Collaborating with Machines – How I Started Using AI to Write Blogs

By Eric Emin Wood

Can AI make you a better writer? Discover how Eric Emin Wood uses AI tools to streamline blog creation while keeping human creativity and judgment at the centre of the process.

I was a late bloomer when it came to incorporating AI tools, and specifically Large Language Model (LLM) platforms such as ChatGPT, into my professional work.

They didn’t start helping me develop the blog and social media posts, thought leadership, presentations, press releases and emails which had long been my stock in trade until August 2024, nearly two years after ChatGPT’s consumer release set off the technology’s consumer explosion.

I had tried them before then, of course, but was unimpressed by the results. Their voices were formulaic, verbose, frequently using complex language to communicate simple ideas – the exact opposite of my work. Worse, they were prone to presenting tossed-off Reddit jokes as verified facts. The ChatGPT of early 2023 generated blog posts that looked professional at first glance, but ultimately took longer to edit than write from scratch. At least, if that’s what you did for a living. I wasn’t alone in my thinking. Ongoing research from KPMG and AI think tank the Vector Institute found that only 22 per cent of Canadian employees had adopted AI in 2023.

Obviously, its capabilities have improved since. KPMG and the Vector Institute found that in 2025, 51 per cent of Canadian employees were regularly using the technology. Meanwhile, an IBM study found that 79 per cent of Canadian office workers were using AI tools, but only 25 per cent were enterprise-grade, indicating personal, rather than company-supported, use.

The employer I joined in 2024 as a contractor was all-in on AI, encouraging employees including myself to use both in-house and consumer tools such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini. One colleague even developed his own version of ChatGPT for our team to use. It turned out to be stunningly effective at identifying relevant SEO, leadership and consumer insights, and developing blogs.

My path to embracing my virtual coworkers had begun.

For one, I discovered my company’s tools were very good at creating headlines, which despite my journalism background was never my strong suit (I used it for the headline of this article!).

For another, it proved to be a godsend for generating paragraphs for SEO and AEO purposes. Gone are the days of “keyword stuffing” and incorporating awkward-sounding phrases like “best AI tools for blog writing” into your work, with both search engines and AI platforms now focusing on a content’s quality as much as, if not more than, search term quantity. Since both are machines, AI’s the perfect partner for identifying which keywords to focus on, which to expand, and how to frame them in a way that search engines and other AI platforms will recognize as meaningful.

For example, when asking AI to suggest keywords for this article, the lists produced by ChatGPT, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot included not only “AI blog writing”, “AI content creation”, and “how to use AI for writing”, but “content optimization”, “keyword research”, “audience engagement” and… “AI prompts”.

So, what are some good AI prompts to include in an article about incorporating AI into your work? It was much faster to ask the LLMs to generate lists for me, which I edited down to the five below, than to write one from scratch.

They also reminded me to mention that the best AI prompts include a target audience (in this article’s case, experienced communicators), desired outcome (teach readers how to incorporate AI into their writing), format (blog) and any relevant constraints (in this case, approximately 800 words).

• For ideas: Generate 10 blog post ideas about [topic] for [target audience]. Include SEO-friendly titles and trending angles.
• For strategy: Find the top 5 ranking articles on [topic]. Identify 3 specific sub-topics or unique angles they have missed that would provide more value to [target audience].
• For writing: Create a detailed blog outline for an article about [topic]. Include H1, H2 and H3 headings optimized for SEO.
• For editing: Edit the below for grammar, clarity and flow without changing the meaning.
• For SEO: Rewrite the below to include SEO-appropriate keywords naturally.

That last prompt is mine; the type I learned to use once I realized LLMs could help incorporate SEO terms into a semi-finished blog. They still need guidance, hence “naturally”. They still need fact-checking. A recent study by AI-powered SEO agency Graphite found that half the articles published online are now AI generated, though the organization also notes these articles rarely appear in Google and ChatGPT results. Quality content still needs human intervention.

But as I’ve learned firsthand, the right tools can feel like the most helpful development team you’ve ever had. Thanks to mine, I was able to go from writing one or two blogs in a single day to four.

And since much of my job involved developing speaking notes and presentations for my employer’s executives — six of whom gave me recommendations on LinkedIn when my contract ended! I’d say the hours AI saved me were well used.