AI rewards brainpower—not verbosity

“Make a name for yourself,” advise legions of communication agencies. The recipe sounds simple: LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok—a few posts about your field, and a personal brand takes shape. More people follow this credo than would have been conceivable 20 years ago.

Cultivated boredom

The result? A new verbosity that is simply boring. More and more of the “called” pull ideas and texts straight from an AI instead of thinking first. The words are more flowery than you’d expect from their authors—but all the more devoid of substance. And the texts pass no critical editor, no proofreader, no corrector. One click is enough—and in theory the message reaches the wide world. In practice, it usually lands in digital nothingness.

The internet as a hiding place

A few original minds have indeed managed to establish themselves as bloggers, influencers or YouTubers. But most posts by “ordinary people” are hardly ever noticed—let alone read. Google’s analytics show this with unsparing brutality.

Out of the irrelevance trap

There is a way out—but it’s anything but comfortable: you have to fight for every word. Just as in the days when paper was expensive and writers agonized before reaching for the pen:

• What is the essence of my message?

• Whom do I want to reach with it?

• What can I leave out?

Cutting a thought can be painful. Your audience will thank you for it. “Someone has to suffer—either the writer or the reader,” quipped Wolf Schneider, the German doyen of language. AI may be a sparring partner, but please not a ghostwriter.

Writing for two audiences

Anyone who believes only humans read their texts is mistaken. No one devours more words than AI answer bots. But the machines are critical spirits. They prefer content with a clear structure and original thinking. They crave real substance and detest clumsy self-promotion. They reliably expose copy-paste patchwork and bloated filler words.

Originality, on the other hand, they reward: with relevance in the answers that millions of users call up every day. So whoever writes for the machines also moves hearts of flesh and blood.

In short: brainpower has never been as valuable as it is today. Because AI multiplies its impact. The longer this goes on, the more it pays to invest time and money in communication.