Two years after the launch of the first mainstream genAI platform, ChatGPT, the adoption of AI tools continues to spread unstoppable. From Coca-Cola’s marketing campaigns to Harvard’s academic research, generative AI has grabbed creative and analytical workflows across industries. Gen AI producers, in particular, are moving fast and boldly—to use Google’s term—to lead the growth of this new method for accessing, assessing, and producing information.
For writers, it remains a priority to keep exploring how to leverage text-based Gen AI while still preserving what matters to the industry and its audience. Authenticity, relevance, and creativity are not negotiable, so too are copyright and data security.
In this regard, this article synthesizes some use cases of prompt-to-text gen AI tools such as Claude AI, Gemini, Copilot, and ChatGPT that could help you become adept at using this emerging/rising technology.
1. Clarify complex ideas
This is a prominent example of how Gen AI tools assist in content creation. In February 2023, when introducing Bard, its first genAI tool, Google demonstrated how it could explain a complex idea—NASA’s James Webb Space– to a 9-year-old. Even with its flaws, this demo signals a key application of genAI in writing: breaking down complex ideas into understandable forms.
So far, genAI tools have been a goldmine for technical writers who need to simplify difficult concepts for broader audiences. Viktoriia Rudenok, a technical writer for a three-decade-old Ukrainian consulting company, shares on Medium that AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot are invaluable for her technical writing tasks, such as testing content clarity and creating API documentation. For example, she uses the following prompt template for making her presentation:
Abubakar Balogun, technical writer and an in-house team member at DMi agency, also shares his approach when consulted for this article.
“I use it to generate sample code for articles and improve their clarity and technical accuracy,” he explains.
“While Gen AIs cannot write non-generic content, they can surely accentuate your existing writing or ideas.”
2. Brainstorm topic ideas and outlines
Brainstorming is historically viewed as a task of quantity in its earliest stages. That is, the more ideas you extract from your thoughts on a single topic, the more likely you are to discover the best or most creative ones. GenAI tools can aid this ancient practice by producing dozens (or hundreds!) of topic ideas, saving time, and sparking creativity.
The common challenge, however, is that these AI tools will produce ideas that are too similar and likely to be generated by others. And it may take more time to rework them for your desired purpose.
To overcome these challenges, researchers at the University of Pennyslevia incorporated advanced brainstorming techniques into prompts and found that more creative ideas could be generated with this method. Out of the 35 prompting strategies examined, the Chain of Thought (CoT) prompting is the most successful one. It requires you to prompt the AI tool to “work in multiple, distinct steps.”
Here’s how the Chain of Thought process works: You generate multiple ideas (just like you’re brainstorming) and then review the list to evaluate how well the ideas align with specific criteria. For example, researchers asked ChatGPT to generate 100 lists of ideas. They then instructed it to identify whether the ideas were ‘different and bold,’ revising any that were too similar. Here’s the prompt:
Other brainstorming techniques that could adapted for prompting include Hybrid brainstorming, HBR-trained GPT, and Design thinking GPT. The study, however, concludes that while AI can spark creativity, refining those ideas to suit your unique needs remains essential.
3. Condense Content for Brevity and Impact
Like newspaper editors, content writers frequently face strict word count limitations and the need to capture user attention quickly. This applies to various forms of online content like:
- Web and landing page copy
- Title tags for SEO
- Social media posts
- Email subject lines
- Meta descriptions
In each of these cases, the goal is to convey maximum impact with minimum words – a task that can be time-consuming and challenging even for experienced writers.
Free AI Sentence Rewriter by Ahrefs, Copy AI and Grammarly don’t require prompts to get this done. But for prompt-based AI tools, here are some prompts you might use with a Gen AI tool for content condensation.
- Summarize the following article in 50 words while retaining the key points:”
- Condense this 200-word product description into a compelling 50-word version for a landing page.
- Rewrite this email subject line to be more concise and attention-grabbing in 30 characters or less:
- Extract the 3 most important points from this blog post and express each in a tweet-length message.
4. Organize Ideas with Categorization
Sometimes, while writing, you will need to discover the broader category of things you don’t know to organize your content more effectively and provide a coherent structure for your readers. This is especially true when your writing is connected to a topic outside your expertise, as you may not be familiar with the standard categorizations used in that field.
gen AI tools could help by quickly analyzing concepts’ relationships and suggesting appropriate higher-level categories. A basic example:
“I’m trying to find a broader category for “Web3,” “blockchain,” and “cryptocurrency,” similar to how Facebook and Twitter are categorized as social media. What would you call this broader category?”
5. Vary the style of your sentence and its structure
At the editing stage, when you notice that your sentence reads like it could confuse readers or be less impactful, genAI tools could offer better sentence structures.
Varying sentence structure means using a mix of different sentence types, lengths, openings, or syntax. It is necessary to enhance comprehension. See this example from a prompt on Gemini:
Prompt:
RESPONSE A:
RESULTS A: In the result below, the sentence has been changed to a conditional structure which provides more impact than the previous one. The second sentence uses a more direct, active voice (“If you create”) compared to the first sentence’s more passive construction (“Creating… could mean”). This makes the statement more engaging and action-oriented, signifying the relevance of these AI tools to put sentences in the right structure.
See other better variations suggested are below:
RESPONSE B
RESPONSE C
Varying Sentence Styles
As for sentence styles, it means using different stylistic choices, the most suitable transitional phrases, shifting the sentence focus, or even punctuation variations. Grammarly’s October Writing With AI series nailed it when it noted: “’Most AI tools will understand prompts like “in a stern but polite tone” or “with a creepy mood.”In this way, you can personalize your generative AI writing to make it more your own.”
Final Thoughts
Generative AI has transitioned from novelty to necessity. Over the past two years, tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Claude AI have demonstrated their capacity to amplify creativity, streamline workflows, and overcome long-standing challenges in writing. From breaking down complex ideas to crafting concise messages, these tools have become indispensable aids for writers in every field.
However, leveraging these tools effectively requires a balance. Writers must stay vigilant about preserving the elements that machines can’t replicate—authenticity, emotional resonance, and unique voice. Generative AI tools are at their best when used as collaborators rather than replacements. They should support your vision, not dictate it.
