Most of the anxiety around AI-generated marketing content isn’t really about the tool. It’s about not having a clear bar for what counts as acceptable before you hit publish. Without that bar, people either over-edit everything back into something generic and safe, or under-edit and let something slightly off go out under the business’s name.
Here’s a practical way to review AI-assisted marketing output before it goes anywhere near a client, a customer or the public.
Start with what “good enough” doesn’t mean
It doesn’t mean flawless. It doesn’t mean indistinguishable from something you’d have spent four hours writing by hand. It means: accurate, on-brand, and something you’d be comfortable being asked about by the person who read it. That’s usually a lower bar than people set for themselves instinctively — and a different bar to “did this sound impressive.”
The checklist
Six things worth checking, roughly in order of how much damage getting them wrong does.
1. Is everything in it true? This is the one that actually matters most and gets checked least, because fluent writing reads as confident writing. Check every number, every claim, every “research shows” or “most businesses.” If you can’t verify a specific claim, cut it or soften it to something you can stand behind.
2. Does it sound like you, or like anyone? Read it out loud. If it could have come from any business in your sector with the names swapped out, it needs work — not necessarily a rewrite, but a pass to put back the specific details, the phrases you’d actually use, the opinions a generic version wouldn’t risk having.
3. Would you say this to the client’s face? AI output tends to default to a confident, slightly promotional register. If a line reads as more certain or more impressive than you’d actually claim in a conversation, that’s worth catching before a customer does.
4. Does it match what you can actually deliver? Easy to end up with copy that implies a service, a turnaround time or a level of support that isn’t quite what you offer. Check the claims against the reality, not just the tone.
5. Is the structure doing the thinking, or just the sentences? Fluent sentences can paper over a piece of content that doesn’t actually have a clear argument. Check that it builds — that paragraph three follows from paragraph two — rather than reading as a list of plausible points in no particular order.
6. Would it embarrass you in six months? Marketing content outlives the moment it was written in. A current take on a trend, a specific statistic, a reference to something time-bound — worth a second look at whether it’ll age badly.
A faster version for low-stakes content
Not everything needs all six. For something low-stakes and easily corrected — an internal draft, a first pass at a social post, a rough outline — points 1 and 2 (accuracy and voice) usually catch the things that matter. Save the full six-point pass for anything that’s going out under the business’s name without further review: website copy, client-facing documents, anything with numbers in it.
Who actually does the checking
This is worth saying plainly: a review checklist is only useful if a human is the one applying it. AI tools are reasonably good at producing a first draft and reasonably bad at knowing when they’ve got something wrong — they don’t flag their own inaccuracies, and they’re not the ones whose name is on the output. The review step is where a person stays the decision-maker, whatever drafted the first version.
FAQs
What does “good enough” mean for AI-generated marketing content?
Accurate, on-brand, and something you’d be comfortable being asked about by the person who read it. It doesn’t mean flawless or indistinguishable from hours of hand-written work — that’s a higher bar than the content actually needs to clear.
What’s the single most important thing to check in AI-generated copy?
Accuracy. Check every number, claim and “research shows” statement before anything else — fluent writing reads as confident writing, which makes inaccuracies easy to miss and more damaging when they surface.
Do I need to run the full checklist on every piece of AI-assisted content?
No. Low-stakes, easily corrected content — an internal draft, a first social post pass — usually only needs the accuracy and voice checks. Save the full six-point review for anything going out under the business’s name without further review.
Can AI tools check their own output for mistakes?
Not reliably. AI tools are good at producing fluent first drafts and poor at flagging their own inaccuracies — they don’t know what they’ve got wrong. The review step needs a human applying it, every time.
If you’re trying to work out which of your own marketing tasks are worth this kind of AI-assisted first draft in the first place, which marketing tasks to automate first, and three to leave alone is a reasonable next read. Or take the AI Marketing Opportunity Scorecard to work through it properly, or get in touch if you’d rather talk it through.