Work Email That Doesn't Read Like AI: Before/After Examples
Why work emails get taken for AI-written, and a before-and-after case showing how to make one sound natural and genuinely yours.
Knock out a draft in the middle of a busy day and the email easily ends up smooth but strangely impersonal. Writing like that can come back with a high AI probability in the AI detector — and, more to the point, it reads as boilerplate to the person who receives it. Here's a real work email compared before and after, and what changes when you make it sound like you.
Why work emails look like AI
Work email goes monotonous easily, mostly because you're concentrating on being polite. When these signals stack up, it reads mechanical.
- Every paragraph almost identical in length and structure
- Too many connectives — "moreover", "additionally", "in conclusion"
- Generalities only, with no specific fact: no date, no owner, no number
- Nothing at all about the recipient's situation
What a detector is actually reading is covered on the AI detector page.
Before / After
| Example | |
|---|---|
| Before | "Hello. Please find the requested materials attached. Moreover, should you have any additional inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us at any time. Additionally, we kindly request a prompt reply." |
| After | "Hi Daniel — I've pulled together the Q3 revenue figures you asked about in last week's meeting and attached them. The second sheet is the breakdown by team, so that's probably the one to start with. If you need it cut a different way, I can have that back to you by tomorrow morning." |
Why the second one works is easy to see. It uses the recipient's name and the context (last week's meeting), it carries specific information (Q3 revenue, the second sheet), and the sentence lengths have a natural rhythm. All it really did was deliver the information more helpfully — and that alone moved it closer to human writing.
A checklist for the edit
- Mention the recipient and the immediate context, even in one line.
- Include at least two concrete nouns or numbers.
- Cut the connectives and mix short sentences with long ones.
- End by naming the next action clearly.
If you want to tidy a draft quickly, loosen the awkward phrasing with the humanizer, then read it through once more yourself and put it back into your own voice.
A result is not a pass or a fail. It's a reference AI probability. Aim at reaching the reader rather than at hitting a number.