“If ‘polished’ writing no longer signals care taken, what actually does?”

I recently received a beautifully written outreach email. Like many, my first thought was: Was this written by AI?

That question made me realize just how much our standards for sincerity, effort, and trust in both personal and business communication are shifting. If ‘polished’ no longer signals care, what does?

For most of my career, I’ve been influenced by the notion that written information conveys a subtle signal that someone invested time and effort. Whether handwritten, beautifully designed, or thoughtfully crafted as a business email, the value wasn’t just in the words. It was in what the words cost the writer. Time. Attention. Emotional labor. Choice.

For me, that assumption is now broken because AI can produce articulate, persuasive, emotionally resonant writing in seconds. Business outreach emails, thank-you notes, recommendation letters, job applications, and personalized sales letters can be generated on demand, and even at scale. Readers are increasingly aware of this, and, as they perceive the effort put in as invisible, the “polish” no longer serves as any proof of care or credibility. It becomes just another hygienic expectation.

That certainly doesn’t mean good writing is dead. But, I believe it’s being re-valued.

The Old Contract: Effort Meant Intent

Writing that was engaging felt like a proxy for sincerity and engagement:

• Clear structure suggested thoughtfulness

• Eloquence implied care

• Length implied time spent

Even email inherited this contract. When I received a well-written message, whether to a client, partner, or prospect, I believe that I subconsciously interpreted it as someone slowing down and investing attention into something important to me.

That subconscious influence worked as long as writing was a craft or expensive to produce. Now, AI increasingly automates it, making it increasingly cheap to produce.

The Inflection Point: How ‘Polished’ Is Losing Its Power

AI didn’t just automate writing—it collapsed a signal.

I used to read writing as a signal of things I couldn’t see directly, like literacy, time invested, emotional labor, social status, creativity, brand value, or seriousness. But as producing that signal now becomes increasingly effortless, it reduces the perceived value of those things.

So now, when I receive letters and emails, they may no longer signal anything about the writer, beginning with:

Did you actually write this?

A Simple Hypothesis

As AI lowers the cost of polished writing, recipients, whether friends, colleagues, or prospects, will increasingly value signals that are costly, risky, and difficult to automate: like specificity, shared context, authenticity, and vulnerability.

I don’t have decades of proof, but I see patterns that point in the same direction.

Early Evidence Across Domains

Marketing & Email Engagement

Plain-text emails, simple, conversational, and imperfect, often outperform polished messages in open rates and engagement because they feel human rather than manufactured.

Evidence and practitioner analysis: LinkedIn post by Abdullah Shahab

Authenticity Perception

Research shows that people process emotionally authentic communication differently from rehearsed or performed expression, engaging deeper trust mechanisms when authenticity is perceived.

Study summary: PubMed 22038706

Specific Memory Beats Generic Language

Specific, lived details, and acknowledgement of shared experience create stronger engagement and perceived authenticity than generalized narration.

Relevant research: Springer article

Vulnerability Builds Trust

As Patrick Lencioni describes in the book Getting Naked, openly acknowledging mistakes or showing vulnerability builds trust and loyalty. Voluntary self-disclosure involves risk and signals authenticity in a way polished perfection never can. Communication research supports this: studies show a positive relationship between self-disclosure and perceived trustworthiness.

None of these proves my hypothesis, but together they suggest that people respond more strongly when communication clearly requires effort or risk.

Written Perfection Doesn’t Signal Care Anymore

While I’m not advocating sloppiness, I do believe that high-signal writing in the AI era should try to include:

• Details only shared experience could produce

• Emotional asymmetry (e.g. “I’ve been going back and forth on this…”)

• Real stakes or risk for the writer (taking a contrary or controversial position)

• Uneven structure caused by thinking ( like this digression that adds context )

Imperfection isn’t the goal. Evidence of being human is, because AI minimizes that evidence.  

The New Measure of Written Communication

When everyone can write well, simply writing well no longer differentiates. AI will undoubtedly flood the world with writing. The ones that get responses will be the ones that reflect insight and context rather than just better wording.

Question:

In your written communications, how are you preserving the signals that AI can’t fake? Specificity, risk, situational context, and real human investment?  How are you making them visible?

‍