Editorial voice when the model is in the chair.

AI-drafted copy has a problem, and the problem isn't quality. The problem is that it converges. Without an editor, every site starts to read like every other site — confident, fluent, and forgettable. The genre mean is a kind of gravity.

Rule one: the brief is the only context

The model writes from whatever you give it. If you give it a thin brief, it falls back on training data, which means it falls back on the average. If you give it a thick brief — voice samples, audience notes, three pages of brand direction — it writes from inside the brand, not from the genre.

We don't start a copy pass without a usable brief. If the brief isn't there yet, that's the work for the day. The model can't compensate for missing context, and asking it to is the most common way AI-drafted copy goes flat.

Rule two: the deletion pass is non-negotiable

Every passage gets a human deletion pass before it ships. We don't rewrite — we cut. We cut the sentences that sound like everyone. We cut the transitional language that's there to be polite. We cut the phrases that read like marketing.

A good deletion pass takes maybe twenty percent of the copy with it. The result reads tighter and more like writing. The model doesn't notice what to cut. The editor does.

Rule three: the banned list

We keep a list of phrases that don't get to ship. "Unlock your full potential." "Take your business to the next level." "In today's fast-paced world." The list is short and brutal. Anything that lands on the list goes in the bin, no rewrites.

The list isn't about specific phrases — it's about a class of language that reads as marketing rather than as a person talking. The phrases are the symptom. The class is the problem.

The bias check

Before the copy ships, one question: would a careful human have written this exact line? If the answer is no — if the line reads as plausible but doesn't read as written — it doesn't ship. The bias check catches the lines that survived the deletion pass but still read average.

These four habits, run consistently, hold against the genre mean. The model does the drafting. The editor does the work that makes it sound like the studio.