A practical guide to prompts that make AI write like a human

We’ve all been there. You ask an AI to help you draft an email or a blog post, and what you get back is… fine. It’s grammatically correct, it follows your instructions, but it sounds completely robotic. It has zero personality.

In a world overflowing with content, that human touch is what actually connects with people. It builds trust, keeps them reading, and makes your message memorable. Text that sounds like it came from a machine, on the other hand, can make readers tune out and feel like your brand is just another faceless company.

This guide is all about fixing that. We'll walk through a simple, step-by-step process for writing prompts that get natural, authentic, and human-sounding text from any AI model. Let’s turn your AI from a sterile content machine into a writing partner you can actually rely on.

What you'll need to get started with prompts that make AI write like a human

The cool thing is, these ideas work with pretty much any generative AI platform you're using. Before we jump in, just make sure you have a couple of things ready:

• An account with a generative AI tool: This could be ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, or whichever large language model you prefer.

• A clear goal: You need to know what you’re trying to write and why. Is it a friendly welcome email, a casual blog post, or a quick, witty social media update?

• A sense of your audience: Who are you trying to sound human for? Writing for brand-new customers will have a totally different vibe than an internal memo for your team.

6 steps to crafting prompts that make AI write like a human

Getting an AI to sound human isn’t about finding one single "magic prompt." It's more of a process of giving the AI the right guardrails, context, and a bit of character. These six steps will show you how to do that time and time again.

Step 1: Give your AI a persona

An AI doesn't have a personality out of the box, so you have to give it one. The quickest way to do this is by using the "act as" technique to set the stage. When you give the AI a role to play, you immediately anchor its response in a specific style and context.

Just start your prompt with a clear persona. For instance:

• "Act as a friendly, experienced support agent who is patient and reassuring."

• "Act as a witty tech blogger who's a little skeptical of new trends."

• "Act as an enthusiastic expert explaining a complex topic to a total beginner."

This one simple instruction tells the AI not just what to write, but how it should come across. You can get even more detailed by defining the persona's relationship with the audience, which helps the AI figure out the right language and how deep to go on the details.

Step 2: Use conversational language and tone

One of the dead giveaways of AI writing is its formality. Real human conversation is rarely perfect; it's filled with shortcuts, casual phrases, and its own natural rhythm. To make your AI's writing more relatable, you need to tell it to adopt these conversational quirks.

Instruct your AI to include specific things like:

• Use contractions: Ask it to use "you're," "it's," and "can't" instead of the stuffier "you are," "it is," and "cannot."

• Ask questions: Prompt it to talk directly to the reader with questions like "Sound familiar?" or "But what does that actually mean for you?" This breaks up the text and makes it feel more like a two-way conversation.

• Use simpler words: Tell the AI to "avoid jargon" or "explain this in simple terms." Unless your persona is supposed to be an academic, a straightforward vocabulary almost always feels more authentic.

So, instead of a dry prompt like, "Explain the benefits of hydration," you could try this:

"Explain the benefits of drinking more water like you're talking to a friend. Keep it casual, use contractions, and make it super easy to understand."

Step 3: Inject personality with stories and emotion

AI models haven't lived a life, but they are incredibly good at recognizing and recreating patterns. You can use this to your advantage by asking them to mimic the things that make up a human personality: stories, analogies, and emotions.

Instead of just asking for a list of facts, try telling the AI to:

• Tell an anecdote: "Include a short, relatable story about a team that struggled with communication before figuring things out."

• Use analogies: "Explain this concept using an analogy about gardening." This is a great way to make abstract ideas feel more concrete and stick in the reader's mind.

• Add sensory details: "Describe the scene using sounds and smells to make it more vivid."

• Specify an emotion: "Write this with an empathetic and reassuring tone."

These little additions make your content feel less like a dry report and more like a chat with a real person who has their own unique way of looking at the world.

Step 4: Vary sentence structure

Robotic writing often sounds monotonous because the sentences are all about the same length and follow the same structure. Humans, on the other hand, talk with a natural cadence, mixing short, punchy statements with longer, more descriptive ones.

You can explicitly ask the AI to copy this. Give a prompt like this a try:

"Rewrite this paragraph using a mix of short, direct sentences and longer, more flowing ones. Break up the complex ideas to improve the rhythm."

This one instruction can make a huge difference in how readable and engaging the text feels. It pushes the AI out of its default, uniform pattern and helps it create a more dynamic and interesting flow.

Step 5: Provide context with examples

Sometimes, the easiest way to get what you want from an AI is to just show it. Giving it an example or two of your desired output right in the prompt (a technique often called few-shot prompting) is incredibly powerful. It gives the AI a clear template to follow.

You can structure your prompt with a clear example, like this:

"I want you to rephrase customer complaints into positive, empathetic summaries. Example 1: Input: 'My order is late again! This is unacceptable.' Output: 'I can see you're frustrated about the delay, and I want to help get this sorted out for you.' Now, apply that same style to this new complaint: [New Complaint]"

This approach cuts out the guesswork and helps the AI produce consistent, high-quality results that match exactly what you're looking for.

Step 6: Iterate and refine your prompts

The first draft the AI spits out is almost never the final one. The real magic happens in the follow-up. Think of it less like giving a command and more like having a conversation where you provide feedback to steer the AI toward the perfect response.

After you get the first version, use refining prompts like:

• "That's a good start, but can you make it sound more confident?"

• "Rewrite that last paragraph to be more concise."

• "Take out the formal closing and just end on a friendly note."

In a business setting, this back-and-forth process is key. For instance, with tools like eesel AI, you can use a prompt editor to keep tweaking how your AI support agent communicates. This ensures it always stays on-brand and sounds perfectly human. You aren't stuck with the first draft; you have full control to perfect it. This ongoing refinement is what separates a generic AI tool from a truly helpful assistant.

Learn how to use a power prompt to make AI tools like ChatGPT write in a more human-like style.

Common mistakes to avoid

As you start experimenting, you’ll probably run into a few common traps. Here are the main ones to look out for:

• Being too vague: The AI can't read your mind. A generic prompt like "write a blog post" will get you a generic, soulless result. Always be specific about the topic, tone, audience, and format.

• Forgetting to edit: Remember, AI is a writing assistant, not a full-on replacement for a human editor. Always give the output a once-over to catch any awkward phrasing, factual errors, or weird tonal shifts. That final human touch is what makes it great.

• Using AI "giveaway" words: AI models tend to lean on certain words and phrases. You can even prompt the AI to avoid common culprits like "delve," "tapestry," "furthermore," "moreover," and "in today's digital age."

• Accepting the first draft: Don't settle! If the first output isn't quite right, ask for a revision or just hit regenerate. The best results often come after a little bit of back-and-forth.

Bringing it all together: Creating prompts that make AI write like a human

Making an AI write like a human isn't about one clever trick. It's a mix of different techniques: giving the AI a persona, guiding its tone, providing plenty of context, and refining the output with feedback. When you stop thinking of AI as a simple command-line tool and start treating it like a creative partner, you unlock what it can really do. The goal isn't just to create content faster, but to create content that people actually enjoy reading.

Putting prompts that make AI write like a human to work where it really matters

While these prompting techniques work with any AI tool, they become even more powerful when used on a platform built for a specific business need, like customer support. Great support isn’t just about speed; it's about being empathetic, personal, and human.

With eesel AI, our AI Agent is designed from the start to sound helpful and human, so you don't have to spend hours trying to prompt it to be empathetic. Plus, our intuitive prompt editor gives you complete control to fine-tune its voice and actions, letting you apply the very techniques you learned today. You can create a support experience that's both efficient and genuinely personal. Go live in minutes, not months, and see what a difference a human-centric AI can make.