Reputational Risk: Spotting AI-Written Executive Content

You’re noticing this too, right? Successive posts written by different authors in different industries that all sound like the same voice?

Apparently, it’s what happens when so many people are turning to AI for text and charts, then posting without editing — or worse, without thinking.

The Reputational Risk of AI Executive Content

When a senior leader writes anything that reads like a language model, employees notice. They know the CEO. They've seen them in town halls, spoken to them in meetings, even read their unvarnished emails.

Customers and investors are pattern-matchers too. A feed full of generic, poorly formatted, deeply forgettable executive content sends a signal — not that the leader is bad, but that the leader’s voice is fake. In a market where authenticity is increasingly the differentiator, sounding like everyone else is a lazy, dangerous step backwards.

What Gives AI Content Away – The AI ‘Tells’

The AI tells are easy to spot. Once you see them, you can't unsee them. I asked Claude (an AI writing expert!) just to be sure. They match what I’m seeing. Here's what to look for.

The one-line paragraph drumbeat (I hate this one - it's the first one I noticed)

You've seen this.

One short line.

Then another.

Then a punchy three-word sentence. Big claim.

It mimics emphasis, but it's rhythm without reason. A human writer uses a short paragraph when a thought genuinely lands hard. AI uses it every fourth line because the pattern tested well.

The "It's not X. It's Y." construction.

I first I thought these were AI clever. Now I hate them too.

t's not about the tool. It's about the mindset. It's not a feature. It's a philosophy. This rhetorical move exists in human writing, but AI leans on it like a crutch. Spot it three or more times in one post and you've found a tell.

The triad.

I hadn’t noticed this one as much. Now I see it’s everywhere.

Everything comes in threes. Three bullets. Three reasons. Three lessons. Genuine, personal thinking is rarely so symmetrical. Sometimes the answer is two things. Sometimes it's seven. AI defaults to three because three feels balanced, and balanced reads as wise.

Vocabulary that nobody actually uses.

 I used to do this one before AI!

"Delve." "Leverage." "Unpack." "At the end of the day." "Game-changer." Phrases so over-deployed by language models that they now function as fingerprints. If a CEO wouldn't say it out loud in a board meeting, it shouldn't be in their post.

The hollow opener.

This one is unseeable now too.

"Here's the thing." "Let's be honest." "Here's what nobody is telling you." These openers promise insight and then deliver a generic observation dressed up in confidence. A human earns the buildup. AI announces it.

The charts that all look the same.

I fell into this trap. Then I saw my charts everywhere.

Pastel palette. Rounded corners. Four quadrants or a single ascending line. Competently designed and completely interchangeable. You've seen a thousand this month and can't remember one.

The closing call-to-reflection. (I would never use this :)

"What's your take?" "Drop a 🔥 if this hit." Engagement bait is older than AI, but AI deploys it with mechanical reliability. Real leaders sometimes just end.

What AI Executive Content Costs You

These tells are a credibility leak. None on its own poses a reputational risk. But they accumulate across posts, and across the senior people in your organization publishing under yours and their names. The cumulative signal isn't "this leader uses AI." It's "this leader isn't paying attention to what goes out under their name." That's a bigger problem to fix than a single bad post, and it's one that senior leadership and Boards should pay attention to.

Using AI Well — As a Partner, Not a Shortcut

AI is a genuinely powerful drafting tool. It removes the friction that keeps many leaders from writing in the first place — a blank page, structural decisions, the fear of starting in the wrong place. A good prompt produces a draft in minutes that used to take an afternoon. But to take full advantage of it:

• Use it for the heavy lifting, not the finishing. AI is excellent at structuring an argument and breaking through a blank page. Let it do that work, then take over.

• Bring the specifics it can't. AI doesn't know about the conversation you had with a customer last Tuesday, or the number that surprised your CFO. Those details make a post yours.

• Rewrite the opening and closing in your own voice. These are the moments readers decide whether they trust you. Don't outsource them.

• Read it out loud. If it doesn't sound like you in a meeting, it won't sound like you online.

• Ask AI to challenge your draft, not just polish it. "What's the weakest argument here?" That's where AI becomes a thinking partner, not a content machine.

Personally, the way I get value from writing-AI is to treat it like a sharp new strategic hire: useful, fast, frequently brilliant, and never the final word. I argue with its drafts. I add personal and corporate content it would never know. I delete anything that sounds overly clever (definitely not me)— especially when it's just – not - true!

When writing is produced with help and finished with serious judgment the result is honest - and genuinely personal - executive content.

Now tell me. What are you seeing?

Ok, I did that on purpose. :)

Jim Crocker is an AI governance consultant and board director. He writes about what boards and senior executives need to know about AI at jimcrockerai.com. Here is Jim's LinkedIn profile.