As creators who have written thousands of posts, we've tried using AI to write content, but it usually falls short and we end up rewriting the whole post ourselves.

From what we've seen, AI content often misses the mark because:

• It lacks the unique voice that creators naturally bring to their work, making it feel impersonal and generic.

• The content is often shallow with only surface-level information that doesn't reflect the creator's expertise or experiences.

When building personal brands or thought leadership, many creators prioritize content with substance and authenticity. But most AI content is fluffy, so they go back to manually writing posts. 

While we've seen some creators using AI to brainstorm ideas and edit drafts, they still do the bulk of the work by writing the initial draft.

We believe AI can do the heavy lifting by taking on most of the writing. In our view, everyone can have their own AI ghostwriter, creating personalized content based on their unique context and tone. That's why we built Cleve.

Don’t get us wrong—some creators genuinely enjoy writing everything themselves and take pride in producing content without AI. If that’s you, by all means, keep writing.

However, we’ve found that even seasoned writers experience writer's block and AI can help overcome it by generating drafts for inspiration or providing post ideas through guided prompts.

Below, we'll outline the challenges of creating content, our frustrations with existing AI tools and how Cleve generates personalized content that’s actually useful.

If you want to give Cleve a try, you can sign up for a free account — no credit card info required.

Our Story: Problems With Creating Content

Before starting Cleve, some of us from the founding team — Lizzie and I — ran a personal branding agency to help founders scale their brands and establish thought leadership in their industries.

With four years of experience in personal branding (and counting), we've found two types of creators:

(a) Seasoned Creators

Most of our seasoned creator friends don't use AI to write their content for the reasons mentioned earlier (i.e., fluffy content). They've already developed their own writing style and have some form of process to scale their content creation. 

Even so, they still face challenges like:

• Writer’s block: Over time, they struggle to find fresh topics and often repeat the same ideas, which can feel boring.

  
  

• Time-consuming process: Depending on how experienced they are with creating content, crafting a single post can take anywhere between a couple of minutes to one or two hours.

(b) Busy Business Owners & Aspiring Creators

Many of our clients and users fit into this group. They understand the value of personal branding in growing their businesses or improving career prospects but can’t seem to write their first post or post consistently. 

In most cases, we hear:

• Content feels like a chore: Some are non-marketers so writing doesn’t come naturally. As busy business owners, they find it hard to carve out the time to create content and rather focus on other areas of their business.

  
  

• Don't know what to post: New or aspiring creators often struggle to come up with post ideas—not because they don't have experiences worth sharing, but because they don't realize those experiences can be turned into valuable content.

Problems with Existing AI for Content

We believe AI can help with the challenges mentioned above, but there’s still a gap when it comes to AI generating useful content.

The most obvious problem is that the AI content doesn’t sound natural. Cleve is designed to generate content that feels like something you would say by reading social media profiles to understand your context and tone. 

A less obvious is that creators often have ideas but struggle to turn them into posts. Using the same approach we would have with our clients, Cleve can ask relevant questions based on your notes to guide you into thinking more deeply, which usually helps shape the initial draft.

Based on our observation, many creators are okay with AI-assisted content, but where they draw the line is fully automating the content creation process, including coming up with ideas and posting on social media channels.

Cleve is not meant to replace creators but to assist them in creating content. That's something we have in mind when building Cleve—we want to make creating content less daunting and more accessible to everyone, even if they’re not marketers or creators. 

Cleve Writes Personalized Content Based on Your Tone

It's important to us that Cleve generates content that sounds human without requiring lengthy prompts. We’ve seen creators spend 1-2 hours refining prompts just to get the right result. We built Cleve to simplify this process, so they can quickly turn concepts into drafts with minimal or no prompting.

In the examples below, we’ll compare the output from ChatGPT and Cleve. We noticed that ChatGPT’s content often includes:

• Excessive emojis, hashtags, jargon and words you wouldn't use in everyday conversations.

• Long, complex sentences that are harder to follow

Example 1: LinkedIn Reflection Post

From our experience, Cleve’s version is more likely to perform better than ChatGPT’s for the following reasons:

1. More natural hook: ChatGPT starts with an overly formal title, "Embracing Self-Understanding: A Game-Changer in Business Strategy," while Cleve uses a more personal, relatable hook, "A mentor once offered me..."

   
   

2. Conversational tone: ChatGPT’s output feels more formal, using advanced words like "indelible." In contrast, Cleve uses everyday language, making the post sound more natural and approachable.

   
   

3. Overly enthusiastic closing: ChatGPT ends with, "Here's to the power of introspection in reshaping our business strategies and unlocking our true potential!" This comes off as overly enthusiastic, making it feel less genuine.

Example 2: Instagram Post of a Personal Experience

It’s clear that ChatGPT’s version feels AI-generated for several reasons:

• Excessive use of emojis: ChatGPT overuses emojis, making the post feel fake

  
  

• Shallow content: ChatGPT’s version is much shorter and lacks depth, while Cleve’s output goes into more detail.

  
  

• Lack of emotion: ChatGPT writes in a neutral, factual tone, whereas Cleve’s version expresses more emotion and personal opinions.

How Cleve Assists With Content Creation

As we mentioned earlier, Cleve is more than just an AI post generator. Its experience is more similar to working with a personal branding agency, guiding you in developing ideas and suggesting new angles to create meaningful content.

Here’s how it works:

Capture Ideas With One-Liner Bullet Points

If only writing a post is as simple as sitting down and instantly knowing what to say. It’s not. Most ideas stem from recent experiences, conversations, observations, and reflections—not from staring at a blank document.

What matters is capturing a simple, spontaneous idea that can be referred back later. Cleve makes this easy with the "Quick Note" to jot down a one-liner, bullet point, or even a single word.

The secret to endless ideas is the habit of noting down interesting thoughts or experiences. While "interesting" is subjective, as long as you find it interesting there's a chance someone else will be interested too. By the time you have to write, there's already a list of ideas to choose from and work on.

Developing Ideas With Guided Questions

Once there's an idea, the next challenge is turning it into a full-fledged post. Cleve's "Ask Me" solves this by prompting creators with guided questions. In our demos, the audience is usually impressed by Cleve’s specific questions relevant to the notes that feel like follow-up questions they’d have in conversations. 

These guided questions help creators explore their ideas more deeply. Many writers don't realize they have stories to tell until they are prompted with the right questions. The process is also natural as most of us are asked about our knowledge and skills. For instance, service-based business owners often get questions from clients about their field.

Generating Initial Drafts

The next step is drafting the post, which can feel overwhelming for those who aren’t natural writers. That's where many users find Cleve's "Generate Post" handy. It transforms messy outlines into proper drafts that you'd feel comfortable posting.

Of course, Cleve’s output is not always perfect. But many of our users find the initial draft gives them clarity on what they like and don't like. From there,

1. They can adjust the prompt or details and generate a new post.

   
   

2. They can edit the post generated by Cleve by refining elements like length, hook, or tone. They can also provide custom feedback to help Cleve learn their preferred writing style. Over time, Cleve will be able to produce more polished posts based on their unique styles.

   
   

3. If they've generated multiple drafts, they can pick their favorite elements from each output and combine them to create an original post of their own.

We’ve shared a lot about Cleve, now it’s your turn to experience it for yourself. Sign up for a free account — no credit card required.

If you're a larger organization and looking to do personal branding for your team, schedule a demo with our founder Ashvin.