AI Can Write the Ad. It Can’t Decide What to Say.

A couple of years ago, AI writing tools were a novelty. Now they’re built into the email platform, the website builder, the social scheduler and the word processor. Most business owners I talk to around Michiana have tried at least one. Some use them every day.

That’s fine. I use them too. But I keep seeing the same pattern: the tool gets asked to do the one part of the job it can’t do.

What the tools are good at

Give an AI tool clear direction and it saves real time. It’s good at a first draft when you’re staring at a blank page. It will give you ten versions of a headline so you can pick the one that sounds like you. It can cut a 60-second radio script down to 30, or rewrite the same message for Facebook, an email and the sign in the window. Image tools can rough out an idea so you can picture it before paying for the real thing.

That’s drafting and reshaping. It’s the part of the work that used to eat an afternoon, and it’s a good use of the tools.

What they can’t do

The tool doesn’t know your business. It doesn’t know that your best customers are retirees in Granger who mostly want someone to show up when you said you would, or that the thing people love about your shop is that the owner remembers their name. It doesn’t know which offer you can actually afford, or what the competitor down the road is running this month.

Ask it to “write an ad for a plumber” and you’ll get an ad for every plumber. Clean, grammatical and forgettable. Nothing in it is exactly wrong. Nothing in it is yours, either.

Before anyone writes a word, an ad has to answer a few questions. Who is this for? What do we want them to do next? Why should they believe us? Why now? Those are decisions. A tool can help you phrase the answers. It can’t make them for you.

The part you can’t hand off

Four jobs stay on your desk no matter how good the tools get.

The strategy. Who you’re talking to and where they’ll see it. That comes from knowing your customers, not from a prompt.

The offer. What you’re actually giving people a reason to act on. An AI draft will happily invent a “limited-time discount” you never approved. Don’t let it slip through.

The proof. Real reviews, real photos of your real team, real years in business. A generated picture of a smiling technician who doesn’t work for you can cost you trust the moment someone notices.

The fact-check. These tools sometimes state things with total confidence that aren’t true. A wrong price, a service you don’t offer, old hours, a warranty you never had. Every line that goes out with your name on it needs a read from someone who knows the business.

A simple way to use it well

Here’s how I’d set it up:

• Write the brief yourself first. In plain sentences: who it’s for, the one thing to say, the offer, the next step and why they should believe you.
• Feed it your customers’ words. Paste in phrases from reviews and emails so the drafts sound like your market instead of a brochure.
• Ask for several versions, not one. Pick, combine and edit.
• Read it out loud. If it doesn’t sound like something you’d say across the counter, change it.
• Check every fact before it goes out. Prices, dates, hours, offers, names.

Used that way, AI helps a good plan get out the door faster. Used without a plan, it just produces more marketing that sounds like everyone else’s.

The message still comes from knowing your customers. If you’re not sure what yours should be saying, or where it’s getting lost, the Marketing Checkup is a good place to start.