content looks like everybody else's. > "And AI is really good at getting to the median. So if your content is below average, it's gonna probably bring your content up, but then it's just kind of bringing it to the average and adding to the noise." > > Joseph Lewin, Host of Pipeline (▶ 00:27) Sanjana Balaraman doesn't answer this by using less AI. She says it's almost impossible not to, especially on small teams where marketers are taking on more than one role. Her answer is guardrails: rules for how you use it, set for yourself and for your organization. > "If you're not putting guardrails in place when you're using AI with content, you're gonna end up sounding like just everyone else." > > Sanjana Balaraman, Founder at ChapterOne Creative (▶ 02:59) ## Should you form your own point of view before using AI? Yes. Sanjana Balaraman's rule is that AI shouldn't do your thinking. She says to form a point of view first, take that thought process to AI, and at most let it write the draft. Joseph Lewin adds the cost of skipping that step. If you outsource your thinking to AI, you lose the ability to think through problems and solve them yourself. > "You need to do the thinking ahead of time and go to AI with that thought process, and maybe it writes the draft. And even that draft, you don't leave it as the AI draft." > > Sanjana Balaraman, Founder at ChapterOne Creative (▶ 02:29) Joseph Lewin's version of this step is to sit down and write, even when it isn't for a blog post, just to develop his own thoughts. If writing isn't a habit yet, he suggests a voice note app on your phone: think out loud and record your ideas before you prompt anything. ## What should you give AI before it writes a first draft? Sanjana Balaraman says it's so important to bring human conversations into your input: customer conversations, or a conversation with your boss about feedback on a specific piece of content. AI has no point of view of its own, she says, so it shapes everything from what you give it. Joseph Lewin suggests pairing transcripts with a stated main point and a list of what the draft must cover. > "AI itself doesn't have a point of view. Whatever it's building, it's shaping from what you're giving it." > > Sanjana Balaraman, Founder at ChapterOne Creative (▶ 11:25) Sanjana Balaraman points out that any client conversation is getting recorded nowadays. [Gong](https://www.gong.io/) is made specifically for this, but she says a smaller company probably has access to something like ChatGPT or [Claude](https://claude.com/). She connects [Granola](https://www.granola.ai/) to Claude to pull up meeting transcripts and track action items, next steps and what each person shared in their point of view. Joseph Lewin says the most useful information sits in the heads of subject matter experts and customers, and you get it out by asking the right questions. His first-draft prompt has three parts: 1. The main point of the piece. 2. The things the draft needs to cover. 3. A transcript of a call, or several, to pull from. Sanjana Balaraman's note on that prompt is that the direction matters as much as the transcript. > "...you can't just dump it in there and expect it to do a good job. It needs to be directed. It needs to be prompted properly." > > Sanjana Balaraman, Founder at ChapterOne Creative (▶ 15:30) ## How do you stop AI from pulling bad sources and numbers? Sanjana Balaraman says to add one line to research prompts: verify the source and tell me where it's from. Without that line, she says, AI pulls from everything, including random blogs and authorities with no credibility. A lot of people use AI to find numbers, and she says that one line changes how much comes back. > "You need to specifically mention, get it from, like verify their source and tell me where it's from, and that you will be surprised by how much AI does not give you when you put in that one line in your prompt." > > Sanjana Balaraman, Founder at ChapterOne Creative (▶ 17:58) Joseph Lewin brings research in after the point of view is set. He suggests asking AI to find support for a claim and sources you can backlink to, or to challenge the claim and say whether it's correct. On research, Sanjana Balaraman's advice is to "100% check what it's doing because AI, AI makes mistakes." ## How long should you spend editing an AI first draft? Sanjana Balaraman spends most of her writing time there. She says her blog writing process went down from maybe half a day to half an hour, and 25 minutes of that half hour went into editing the draft AI gave her. Some people edit in the chat and some in their own document, but she says nothing should go out without your lens on it. > "...my blog writing process went down from maybe like half a day to half an hour. But 25 minutes of that half an hour was me sitting with the blog draft that it had given me to start with" > > Sanjana Balaraman, Founder at ChapterOne Creative (▶ 09:08) What Sanjana Balaraman describes checking after the first draft: - Whether the draft is even right. Sometimes it comes back completely wrong because you forgot to mention the ICP or to categorize it further. - Whether it sounds like you, including any words you wouldn't use. - Whether words from your list of ones that read as AI are showing up too much. > "So you really need to spend time making sure that first draft is where you want it to be before you even start the editing." > > Sanjana Balaraman, Founder at ChapterOne Creative (▶ 21:46) Joseph Lewin adds the hook. He says the first line or two is almost always worth iterating on, and if hooks aren't your strength, you can work on the hook alone before tweaking the rest. ### What to Try on Monday 1. Before you open ChatGPT or Claude, write or voice-record your point of view on the piece. 2. Paste in a customer call transcript with the main point and the list of what the draft must cover. 3. Add one line to every research prompt: verify the source and tell me where it's from. 4. Check the first draft for missing context, such as the ICP, before you start editing. 5. Run the draft against your list of AI-sounding words, then rework the hook on its own. ## How do you make AI-written cold outreach sound like you? Sanjana Balaraman says your check on a cold email should be whether you've injected humor, or something that's very you. Joseph Lewin recommends studying great copywriting, having AI write in a structure that works, and avoiding the structures AI likes by default, because once everybody is using a best practice, it isn't one anymore. > "For something like a cold outreach or an email that's going out, your check would be to kind of make sure you're injecting humor maybe, or you're, you're kind of, you're, you're injecting something that's very you." > > Sanjana Balaraman, Founder at ChapterOne Creative (▶ 20:39) Joseph Lewin says sellers don't have to become copywriting experts for this. They do have to do the extra work of deciding which arguments they want AI to make and which structures work, then test those in cold outreach and personal brand posts. He says AI has certain structures and arguments that it likes, and recommends making sure you're not using the one AI's decided is the best. > "'Cause even if it was the best before or the best practice before, it's not really anymore 'cause now everybody's doing it." > > Joseph Lewin, Host of Pipeline (▶ 23:07) The first time you add the verified-sources line to a research prompt, compare what comes back with what you got before. Sanjana says you'll be surprised how much AI does not give you once that one line is in. ## Frequently asked questions ### Is prompt engineering hard to learn? Sanjana Balaraman doesn't think it's a very complex thing to learn. She remembers a time when everyone was worried about prompt engineering and training for it. Her shortcut is to use AI on the prompt itself: give it your prompt and say "Make it better so that it does X, Y, and Z job." She says it does a really good job of refining the prompt. ### Is AI taking copywriters' jobs? Sanjana Balaraman says there was a lot of fear-mongering at first that AI would take copywriters' jobs, and that "we've seen that that's not so much the case." Her view is that everyone has AI in their toolbox, but not everyone uses it effectively. Using it the right way, she says, is what sets you apart. ### Do you need Gong to use call transcripts in your content? No. Sanjana Balaraman says tools like Gong are made specifically for this, but a smaller company probably has access to something like ChatGPT or Claude. She uses Granola connected to Claude to pull up meeting transcripts and keep track of action items, what to work on next, and what a person shared in their point of view. ### Should you edit an AI draft in the chat or in your own document? Either works, according to Sanjana Balaraman. A lot of people chat with AI and make the edits in the chat itself. Others take the draft out into their own document and finish it there. She doesn't think there's a right way or a wrong way. Her one rule is that nothing should go out without your lens on it. ### How do you keep brand language consistent when the whole team writes with AI? Sanjana Balaraman says every organization has terms it uses, and usually a content style sheet of some sort. At organizations she's worked at, they set up skills so that a salesperson, a marketing person or a product person uses the right language across the organization. Joseph Lewin says AI helps by working those words in throughout, but you have to double-check that it's actually doing that. This article is based on Episode 5 of Pipeline featuring Sanjana Balaraman, Founder at [ChapterOne Creative](https://chapteronecreative.io/). Pipeline is produced by [Podcast 2 Pipeline](https://podcast2pipeline.com/), the podcast agency for B2B brands. ## Show notes & links The more you lean on AI for your posts and cold emails, the closer they drift to the median. Everyone in sales and marketing is using AI now, and that's why so much of the copy reads the same. On this episode of Pipeline, [Joseph Lewin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-lewin/) talks with [Sanjana Balaraman](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjana-balaraman/), Founder at [ChapterOne Creative](https://chapteronecreative.io/), about using AI without letting it do your thinking. Sanjana spent two and a half years at an AI startup. Her rule is to form a point of view first and go to AI with it. She brings conversation transcripts into her prompts, directs the prompt instead of chatting with it like a colleague, and tells it to verify its sources. Her blog writing went from half a day to half an hour. But 25 minutes of that half hour was her editing the draft until it sounded like her. What you can use by Monday: Write out or voice-note your own point of view before you open ChatGPT or Claude, then give AI that point of view to draft from. Add customer call transcripts or notes from a feedback conversation to the prompt, and tell AI how to lay out the draft and what to take from each one. Put one line in every research prompt telling AI to use verified sources and say where each number came from. Keep a list of words that read as AI and check every LinkedIn post against it before it goes out. Before a cold email goes out, add something that's very you, like a bit of humor. Chapters: (00:00) Why AI pulls content toward the median (01:07) Do the thinking first, then let AI draft (03:50) Where AI does the grunt work and where it doesn't (08:36) Why every piece needs your lens on it (12:34) Get ideas from your head and from customers before prompting (17:24) Tell AI to use verified sources (19:57) Editing the first draft to sound like you (23:33) What ChapterOne Creative helps with Pipeline is short conversations with GTM peers who are actually filling pipeline right now, so you leave with something you can use by Monday. New episodes weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen. Produced by Podcast 2 Pipeline. Podcast 2 Pipeline Start an account-based podcast We launch and run B2B podcasts that convert conversations into qualified pipeline that grows your business. [Start your account-based podcast](https://podcast2pipeline.com/?utm_source=thepipelinepodcast.com&utm_medium=site&utm_content=episode-end) ## More from Pipeline ![John Rougeux and Joseph Lewin on Pipeline](https://thepipelinepodcast.com/img/f97e512d6385d5e9-640.webp) Ep 3 · Oct 16, 2026 · Video ### [You'll Get Tired of Your Point of View Before Buyers Do (with John Rougeux from Flag & Frontier)](https://thepipelinepodcast.com/episodes/you-ll-get-tired-of-your-point-of-view-before-buyers-do/) A strong point of view never reaches the market until the executive team agrees on it. 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