Spend ten minutes scrolling through LinkedIn or Instagram, and something odd begins to happen. The posts start blending together across different people, different brands, and different industries that supposedly have different thoughts and strategies.

The language feels strangely identical. Sometimes, even boringly identical. I know this because once I noticed it more and more, I went on a quest to  “screenshot every post with painfully similar copy” and when I got to 11, I stopped. That was all the proof I needed.

You’ve probably seen these phrases more times than you can count:

• “I’ve been taking time to reflect, not just about x, but about y.” 
• “Here’s the final truth.” 
• “Let’s unpack this.” 
• “Drive meaningful impact.” 
• “One thing is clear.” 
• “Proof points.”

None of them are technically wrong. They’ve just become weightless. And once you notice how often they show up, your eyes roll almost involuntarily, and your thumb moves before you’ve finished reading [We all scroll these apps on our phones, right?]

Anyway, here’s the thing: this isn’t just a feeling. Over 54% of long-form LinkedIn posts are now likely AI-generated, and the average length of a LinkedIn post has increased by 107% since ChatGPT launched in 2022. We’re essentially reading more words, and yet there’s less to say. Research tracking millions of posts across major platforms found that AI-generated text consistently trends more formal and standardised, while human-written content shows far greater variety and informality. In other words, the scroll is becoming one long, polished, indistinguishable blur. And it’s accelerating. 65% of social media professionals now rely on AI for at least half of their posts, with only 3.6% avoiding it entirely. That’s nearly everyone reaching into the same toolbox. And pulling out the same, long, overly phrased copy.

From where I sit, working in an ideas-led creative agency, this has become impossible to ignore. Reading brand copy, writing social captions, sitting with briefs, shaping press releases. I’ve noticed how quickly language reveals when a human hasn’t truly touched it. It’s not the grammar. AI has decent grammar. It’s the rhythm, the predictability, the feeling that a sentence could belong to absolutely anyone. I’ll say clearly that AI has made writing easier, faster and more accessible, especially for people who don’t naturally gravitate toward it. It can organise scattered thoughts, structure ideas, and get people through staring at that glaringly blank page. Used with genuine intention, it’s a powerful tool.

But something else is happening alongside that convenience.

The internet is developing an accent. An AI accent. And it’s showing up in those same hollow phrases that were generated rather than felt. When everyone reaches for the same machine to produce the first version of their thinking, something starts disappearing. The specific way a brand’s tone effortlessly lands, how someone explains something, argues a point, jokes, challenges, or even disagrees.

It feels subtle at first. Then one day, everything sounds like the last five posts you read were written by the same invisible person. That’s when AI stops being a tool and becomes a quiet, creeping shortcut. And here’s the uncomfortable business reality underneath it all: only 21% of Gen Z trust AI-generated content, with many actively preferring human-curated content. The audience most brands are competing for is already noticing.

This is exactly where skilled copywriters become more valuable, not less. Not because they write faster or because they resist technology. Because they protect something that AI genuinely cannot manufacture: tone. A good copywriter knows when something reads like everyone else because they understand nuance, humour, friction, and the natural cadence of how real people actually communicate. They catch generic from a mile away, even when it’s technically “polished”. In a landscape where every brand has access to the same tools, that ability to sound unmistakably like yourself is one of the most commercially important things you can own.

AI can help you think faster and structure your ideas, but it cannot give you lived experience, genuine opinion, instinct or human personality. Those things come from people.

Use it if it helps. Just don’t hand it the steering wheel entirely.