Make AI Emails Sound Human: Strip the AI Tells

What you'll get

1 copy-ready blocks
3 min read

Paste above your draft

How to use it

The hack

before an AI drafted message goes to a named account, run one prompt that lists the tells, then rewrite every flagged line in your own words.

The hack: before an AI drafted message goes to a named account, run one prompt that lists the tells, then rewrite every flagged line in your own words.

The tells that give a draft away

A greeting about hope, then a compliment on a recent post with no fact in it.
Your subject line restated as the first sentence.
Lists of three everywhere: three adjectives, three benefits, three verbs.
Filler nouns: journey, landscape, space, solution, synergy.
Sentences built as "not X, but Y", more than once.
Long dashes where a comma or a full stop belongs.
A close that asks for a quick call with no reason tied to this account.

None of these is proof. Together they read as a message nobody wrote for anybody, and a buyer who reads cold email every day has seen each of them too often to keep reading.

The prompt

Paste above your draft

Read the email below. List every phrase a busy executive might read as machine
written: stock greetings, compliments without a fact behind them, lists of three,
filler nouns, sentences shaped as "not X, but Y", long dashes and any line that
could be sent to a different company unchanged. Quote each phrase and say in one
line why it reads that way. Do not rewrite anything.

The last instruction is the hack. If the assistant rewrites, you get a new draft with new tells. You want a list, because the rewrite has to be yours.

The rewrite rule

Take each flagged line and say what you mean out loud, as if the buyer were across the table. Write down what you said. If a line could still be sent to another company unchanged, either add the fact about this account that makes it yours or cut it. A shorter email with one true thing in it beats a polished one with none.

Three mistakes to avoid

Asking the assistant to make it sound human. That produces a different flavour of the same pattern. Keep the prompt to a list and do the rewriting yourself.
Fixing the words around an empty message. If the draft says nothing specific about the account, no rewrite saves it. Go back to the research.
Running it on cold email only. LinkedIn notes, follow-ups and proposals carry the same tells to the same readers.

Make it a habit: keep the prompt where you draft, and give every message a last read in your own voice. If you would not say the line across a table, it does not go to the account.

Why this works on named accounts

A machine written line costs little on a lead list, because nobody on it was going to read closely. A named account is the opposite case. One buyer, chosen by you, reads your message with full attention, once. Whatever signals carelessness is remembered against the account, not the campaign. That is why the rewrite stays with you. The research can be fast and assisted, but the words are the only part of outreach the buyer actually touches, and on a short list you can afford to write every one of them yourself.

How account-based selling works →

More from the Academy

Set-up prompt (paste once per conversation)

You are helping me write short, plain cold emails to senior buyers in named accounts.
 
Rules for everything you write in this conversation:
1. Use only the facts in my RESEARCH block. Do not add facts, numbers, customer names, awards or compliments that are not in it. If a fact you need is missing, write [MISSING: what you need] and carry on.
2. Maximum 90 words in the body. Short sentences. No exclamation marks.
3. One question or one ask per email.
4. No flattery, no "I hope this finds you well", no "I came across your profile", no "quick question", no buzzwords.
5. Write the way one senior person writes to another: direct, specific, polite.

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You leave with a set-up prompt, a research block, 10 prompts that draft, cut, criticise and fact-check, and one worked draft.

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12 Cold Email Templates for Named Accounts

For anyone writing a first email to a senior buyer in a large company.

You leave with 12 templates under 110 words, the research each one needs, one filled-in example and a five-point check.

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Make AI Emails Sound Human: Strip the Tells Before a Named Account Reads Them