When NOT to Use AI in Correspondence

There is a class of professional correspondence where using AI to draft — even as a starting point — is a mistake. Not because AI cannot produce adequate prose, but because the act of writing the email is itself the professional act. The process of finding words for a difficult message, a personal acknowledgment, or a high-trust communication is how the writer engages seriously with what they are saying. The AI draft bypasses that engagement, and the reader, consciously or not, often feels the difference.

1. Condolences and personal acknowledgments When a colleague experiences a loss, an illness, or a significant personal event, the email acknowledging it should come from you. An AI-drafted condolence note is not warmer because it is well-worded — it is colder because the writer did not put in the effort of their own words. Brief and authentic is better than polished and generated. The effort of finding your own words is the message.
2. High-stakes relationship repair When a professional relationship has been damaged and an email is part of the repair, the authenticity of that email matters. An AI-drafted apology or acknowledgment of a failure will carry the voice of a competent generalist rather than the voice of the person responsible. The recipient who has been harmed is not owed generic language. Write the hard email yourself.
3. Negotiation correspondence Correspondence in an active negotiation requires judgment about what to say, what to withhold, what to signal, and what to emphasize — in specific proportion to the state of the negotiation and the relationship with the counterpart. AI does not have access to the full negotiating context and cannot calibrate these proportions correctly. AI-drafted negotiation correspondence is often either more concessive or more aggressive than the situation requires. Write it yourself.