Using GenAI for Business Writing

Generative AI is everywhere. Most professionals are already using it, but its ethics and norms are still developing. GenAI is even more disruptive for students, who have to balance their output with their skill development. 

The challenge is not whether to use GenAI, but how to use it well. It has the potential to help you deepen your thinking and express your ideas more clearly. But when you let it think and speak for you, you end up sounding superficial, generic, and impersonal. Even worse, overusing this tool can stunt your growth as a thinker and as a communicator. 

This guide offers practical strategies for using GenAI to strengthen your communication skills — not just your communications. The goal is to use GenAI as a thought partner while maintaining ownership of your message. 

 

Owning the Writing Process with GenAI 

The single most important recommendation for using GenAI when writing is to maintain ownership of your message. Think of GenAI as an endlessly brilliant and patient colleague. It can push you to think deeper on a topic, help you find gaps in your logic, and suggest ways to reframe or rephrase an idea to make it simpler and more memorable. But it should NOT be doing the work for you. 

When you let AI decide what you mean, what matters, or how you should sound, you cross the line from collaboration to delegation. These strategies will help you use GenAI effectively while keeping ownership of the writing process. 

Begin with the Communication Development Strategy: Before using any AI tool, start with the Communication Development Strategy. First, understand your audience. What is their relationship to you? Their priorities? Potential concerns? Next, define your purpose. What outcome do you want from this message? And finally, design your structure. What key points will most resonate with this audience? How will you organize those key points? No matter how advanced AI becomes, it can’t make those strategic choices for you.  

Start by writing your own draft: For any message that matters, write your first draft without GenAI. Drafting is where the real thinking and creativity happens. The writing itself can be messy and incomplete, but as you draft, you clarify your argument, weigh priorities, deepen your understanding of the topic, and stay true to your own voice. Once you’ve written a first draft, you’ve already done the hard thinking and become mentally invested in the message. At that point, AI can be a valuable second reader, helping you refine your ideas without taking ownership away from you. 

Ask it to suggest changes rather than make changes: When you do bring AI into the process, ask it to suggest changes rather than make them for you. For example, you might ask it to offer three possible ways to make a sentence more clear or concise. Or you might ask it to identify where your argument needs more support. Then YOU decide what to revise. This keeps you in control of the message and the argument, and it allows you to develop and keep your authentic voice and point of view.  

 

Recommended Uses 

Though we don’t recommend drafting your message with AI, there is real value to using it as a thought partner. The following uses are not comprehensive, but they are strong starting points for using GenAI in ways that improve your message quality while also deepening your thinking. 

  1. Deepen your audience analysis: Use AI to think more carefully about your audience. Identify and describe your audience and purpose, then ask GenAI to identify the priorities, concerns, or questions you may have missed. 
  2. Brainstorm after you have your own ideas: GenAI can help you expand your thinking and overcome writer’s block. But start with your own brainstorming, as research suggests that AI can anchor users on similar ideas and limit their creativity.  
  3. Generate possible objections: Once you’ve drafted your message, share your audience analysis and ask GenAI to identify the key objections for that audience.  
  4. Find gaps in your logic: Ask GenAI to look for missing links in your argument. AI can point out where the argument feels thin, then you can decide how to revise it based on your audience and purpose. 
  5. Improve your structure: GenAI can help you test whether your message has a logical and persuasive structure. Ask it to identify the main point of each paragraph, evaluate the flow, or suggest a stronger sequence for your ideas. 
  6. Make your writing more concise: GenAI is great for concision, but only when used carefully. Don’t just say “make it more concise.” Ask it to identify wordiness, repetition, sentences that are doing too much, etc. Then you can decide if and how to change it. 
  7. Clarify confusing sentences: Sometimes you know what you mean, but the sentence is not landing. AI can help you identify clunky sentences and offer suggestions for revision.   
  8. Check tone for the relationship: Tone is challenging, as the attitude we intend to convey isn’t always what the audience receives. Share with AI the tone that you’re going for, then use it to identify language that may miss the mark. 

 

Keep the Human in the Message 

When using GenAI as a student, remember your purpose. Do you want to get through the assignments as quickly as possible? Or do you want to put in the grind now to develop fundamental leadership skills for your career? GenAI can save you time. But real growth happens when you take ownership of your message and do the real thinking, writing, and revising yourself. Remember that business communication is human work. And in a world dominated by GenAI, it’s your authentic voice and viewpoint that will make you stand out.

 

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