When AI Copy Falls Into the Uncanny Valley (and Why Your Brand Can’t Afford It)
There’s a particular kind of copy that makes your brain glitch.
It reads… fine. The grammar’s clean. The structure is textbook. The tone? Technically friendly. And yet, it leaves you weirdly unsettled. Like shaking hands with someone wearing a very realistic rubber mask. Congratulations. You’ve just entered the uncanny valley of AI-generated content.
The Illusion of “Good Enough”
We’ve hit a strange era where AI can generate decent copy faster than most teams can open Google Docs. It’s easy, it’s instant, and it sounds right. So why doesn’t it work? Because AI mimics what we’ve done, not why we did it. It doesn’t know your customer. It doesn’t live your values. It hasn’t sat in on sales calls, rewritten landing pages after poor conversion rates, or felt the sting of a failed campaign. So what it produces is a hollow echo of marketing. Fluent, but not felt.
What the Uncanny Valley Looks Like in Copy
Let’s be specific:
Empty language with perfect grammar
“We help teams navigate the ever-changing digital landscape” Cool. So does everyone else with a website.
Borrowed insight
AI can reword 10 articles into a single coherent paragraph. But coherence is not clarity. And clarity is what builds trust.
Consistency without character
Humans have texture. We pause. We rant. We throw in a joke halfway through a serious sentence. AI smooths all that out and the result is content that reads like a very well-trained intern with zero lived experience.
Structure over substance
Hook. Problem. Solution. CTA. AI nails the format. But when the story doesn’t connect, the polish backfires. It feels forced like someone trying to sound natural and failing at it spectacularly.
Why This Is a Trust Problem
In industries like cybersecurity, health, finance (anywhere people are sceptical by default) credibility isn’t a bonus. It’s survival. Copy that feels almost human but not quite? That’s worse than boring. It’s suspicious. And when people are looking to you to mitigate risk or demonstrate expertise, the last thing you want is a homepage that reads like a chatbot trying too hard.
The Real Fix Isn’t Better AI. It’s Better Foundations.
This isn’t a teardown of AI. We use it. We advocate for it. But only when it’s fed with the right ingredients. If your tone of voice is fuzzy, your positioning unclear, and your messaging templated: AI will amplify the blandness. Faster. At scale. Congrats. If your foundations are clear (your voice is distinct, your claims are specific, your customer’s pain is well understood) then AI becomes a force multiplier, not a factory of fluff.
Here’s what actually helps:
Define your tone like a human, not a brand guidelines doc
“Friendly but professional” isn’t a voice. It’s a compromise. Say what you’d actually say. Use examples. Be okay with opinions.
Clarify your POV
What do you disagree with in your industry? What are you tired of seeing? What’s misunderstood? AI can’t invent those takes — but it can scale them once you know what they are.
Use AI as an editor, not a thought leader
Let it organise, rewrite, simplify. Don’t let it lead. It doesn’t know your customers. You do.
TL;DR:
AI is not the enemy. But lazily used, it becomes a mirror of your weakest assets - your vague tone, your recycled messaging, your lack of direction. Want better content? Start with better inputs. Build the voice, the strategy, the positioning. Then use AI to help you scale the right message, not generate a thousand slightly-wrong ones. Because trust doesn’t come from what you say. It comes from how believable it sounds. And nothing kills belief faster than copy that gives people the ick.
Want help getting your foundations in place before you scale the noise? We built Drelity for this exact reason: to stop technically brilliant teams sounding like confused AI and start sounding like the experts they actually are.
