
Happy New Year! Well, okay, it’s a little late for that, but I hope your year is off to a fantastic start.
My kids are both finally back in school after what felt like an eternity. One of them was home for three and a half weeks. We are all very excited to get back into our normal routine. And for me, that means recording a podcast for you every single week.
So let’s do this.
I’m going to be completely honest with you. I’m going to walk you through a process we’ve created to help you make your pitches actually sound like a human wrote them, even if your foundation comes from AI. And I’m going to be honest and tell you when your pitches sound like a robot wrote them and a person had nothing to do with it.
It might sting a little bit.
Here’s the thing: I can spot an AI-generated pitch from a mile away. And so can every single editor you’re emailing.
Every editor is getting probably more pitches now than ever because AI speeds things up and helps PR pros like us increase the volume of pitches we can send in a short amount of time. But here’s what matters: We are not here for quantity. We are here for quality.
I don’t care if AI lets you send 10x the number of pitches. They better be good.
AI pitches are not the actual problem. It’s what you’re doing with them after the AI draft that actually matters. So today I’m going to show you exactly how to edit your AI drafts so that editors will actually open them and give you a yes.
The reality for all of us is that AI tools are everywhere now. They’re used by all PR pros. It’s available to all of us. It’s not cheating. We’re going to normalize AI use. It’s a starting point.
It’s kind of funny because my younger son is going to high school next year, and we’re applying to some private schools. There was a call about the application process and somebody asked the admissions director, “Is it okay if we use AI?”
And I thought to myself, Don’t rat us out. Like, those of us who are hoping to use AI and they never explicitly told us not to—thanks for calling that to their attention.
But here’s what was actually refreshing: The admissions director said, “Look, AI is there, it’s out there. Your kids are using it. We’re having protocols in place so that they can use it with the right attributions and sources, including what their queries were, what the input was, to make sure that it’s not cheating and it’s more of a research opportunity for them. It’s everywhere. We’re all using it. Use it as much as you would like, but know that we do want to hear from you and your writing should sound like it came from you.”
I thought that was interesting even in a high school setting—them acknowledging the ubiquity of these tools and how we all have to adopt a standard for how to ethically use them.
Again, it’s not cheating. It’s a starting point. Let’s normalize AI use.
I see it as giving me organization to my thoughts. I can come up with ideas of what I want to say, what I’m trying to tie together. AI will give me a skeleton, but it’s on all of us to add the connective tissue that is going to make the pitch robust and interesting and help get an actual response from an editor.
When I say AI pitches are obvious, here’s why.
Some very common tells—of course, everybody’s been talking about dashes. So frustrating because I love writing with dashes. I have been using dashes for years and years. It’s almost like an aside. It’s more powerful than a comma. It’s a better way to have a pause or a break in a sentence than just ellipses. It’s a way to connect two thoughts as an aside that I believe is more powerful than commas.
I just love dashes. But of course, so does AI. Which is so annoying because I thought they were a really effective tool in how I write that sounds like how I talk. But now I go through and say no dashes because I don’t want it to look like it came from AI, even if I would have written it and probably included a dash.
Those are obvious tells.
Everything sounds smooth and polite. There’s no personality. No quirks. It’ll sound like: “I’d love to connect to explore mutually beneficial collaboration opportunities.”
No human being trying to make an actual connection is going to talk like that.
AI repeats the same idea several different ways. Like: “You’ll save time, become more efficient, and get more done faster.” That’s the same thing. It’s efficiency, productivity, time saving—all the same thing.
It uses fancy filler words. Additionally. Moreover. At the end of the day. That’s how my kids write when they’re trying to sound smart, or it feels like an idealized college essay—what you think a professor would want to hear, but not an actual real person.
It has emotion, but in a vague way. AI might say, “This is a powerful and transformative opportunity.” But a human wouldn’t say it like that. A human would say, “This would actually get your product in front of the right people.”
You see the difference? One is just words with no actual detail. Powerful, transformative opportunity. You want a real-life outcome. Like, you’re going to get your product mentioned in front of the right customers and connect with your target clients. That’s the difference—the real live detail that comes from a human writing it.
AI says things like “this process can be overwhelming.” But a person is going to give context and details. Like, how is it overwhelming? You’ve got 48 unread emails, your coffee went cold two hours ago. That’s a sign of overwhelm when that’s your experience. A human can put that into terms that feel like you can make a visceral connection to that feeling of overwhelm, not just say “this process can be overwhelming.”
We’ve been looking at research showing the way that people interact with AI copy and pitches.
There’s a study that said nearly two-thirds of people (61.4%) think they can spot when a cold outreach email was written by AI. But also, 44.4% said they would be less likely to engage with a pitch if they could tell it was clearly AI-generated.
In other words, almost half of your audience may just tune you out if your email reads like it came from a bot.
The lie people tell themselves is: “I could just use better prompts, the AI will write the perfect pitch.”
The reality is that even the best AI, the best prompts and inputs, all of that—it can’t do the research. It can’t build the relationships. And it can’t do the strategic positioning that you need to add as a person to make a connection, to write a pitch with ideas that resonate with the recipient, especially a savvy editor.
People can do that. AI can’t.
Today I’m going to walk you through a tactical approach to fixing generic AI-generated pitches. We have four steps for you and a great resource. I’m going to give you examples.
This is one of the fundamental things we teach inside The Pitch Lab, my membership community that’s all about how to connect with the media and write compelling, timely, relevant, targeted emails.
We always talk about personalizing the pitch so the person receiving it knows that you are familiar with their work. You’ve read their latest articles, listened to their latest podcasts. You know what they’re all about and you’re making a connection where they can’t ignore your pitch because it’s clear you’re familiar with the kind of content they cover and the audience they write for.
The problem with AI: It’s going to write a generic opening because it doesn’t know the journalist. It doesn’t know anything about them. The specific behavior it demonstrates: “I hope this finds you well” or “I’ve been following your work.”
What you’re going to do differently as an actual human being making a real connection:
Find one relevant article they’ve written. The last one, if they write a bunch. Something within the last couple of weeks. Then reference something specific from that article. Maybe it’s a source they wrote about that you’re also familiar with. Or a quote they included. Or maybe it’s a very specific idea in a list of ideas, and one really connected with you.
Connect to why your story matters to their beat, what they cover. You’re showing that you are familiar with their work. You demonstrate understanding of what they cover so that it’s a natural assumption they can make that the pitch that follows is going to be relevant to them.
You want to connect something they’ve written about recently to why your story matters to their beat.
Before (Generic AI Opening – Gets Deleted):
“Hi Susan,
I hope this message finds you well. I’ve been reading your coverage of the financial industry and I’m impressed by your in-depth analysis. I believe I have a story that would be perfect for your audience at the Wall Street Journal.”
Why this fails:
After (Personalized Opening – Gets Read):
“Hi Susan,
I just read your analysis of the regional bank earnings from Friday, particularly your observation that community banks are quietly outperforming the nationals on deposit retention. That trend is even more dramatic than the public data shows. Our survey of 45 regional CFOs reveals retention strategies that aren’t showing up in the quarterly reports yet.”
Why this works:
One thing to keep in mind: We do this personalization approach not to be flattering, not to kiss their butts and talk about how great their work is. It’s proving you actually read their work and you know what they’re talking about.
This does not take a lot of time to do. Maybe a few minutes per pitch. Seriously, that’s it. And it is the key to getting your pitch read versus deleted, because they’re going to see that generic intro and not even care what follows.
You have to give them a reason to care now.
The problem: AI is going to generate timeless pitches. There’s no urgency. What happens is editors will look at that, even if they’re interested, and they’re just going to file it away and never come back to it. It creates this behavior pattern where they’re saving your message for future consideration, but no urgency, nothing that tells them they have to think about this right now.
What you want to do: Peg it to the news.
Tie the idea you’re sharing to current events. Maybe there’s a data drop that just came out that’s relevant to your idea and your angle. Maybe there’s a seasonal moment that’s important right now. Or trends—especially like New Year. There’s always predictions about trends for the new year, 2026 trends. Great time to talk about what was relevant in ’25 and now a fresh perspective for ’26.
It always has to peg back to a reason they should care about this now.
Walk through the edit process:
Look at what is trending in their publication this week and find that intersection between the trend and whatever your client’s idea or expertise is. You want to add a sentence or two that explicitly connects your pitch to that moment.
Before (No News Peg – Gets Filed Away):
“Hi Sarah,
I represent nutritionist Dr. Lisa Park who has some great insights about weight loss and metabolic health. She’s seeing a lot of success with her clients and has a unique approach that your readers would find helpful.”
Why this fails:
People are always interested in weight loss. I know. New year, new you. People always have resolutions and goals. But after the first two weeks of the year, the pitch has no urgency. It doesn’t answer the question: Why now?
The editor might read it and think, “That’s interesting. Maybe I’ll come back to this later.”
After (Clear News Peg – Must Run This Week):
“Hi Sarah,
With Ozempic prescriptions dropping 22% in Q4 per a new Goldman Sachs report and patients hitting the ‘plateau phase’ around month six, nutritionist Dr. Lisa Park has data on what’s actually happening when the medication stops working. Her protocol for 300+ post-Ozempic patients shows why the standard ‘eat less, move more’ advice is backfiring for this specific group.”
Why this works:
That’s important.
Here’s what you need to know: 49% of journalists receive over 50 pitches a week. Most journalists I’ve talked to receive over 50 pitches a day. Keep that in mind.
73% of journalists reject PR pitches due to irrelevance, with average response rates of only 3 to 3.5%. Through personalization and proper targeting and story alignment—all the things we’re talking about right now—that can increase responses. They say you’re 30 to 93% more likely to get a response when pitches are properly targeted and personalized.
Journalists are looking for timely, targeted, tantalizing stories.
Peg it to something that is timely now. Why should they think about this and cover your idea now?
You want to prove you’re worth their time.
The problem with AI-generated pitches: It’s going to list credentials generically. List, list, list, list. Almost like a bulleted resume. It’s a boring bio dump that comes usually at the end of the email. That specific gap in how they’re listing credentials—and all of them in the same pitch—is that everything gets equal weight and nothing really stands out. Editors are just going to skim right past that.
What you want to do:
You don’t need to include every single credential, every single bit of your background and your client expert’s background, credentials, certifications, all of that. You want to take a look at all the things that AI included and delete everything except for one or two of the credentials that matter to this editor.
Not everything. I don’t care if she was valedictorian of her high school if that’s not relevant to the story idea. Who cares? It doesn’t matter.
The other thing you want to do: Instead of having those credentials dumped at the end (which is what AI usually does), you want to include that a little bit earlier, maybe like the second paragraph, but not at the end. That way they’re seeing that little tidbit.
Rewrite it to connect to the pitch angle. Like, “Sarah’s been featured in Forbes,” but make it: “Sarah’s framework for [this specific thing you’re pitching] was featured in Forbes last month.”
It’s not just “she’s been featured in Forbes.” It’s: What did she talk about? What is she known for? She’s getting expert coverage for her unique process or framework in Forbes. It shows she is a vetted expert and it talks about what she is sharing that gives her that high level of expertise.
Before (Generic Credential Dump – Gets Skimmed Over):
“I’d love to introduce you to Sarah Chen, a financial advisor who specializes in helping millennials build wealth. She has some great insights on recession-proofing your portfolio.
Sarah has over 10 years experience in financial planning. She’s been featured in Forbes, CNBC, and the Wall Street Journal. She holds a CFP certification and has helped over 500 clients. She’s also the host of the Money Moves podcast.”
Why this fails:
After (Strategic Social Proof – Gets Credibility):
“I’d love to introduce you to Sarah Chen, whose 3-2-1 budgeting method was featured in Forbes’ ‘New Rules of Money’ series last month. Given your recent article on Gen Z’s approach to investing, Sarah has a counterintuitive take: the recession-proof portfolio isn’t about playing defense—it’s about strategic offense in three specific sectors.”
Why this works:
Yeah, it’s nice to list your resume and all the things that make you truly an expert. But she has her own method. She was featured in Forbes for that method. That’s very relevant to this editor and helps position her as an authority without having to list every single thing she’s ever accomplished in her professional career.
A common mistake to avoid: Don’t list every credential. Pick the one or two that matter to this editor.
I really believe social proof is not bragging. It’s kind of like risk reduction for the journalist. You’re showing that this expert source is credible, reliable to support an article on a specific topic, especially if they’ve been featured before on that very topic or can speak to something connected to it.
You’re picking one or two things as social proof to show that they’re not just going to be featuring some bozo off the internet who happened to find the journalist’s email, but someone who is an expert, credible, reliable source to support a position that they want to make on this particular topic.
Tell them exactly what you want. What do you want? What do they have to do next?
The problem with AI writing: It has vague endings. Like, “Let me know if you’d like to discuss this further.” It’s just very generic. What happens is that journalists don’t know what you’re actually asking for, and they’re not going to take the time to try to figure it out.
What do you want me to do next? They’re not going to read it, read it again, figure it out, reach out to you and say, “What’s next?”
You need to make it very specific.
Instead of “let me know if you’d like to discuss further,” you’re going to say something like:
And you want to give them an easy out. You don’t want to just shut down and get a no. You want to give them an easy out and leave the door open. Something along the lines of: “If this timing isn’t right, I’d love to know what you are working on for the next quarter.”
Then maybe you add a line about your availability so they know how to connect, when you’re available. They don’t have to ask. You want to eliminate that back and forth.
Before (Vague AI Ending – Gets Ignored):
“I’d love to discuss this further with you at your convenience. Please let me know if you’re interested in learning more about this story. I’m happy to provide additional information or connect you with my client for an interview. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Best regards, Sarah”
Why this fails:
After (Strong CTA – Gets Response):
“Would this work as a 500-word contributed article for your small business section? I can have a draft to you by Friday.
Alternatively, if you’d prefer to interview my client directly, she’s available for a 20-minute call this Thursday or next Tuesday morning.
If neither of those angles are a fit, not a problem—I’d love to know what topics you are planning to cover in Q1 so I can send relevant pitches your way.
Best, Sarah”
Why this works:
You’re offering a specific format. They know exactly what it is you’re offering. Contributed article. You could also offer three to five bullet points or quotes, tips and strategies around a specific topic. You’re showing they can talk about this not just as a contributed article (which means the editor would consider running that with your client as the author), but you can also offer quotes or tips where they can include your client as the source, not as the author of the piece, but as a source they quoted to make their point.
The specific placement mentioning the small business section shows that you know their publication, you know what that writer is actually writing for.
The timeline—when you include “by Friday”—creates some urgency. It shows that you are reliable.
If you give an alternative option like a phone interview with specific dates, that gives them a choice without having to go back and forth figuring out schedules and without being vague. “Let me know if you’re interested”—am I interested? That’s pretty vague. You’re giving them an alternative option with a phone interview. It gives them a clear choice and some things to choose from without the back and forth.
“If neither fit” is an easy out and it takes the pressure off and it opens the relationship up to continuing down the line. If neither fit, let me know what you are working on. You’re like, no pressure. I’m building a relationship. How can I help you?
The forward-looking question—what are you working on in the future—is valuable intel. If they give you any information whatsoever, it is valuable information that you can keep and reference. And also think: maybe other editors are working on topics around the same timeline as well. It gives you the opportunity to turn a maybe or a no into something that you can reference in the future to give them even more targeted, relevant information that they’re considering.
The tone you take here, if you notice, it’s pretty confident. You’re not begging. You’re not waiting like “I’ll just be over here waiting for the phone to ring. Please call me.” You’re presenting clear options.
Vague calls to action are going to get vague responses or no response at all. These specific CTAs are going to get a yes or a no answer. And even a no answer is valuable.
Yeah, of course we all want to get yeses. But sometimes you’re like, did they get it? Did they read it? What are they thinking? Even if it’s a no, you can always follow up and you know they got your pitch, you know they read it. And now you can open up and build a relationship.
I created this AI Pitch Editor and it is a copy-paste template that’s going to walk you through these four edits every single time.
Here’s how it works:
Generate your pitch in ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini—whatever your AI tool is. (I’m kind of moving away from GPT and moving a little bit more towards Gemini. I think the newest version is actually really cool and kind of top of my list of the AI options out there right now.)
But whatever you’re using, generate the pitch first in AI and you get your draft.
And instead of just doing quick little edits and sending it over, you are not going to send that raw robot pitch.
You are going to open the template, which you can grab at generationacademy.com/resources (or we’ll put it in the show notes for this episode). You’re going to take your AI output and paste it into this template.
The template has four sections. I just held up two fingers if you’re watching on YouTube. I literally said the word “four” and held up two fingers like a total dork. Anyway, FOUR sections. And now I am holding up the right number of fingers. Oh my god, it’s been a long day.
It’s going to give you an exact formula: Editor name. “I saw your piece, [title], from [date].” Then the specific detail that connects.
You will fill in the blanks based on your research and you drop that sentence before your AI’s opening paragraph. So you have this personalized, connected, timely little bit of copy that a robot just can’t write itself. You’re giving it—we give you the prompts, you put in information, and then your AI is going to generate a sentence that is a great personalized intro.
It’s going to show you exactly where to place it right after the personalization, before the main pitch, and give you that phrase structure. It says, “With [current event], [transition to angle]”—that’s in the template.
You will spend two minutes on Google finding what’s trending in their publication this week, finding maybe what’s trending on the topic that’s been announced in the news that’s newsworthy and now-worthy. And you are going to connect the dots with that prompt in the news peg.
It lists the AI phrases that you need to cut. “I hope this finds you well,” “excited to share,” and all that other generic stuff that’s just filler and robot speak trying to sound human.
Then our template is going to show you where to insert your client’s most relevant credential. One sentence. How to tie it into the pitch that makes them an expert, credible expert source for them to consider. One sentence and that’s it.
It gives you the call to action formula that we just covered. That specific format, the alternative option, the forward-looking question. You just fill in your details and it is going to give you a very strong call to action so you can close your pitch with the next step to take being very, very clear.
The template will also include before and after examples—the ones I just shared with you—so you can reference it any time you like. If you’re like, “Oh wait, what does this actually look like?” Those examples are going to be in there for you.
AI gives you the pitch structure in two minutes, and you are going to add a strategic layer that’s human, that’s all about connection, in like five to 10 minutes. So think like seven to 12 minutes per pitch.
I know what you’re thinking: “Jen, that’s so much longer than just letting AI do it.”
I know. Sure.
But here’s the math:
If you send 50 generic AI pitches and you have a 2% (sometimes lower) response rate, that gets you like one yes.
Sending 20 edited pitches—which you can write in the same amount of time—with a 25% response rate gets you five responses, five yeses, five next steps.
So which one sounds better to you? One reply to your junky generic pitch? Or possibly five because you have now—yeah, it takes a little longer, but you don’t have to send as many and you’re going to have a higher response rate.
You’re not here to send volume. You’re here to get coverage.
The right kind of coverage. And coverage is going to come from pitches that feel human, that feel timely. There’s some sense of “why now” that is answered. And that feel like they were written for that specific editor.
It’s that simple. It’s using AI, taking the output that it gives you, and still following the fundamentals of timely, relevant, targeted, tantalizing pitches using AI to help you do that. But understanding it does take a little bit of human input, research, all of that.
But we make it easy for you.
You can get this resource—seriously, if you’re not driving, pause the episode.
Go to generationacademy.com/resources and download the AI Pitch Editor template.
Then you’re going to make a copy, save it to your Google Drive. You can bookmark it, print it, whatever works for you.
The next time you use AI to help you draft your pitch, paste your AI output into the template and make those edits. Then send that version.
Do this for the next 10 pitches that you send and track your response rate.
Because we know this hybrid approach actually works. You’ve got AI for speed and you for strategy, and both of those things matter.
Now, all of this—the templates, the pitch psychology, what’s behind why editors respond to some emails and ignore others—this is one piece that you can now easily and quickly conquer using AI, using our template that makes it human, makes it timely, makes it “why now they should consider,” and puts it all together in a way that’s going to get the yes.
So you just learned how to edit AI pitches so they don’t sound like every other robot-generated email flooding editors’ inboxes. And that’s critical.
But I need you to zoom out for a second.
We’ve been talking about AI a lot. And it’s funny because every time somebody mentions to me they’re listening to my podcast, they say, “I love how much you’re talking about AI in our industry and nobody else is really. We’re all trying to kind of hide it. Either we’re afraid of it or we’re leveraging it and nobody wants to talk about it.”
But I’m here to talk about it.
AI isn’t just changing how we pitch. It’s changing everything about how PR agencies operate.
It has been said that we are in the middle of the Fourth Industrial Revolution right now. Every single industry is massively disrupted by the advent of AI and we cannot ignore it, including ours.
The agencies that are figuring out how to use AI strategically—whether it’s for positioning or pricing or writing their copy, figuring out their unique value proposition in a crowded PR industry, maybe that’s your actual business model and AI is helping you figure that out—those agencies like mine (because we are doing this), they’re going to dominate.
And the ones that are still running their agency like it’s 2019? A little pre-pandemic push? Just like the good old days? Those are going to be the agencies that end up falling by the wayside.
The Little Pony Express. It’s a cute historical footnote.
I don’t want that for you. I don’t want that for me.
You didn’t build your agency to become the 21st century version of dial-up internet. I don’t want that for you.
We cover the 2026 PR agency model. That is the fundamental business model shift that’s happening. It’s happening right now, whether you’re ready or not.
I talk about why the traditional model is broken, how to price when AI can do execution, and the positioning shift that you need to make that will make you irreplaceable even in the era of AI.
I put together this entire webinar to share with you so that you understand the new era of agency model that incorporates AI, how to talk to clients about it, how to get your clients considered in AI—all of that.
I did that because I don’t want any of us to get left behind while everyone else is riding the AI wave.
I want you to keep your eyes peeled on your email inbox. Because if you grab that template, we will send you shortly some information about this masterclass that I put together that is honestly one of the most well-received classes we have ever, ever, ever taught.
People are like, “This is exactly what I needed to hear. Incredibly helpful.”
I don’t want you to be left behind. And that means when you have this opportunity to attend our masterclass, I want you to show up and I want you to pay attention.
Because you can have the best storytelling skills in the world. You can craft the best pitches in the world. But if your entire business model is built for a pre-AI era, you, my friend, are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
You’re going down.
And I don’t want that for you, and I certainly don’t want that for me.
Go download that free Pitch Editor template and use it this week. Keep track of how those significant—simple but significant—edits are changing your response rate.
Then keep your eyes peeled on your email so we can talk about future-proofing your entire agency, not just your pitches, but your entire business model moving forward.
It’s coming. It’s really good. I want you to be there.
Pay attention to emails we send you so you don’t miss that masterclass all around how to run your business in the era of AI.
In the meantime, go out there and crush it this week.
I’m going to be here crushing it too, especially because my kids are at school. The world is my oyster. I can conquer the world. At least that’s how it feels when you have like six hours of your day just totally slated with no interruptions.
I’m a new woman. 2026, here I come.
Crush it this week. And I will see you here in our next episode of Pitching Powerhouse.
Ready to fix your AI pitches? Get the free worksheet: https://jenerationacademy.com/resources
Want more pitch training? Check out The Pitch Lab, Jen’s membership community where you’ll learn everything that gets editors to say yes.
Connect with Jen: @jenerationpr on Instagram
Be the first to comment