AI-generated drafts tend to share a set of fingerprints: even pacing, safe vocabulary, and a habit of restating the obvious before making a point. None of that makes the draft useless — it just means the real writing happens in the edit, not the generation.
Cut the hedges and flatten the rhythm
Generated text often opens paragraphs with throat-clearing phrases — "it's important to note," "in today's world," "when it comes to" — that add length without adding meaning. Delete them and read the sentence again; it almost always survives the cut and reads more directly. Then listen to the pacing: AI drafts tend to fall into a steady sentence length that reads smoothly but feels flat over a full page. Vary it deliberately — a short sentence after two longer ones lands harder and breaks the monotone.
Put back the specifics
AI drafts default to generalities because specifics require judgement calls a model can't make for you. Wherever the draft says something vague — "many people find," "a common approach is" — replace it with the actual example, number, or detail you know from experience. This single change does more to make text sound human than any amount of rephrasing. Where the model wrote around a fact it didn't have, you often can simply supply it, which fixes the vagueness and the inaccuracy in one move.
Add a point of view
The clearest sign of an unedited AI draft is that it never actually takes a side. Go back through and add your own judgement: what you'd recommend, what surprised you, what you'd do differently. A draft that states options neutrally forever will always read as generated; a draft that commits to a position reads as written.
Editing AI text well means treating it exactly like a junior writer's first draft — useful for structure and momentum, but not finished until your judgement, your specifics, and your voice are visibly on the page.
