How To Make ChatGPT Sound Like You
My first installment in a new series on how to get more out of AI
What’s Stopping You From Using AI?
As I mentioned in a recent post, I think the single biggest opportunity with AI right now is inviting it into your daily work and teaching yourself (and your team) how to actually use it.
But that’s easier said than done. One of the first things I hear from people trying to get going with tools like ChatGPT (especially inside our portfolio companies) is:
"Okay, this thing is generating stuff... that's cool. But the output doesn’t sound like me at all."
Even when ChatGPT gets the structure or the answer right, the voice often feels off. It uses buzzwords and jargon. It tries too hard. It sounds like a robot in a fedora trying to give a TED talk.
Out of the box, it rarely hits the tone you're going for - especially in business settings where nuance counts.
Here’s the good news. Over time, it will get better. ChatGPT learns from your feedback. It starts to pick up on how you like to communicate. But here’s the thing: most people don’t want to wait weeks or go through dozens of prompt revisions just to get something that sounds human.
So the question is:
Can you speed up the process?
Yep. You sure can. Through a few simple settings adjustments, you can cut weeks off of your AI learning curve - and start to inject your own authentic style into what your AI gives you back.
In fact, I walk through exactly how in this short video - the first in a series I’m launching on how to get more out of the AI tools you already have.
Where To Find Your Settings
The magic here is in updating your “What traits should ChatGPT have?” settings, which is a simple three-step process - here’s where to click:
That last window is where you’ll describe how you want ChatGPT to sound, and give it the instructions that will help it mirror your natural writing and communication style.
But that raises another question:
“What IS my natural communication style?”
If you’ve ever tried to describe how you talk and write from scratch, you know it can feel a little weird. It’s like trying to explain your own laugh.
Like many things in life, using a framework helps. Here’s my favorite:
Structure, Tone, and Voice.
Structure = How you like to organize thoughts (bullets, stories, logical breakdowns)
Tone = The emotional vibe you want to give off (direct, warm, irreverent, etc.)
Voice = The personality underneath it all (confident, sharp, conversational)
Great, Paul. That makes sense… but how do I figure THOSE things out?
If you haven’t watched the video yet, it’ll walk you through it. But if you prefer step-by-step instructions in text form, here they are.
How To Make ChatGPT Sound Better
Method 1: Analyze a Writing Sample
If you already have writing that feels like you (emails, blog posts, transcripts of you talking, etc.) drop them into ChatGPT. Ask it to break down the structure, tone, and voice.
You’ll get a cheat sheet you can paste right into your settings. Easy. Done.
Method 2: Play a Game
If you don’t have samples, no problem. You can still figure this out—just borrow a move from marketing.
In consumer research, there’s a method called conjoint analysis. It helps companies figure out what people really value by showing them comparisons and watching what they pick.
You can do the same thing with writing.
Use this prompt:
I want you to play a game with me that helps me back into my authentic and preferred style of writing. The goal is to land on a set of guidelines for structure, tone, voice, and other preferences I can paste into my settings that makes your outputs sound like I like to sound. Please give me pairs of sample outputs and ask me to pick between them and use my answers to impute my preferred communication style from there. Ask me additional questions if needed.
ChatGPT will start serving you A/B options:
Playful vs. serious
Punchy vs. long-winded
NYTimes op-ed vs. friend-texting-you
Pick the ones that sound most like you. Let it learn. Then paste the guidelines it gives you into your settings.
Then marvel at how much happier you are at the outputs - and how much easier it is to invite your robot sidekick along for your next day at at the office.
This is the first in a series on how to get more out of AI tools like ChatGPT - without wasting time, and sounding like a robot. If you liked this one, I think you might also enjoy:
If you'd like to see more of these as they come out, I hope you'll think about subscribing here and on YouTube.
Q: What other "how to AI" posts would you like to see? Let me know.