In A World Drowning In AI Slop, Your Authentic Voice Is Worth Millions
“I’m terrified of AI.”
Beneath it all, this is what I ACTUALLY hear when AI skeptics talk to me.
“It’s not human!”
“It lies!”
“It creates AI slop!”
Yeah. We’re all scared.
Specifically, we’re scared about where that leaves us—authentic creators who still write with our hearts.
But let me tell you what I discovered recently..
This week, I subscribed to 8 different Substack newsletters in the AI space. These are smart people doing amazing work! But here's what hit me like a brick wall:
They all sound EXACTLY the same.
Every single post feels like it was written by the same person. There's no personality, no unique perspective, no human fingerprint. It's all polished, generic, AI-generated content that just melds together.
And that's when I thought of something very encouraging.
While everyone races to auto-generate 1,000 blog posts to become an overnight influencer, those of us who've spent years building authentic personal brands are sitting on a goldmine..
Your Personal Brand Is Your Moat
I've built 17,000 subscribers and grown almost a million followers across platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Medium, and Substack. You know what none of these AI experts have?
A brand that people actually connect with.
When everyone can generate perfect content in seconds, the only thing that matters is WHO is behind it. People don't just want information—they want to know who the person sharing it is.
They want to connect with them. They want to laugh, and get emotional, and feel like they know THAT PERSON on a deep level.
And as more generic AI slop enters the arena, it’s people with legit voices that will dominate.
My message to creators scared about AI is this:
You will make a killing in this new AI-dominated future. You will destroy everyone, because you have what the AI bros don’t have… taste, voice, and a rich tapestry of personal stories.
Your authenticity isn't just ‘nice to have’ anymore.
It's your competitive advantage.
Your Human Voice Will Get Amplified, Not Replaced
I've published over 1,000 blog posts, 600+ Substack notes, and 1,500+ LinkedIn posts. I've coached thousands of students. You know what I've learned?
Creators who thrive have unmistakeable personalities.
Because these AI bros don’t have any personality! 😆
When you feed ChatGPT your real self—that's when the magic happens.
If you write a blog post using a prompt some AI bro gave you online, it will do two things.
Spit out garbage.
Make you sound like the other 1,000 people using that same prompt.
So, you’re getting nowhere.
I thank my lucky stars that I had 10 amazing years to manually explore my thoughts, publish thousands of posts, and develop a writing personality. If I’ll use AI as a collaborator, I’m starting from an amazing, rich place.
AI is like anything else: You get out what you put in.
If you’re giving it generic slop, it will spit out generic slop. If you’re giving it the rich tapestry of your life’s stories, your voice, and your personality, it will spit out beauty.
Therefore… doing the hard work of figuring out who you are is a PREREQUISITE to writing great content alongside AI, not a “nice to have.”
Personality Becomes A Premium
Here's the brutal truth: AI is about to flood the internet with perfectly formatted, grammatically correct, yet completely SOULLESS content.
I mean, it already has.
Which means the creators who've spent years developing their unique voice are about to become incredibly valuable.
But here’s the real shift you need to make, that I don’t see many making yet..
You're not competing with AI…
You're partnering with it while everyone else gets lost in the noise.
Two things can be true at the same time..
AI generates slop most of the time.
If you partner with AI to scale yourself, not auto-generate everything, it can truly create magic.
It’s not either/or. It’s not like AI, every time—no matter what you do—creates horrific stuff. No! That’s the thread that gets lost in all this because so many growth hackers ruin it for everyone.
No, the nuance is… AI CAN make amazing stuff, but you need to be putting amazing stuff INTO IT to get that result.
And if you’ve been writing for the last 1, 2, or even 5+ years? You’re in the perfect spot to benefit from this new AI wave. These are the tidings of great joy I want to bring you today!
Your Position Is Stronger Than You Think
Listen, I used to feel nervous watching all these AI builders writing blog posts in seconds while I'm just... writing authentically about what I believe.
But then I realized something important..
They might know how to auto-generate stuff with AI, but I know how to write like a human. I know how to write stuff that actually connects.
And in a world where everyone sounds like a robot, that's going to be worth everything.
Tom, Don’t You Love AI, Though?
YES! I do! But the difference is that I like using AI to scale yourself, not replace yourself. That’s the key to everything.
I don’t ever want to teach creators how to just auto-generate everything. I want to teach them how to create alongside AI so they can save time, be more efficient, and accomplish 5-10X more than they could previously.
THAT’S my goal.
Don’t get it twisted.
Here's What You Need to Do
Look, stop worrying. If you like writing stuff with your actual fingers, you’re in a great spot. You’re in the best spot of anyone!
Your authentic voice, your unique perspective, your real experiences—that's not a liability in the AI age. It's your biggest strength.
Use AI to amplify yourself, not replace yourself. Let it help you write faster, think clearer, create more. But never let it write everything FOR you.
I believe the following with all my heart:
The future belongs to creators who can combine their humanity with AI efficiency.
And if you've been building your personal brand all along, you're already ahead of 99% of people out there.
Subscribe to my YouTube channel for weekly videos on how I use AI to get clear on my strengths as a writer, and bring more of myself to my writing.
I use AI for feedback since people don’t have time to read my drafts. It’s been doing me wonders. Giving suggestions, helping with typos and grammatical mistakes.
Your point about partnering with AI rather than letting it auto-generate everything resonates so deeply. I've often thought of AI as a very intelligent, highly efficient intern. They can’t bring the lived experience, the peculiar quirks of my thinking, or the subtle humor that makes my voice, well, mine. It’s a tool, much like a powerful word processor or a detailed research assistant, but it’s still fundamentally responsive to the human at the helm.