LinkedIn's AI Post Generator: The Good, The Bad, and The Surprisingly Human

Source: Dev.to

🎯 Introduction

LinkedIn’s AI post generator landed with the subtle fanfare of every new AI feature these days—promising to revolutionize your content creation while you sip your morning coffee. Because clearly what LinkedIn needed was more posts that sound exactly the same.

“I’ve been testing it for the past few months, and it’s not entirely terrible. The trick is knowing when to use it and when to ignore its suggestions completely.”

🔎 How It Works

• Analyzes your writing patterns
• Suggests content based on trending topics in your industry
• Drafts posts from simple prompts

In short, it’s a very sophisticated autocomplete that has read way too many thought‑leadership posts.

✅ The Good News

• Structure is solid – give it a prompt like “tips for remote team management” and you’ll get:
  • A coherent post
  • Bullet points
  • Relevant hashtags
  • Industry‑appropriate buzzwords

❌ The Not‑So‑Good News

• Every other marketing director gets similar suggestions.
• The result: a LinkedIn feed that increasingly feels like it was written by the same overly enthusiastic intern.

Experiment: I gave the same prompt to the AI on five different accounts across various industries. The posts weren’t identical, but they shared an unmistakable sameness—same cadence, similar opening hooks, and that peculiar AI optimism that never quite sounds human.

🗣️ Brand Voice vs. AI Patterns

“Your brand voice isn’t just what you say—it’s how you think.”

Gary Vaynerchuk

• You know it’s him within the first sentence.
• The AI might capture his energy level, but it misses:
  • The specific way he connects wine knowledge to business strategy.
  • How he references his immigrant parents’ work ethic.

Ann Handley (MarketingProfs)

• Posts have a conversational intelligence born from years of translating complex marketing concepts into accessible language.
• The AI can mimic the structure, but it can’t replicate the specific metaphors she draws from her journalism background.

Bottom line: The AI learns patterns; patterns aren’t personality.

📅 Three Months of Experimentation – What Actually Works

1. Trending‑topic discovery – Use the AI to surface hot conversations, then write your own take.

   • Example: AI suggested “AI in marketing workflows.” I wrote about the moment my team spent more time managing AI tools than creating content—a story only I could tell.

2. List & formatting generation – The AI excels at:

   • Generating lists
   • Formatting suggestions
   • Hashtag research

   It fails at nuance, personal anecdotes, and contrarian takes.

3. Framework assistance – Ask the AI to build a “5 lessons learned” skeleton, then fill in the actual lessons yourself. Saves time on structure while preserving insight.

4. Reverse‑engineered workflow –

   • Write the personal story first (e.g., a client‑meeting mishap, a conference insight).
   • Ask the AI to structure it into a broader lesson.
   • Result: a human element wrapped in a scannable, algorithm‑friendly format.

🤖 LinkedIn’s Algorithm & AI‑Generated Content

• The algorithm now detects AI‑generated posts not to punish but because engagement patterns reveal authenticity.
• Authentic posts (specific failures, unpopular opinions, behind‑the‑scenes details) generate genuine conversations.
• AI‑assisted posts tend to attract polite, surface‑level engagement (“Great insights!”) and rarely spark meaningful dialogue.

“My highest‑performing posts from the past quarter were the ones where I shared specific failures, unpopular opinions, or behind‑the‑scenes details from actual projects.”

🏆 Winners vs. Losers

Irony: As AI gets better at producing “good” content, the value of genuinely personal content increases. Being human becomes a competitive advantage.

📋 Actionable Checklist

• Start with your own idea – AI only structures or researches.
• Edit ruthlessly for voice – Replace corporate‑speak:
  • “leverage” → “use”
  • “optimize” → “improve”
• Add specific details – Personal anecdotes, numbers, names.
• Use AI for:
  • Topic discovery
  • List generation
  • Formatting & hashtags
• Avoid using AI for:
  • Nuanced storytelling
  • Contrarian opinions
  • Personal voice

📝 Closing Thought

The AI is the smart intern who hasn’t yet developed a voice. Use it against its generic tendencies: generate a draft, spot the “everyone‑else‑would‑say‑this” parts, then flip them or replace them with your unique perspective.

When you let the AI handle the framework and you supply the human experience, you get the best of both worlds—clear, scannable content that still feels unmistakably you.

Using AI for LinkedIn Posts

Names, numbers, dates, locations. The AI deals in generalities. You deal in specifics.

• Include your opinions.
• The AI is diplomatically neutral.
• You presumably have thoughts about your industry that go beyond “it’s important to stay updated.”

Personal Story Rule

If you could swap out any name and the post would still make sense, it’s too generic. Add something that could only come from your experience.

The Role of the AI Generator

• LinkedIn’s AI post generator is a tool, not a strategy.
• It’s useful for the same reason spell‑check is useful—it handles the mechanical stuff so you can focus on the important parts.

What Still Requires Your Voice

• The important parts are still your ideas, your experiences, and your perspective on your industry.
• Those can’t be automated, and they shouldn’t be.

How to Use AI Effectively

1. Use the AI to save time on formatting and research.
2. Use your brain for everything else.

Your audience will notice the difference, even if they can’t quite articulate why.

Bottom Line

Because at the end of the day, people connect with people, not with perfectly optimized content that could have been written by anyone. In a world where anyone can generate professional‑sounding posts, being genuinely yourself becomes the ultimate differentiator.