Her emails don’t sound like her

A client I started working with recently is finding her spoken English again after thirty years away from it. We go slowly. We laugh a lot.

Then her emails arrive. Fluent, well turned, the odd idiom in exactly the right place.

I know what’s happened. She’s used AI, and of course she has. The English is flawless and the person is missing. Nobody who has spoken to her would recognise a word of it.

That has a real use. A contract, a report, anything that has to be airtight. An email to someone who knows your voice does a different job. It keeps a relationship going, and relationships run on being recognisable rather than being correct.

Quick win: When you write to someone who has met you, write it yourself first. Then let Deepl or another AI tool check your English, rather than write it for you.