How to Edit AI Content: A Checklist for Experience, Accuracy and Voice

7 min read·3 October 2026

An AI-written draft is a starting point, not a finished post. To edit AI content so it's worth publishing, you need to do three things the tool can't do for you: check every fact against a real source, add what you've seen and done in your own work, and rewrite it until it sounds like your business. Use the checklist below in that order: accuracy, then experience, then voice. Polishing the sentences in a paragraph that turns out to be wrong is wasted time.

We make an AI blogging tool, so we'll say this plainly: no tool removes the need for this edit. What a good tool can do is make the edit shorter.

Why AI drafts need an edit before they go live

Google doesn't penalise a post for being written with AI. We covered that in what Google's guidelines actually say about AI content. What it does object to is effort-free content. Google's own guidance on using generative AI content says that generating many pages "without adding value for users" may break its spam policy on scaled content abuse.

The people Google pays to check its search results (quality raters) follow the same line. In January 2025 Google updated their guidelines, and Search Engine Land reported that raters can now give the Lowest rating when almost all of a page is "auto or AI generated" with little effort, originality or added value. Raters don't set rankings directly, but their guidelines show what Google counts as low quality.

There's a plainer reason too. AI tools invent things with total confidence. Deloitte Australia agreed to partially refund the A$440,000 it was paid by the Australian government after a report turned out to contain a fabricated quote from a court judgment and references to research papers that don't exist. If a large consultancy can let that through, so can a busy plumber's blog.

The AI content checklist, step one: accuracy

Start here, because every later edit depends on the facts holding up.

Check every number, name and quote

Go through the draft with a highlighter (on paper or in your head) and mark:

• Every statistic. Percentages, prices, counts, growth figures.
• Every named thing. Studies, laws, standards, products, people, companies.
• Every quote. Anything in quotation marks attributed to someone.
• Every date-bound claim. "Since 2024", "the latest update", "currently".

For each one, open the source and find the exact sentence that supports it. Not a page on the same topic: the actual sentence. If the draft cites no source, search for one. If you can't find it quickly, cut the claim or say it without the number.

Google's helpful content self-assessment asks a blunt question here: "Does the content have any easily-verified factual errors?" If a reader can catch the mistake with one search, so can everyone else.

Check the claims about your own trade

AI tools write about your field from what's been published about it, not from doing the work. Read every piece of how-to advice and ask whether you'd actually tell a customer to do it. Hypothetical example: say you fit kitchens in Cork, and the draft says a worktop fitting "usually takes a few hours". You know that ignores templating, cutting and the wait for stone. Fix it with your own figure and explain why.

Check the bits people see in Google

Google's generative AI guidance asks you to focus on accuracy in metadata as well: the title tag (the headline shown in search results), the meta description (the short summary under it), structured data (code that describes the page to search engines) and image alt text. AI tools often write these last and carelessly. Read each one and make sure it matches what the post says.

How to add E-E-A-T to AI content: the experience step

E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. It's the set of qualities Google says its systems try to reward. Google's own page says E-E-A-T isn't a specific ranking factor and that "trust is most important" of the four.

Experience is the one an AI draft can't have. It has never visited a site, lost a client or fixed the same fault twice. Google's self-assessment asks whether your content shows "first-hand expertise", for example from "having actually used a product or service". That's your job in the edit.

Add at least three of these to every AI draft:

1. A real example from your work. A job, a client question, a mistake you made. Anonymise it if you need to.
2. A number you measured yourself. Your average turnaround, how many of a thing you've fitted, what a typical job costs. Say where the number comes from, for example "across the boilers we serviced last winter".
3. An opinion the draft is too polite to give. Which option you'd pick and why, or which popular advice you think is wrong.
4. A photo or detail only you'd have. Your own photos, a screenshot from your own account, the brand of tool you use.
5. The trade-off. When your advice doesn't apply, or what it costs.

A quick test: if a competitor could publish the paragraph unchanged, it doesn't show experience yet.

How to humanise an AI blog post (the voice step)

"Humanising" often gets sold as running text through a tool that swaps words around. Don't. That produces clumsy sentences and does nothing about the real problem, which is that the draft says nothing specific. The voice edit is about making it sound like you and not like everyone else.

Things to cut or change:

• Throat-clearing openers. "In today's fast-paced world", "When it comes to", "It's important to note". Delete and start with the point.
• Stacked adjectives and hype. A "robust, seamless, cutting-edge solution" says nothing. Name what the thing does.
• The rule of three everywhere. AI loves listing three things. Keep the lists where you really have three parallel items.
• Hedging on everything. "May potentially help in some cases." Say what you know and admit what you don't.
• Summary endings. A final section that repeats every heading. Replace it with one clear next step.

Things to add:

• Your words for things. If your customers say "combi boiler" and the draft says "combination heating appliance", change it.
• Second person. Talk to "you". If you're a business, "we" is fine.
• Short paragraphs. One idea each, four sentences at most.
• Your spelling. If you're in Ireland or the UK, fix the American spellings. AI drafts slip them in constantly.

Read the finished post aloud. Anywhere you stumble or wouldn't say it that way to a customer, rewrite it.

Cut what adds nothing

AI drafts pad. They explain the obvious, repeat the introduction halfway down and add sections because they "should" be there. Google's self-assessment warns against writing to a word count because "you've heard or read that Google has a preferred word count" and adds, plainly: "No, we don't."

For each section, ask: would the reader miss this if it vanished? If not, cut it. A tight post that answers the question beats a long one that gets to the answer halfway down.

Also check that the post actually answers the search behind it. If you picked the topic from real queries, as we describe in finding blog topic ideas from Search Console data, put the answer in the first few sentences.

Show who wrote it and how

Google suggests asking "Who, How and Why" about your content. For an AI-assisted post, that means:

• Who: Put a real byline on it, linked to a short author page that says what that person does. Google says it "strongly" encourages accurate authorship information.
• How: If AI did a large share of the drafting, consider saying so. Google's page suggests disclosures where a reader might reasonably ask "How was this created?" A line like "Drafted with AI, checked and edited by [name]" is honest and costs you nothing.
• Why: The post should exist because your customers need the answer, not only because a keyword looked tempting.

The AI content checklist in one list

Copy this into your notes and run through it before every AI-assisted post goes live. How long it takes depends on the topic, but the accuracy section is usually where the time goes.

Accuracy

• Every statistic links to a source, and I've read the sentence that supports it
• Every study, product, law and person named actually exists
• Every quote is real and correctly attributed
• Advice matches what I'd tell a customer
• Title, meta description and alt text match the post

Experience

• At least one real example from our work
• At least one number we measured ourselves, with where it came from
• A clear opinion or recommendation
• The trade-offs or exceptions are stated

Voice

• Opener gets to the point in the first two sentences
• No hype words or filler phrases
• Our words, our spelling, second person
• Read aloud without stumbling

Substance and trust

• Every section earns its place
• Answers the search it targets, early
• Real byline, and AI use disclosed where readers would expect it

What this checklist can't do: tell you whether the topic was worth writing about, or guarantee the post ranks. For what the evidence says on that, see whether AI-generated blog posts rank on Google.

An AI draft becomes a good post when you add the facts you've checked and the things only you know. Next time you have a draft open, do the accuracy pass first, and don't change the wording of a single sentence until every claim has a source.

Researched and drafted with Blog AI, checked against its sources, and edited before publishing. How the checks work