When I started my career, I put a lot of emphasis on learning how to say things the right way. I’d think, “How do I sound competent in this interview follow-up email?” Or, “How do I sound like a professional instead of sounding like normal me?”
Post-AI, this seems to be flipping. I expect more movement away from prim and proper corpo-speak. Everybody can talk that way now with AI, so what’s the point of the formality circus? It used to be a proxy for competence, but we can’t trust it anymore. Not only that, I think it’s becoming an indicator of the exact opposite. Over-formality is a proxy for incompetence. Any time I get a super crisp, professional, courteous email, I suspect the sender just offloaded it to AI. Especially if I know them and that isn’t how they talk. When I see someone whose emails are all offloaded to AI it just feels… lazy.
Instead, I think your flaws are your draws in this new era. If you have something to say, you should just say it as plainly as you can. And keep it short. I hope short, flawed, and authentic becomes the new corpo-speak. That’s what I’ll be doing.