According to a 2024 Oxford Internet Institute study, Generative AI tools like ChatGPT are reshaping the freelancer market, which comes as no surprise to AI-overloaded freelancers. The key to thriving is using AI tools with intention and strategy.
What Does it Mean to Be an AI-Augmented Freelancer?
You’ve probably heard a variation on, “AI won’t take your job, but someone who works with AI will.”
A 2024 McKinsey report shares “superagency” tools that require a new demand for strategic oversight, contextual thinking, and editorial judgment. Fortunately, savvy freelancers excel at these skills.
AI-augmented freelancers use artificial intelligence to enhance their processes. They outsource time-consuming tasks, such as research and structuring brain dumps, while maintaining control over voice, strategy, and quality.
Such outsourcing is smart. Freelancers have always adapted to new tools, and AI is the latest evolution. Strategic freelancers don’t copy-paste AI output. They use it to sharpen their thinking.
AI makes a great brainstorming partner and organized assistant rather than a ghostwriter. Freelance writing with AI often involves early-stage ideation and exploring angles.
AI gets you started. You shape and polish, add metaphors, nuance, and your client’s brand voice.
AI Tools a Freelancer Uses and How
Understanding how to use AI in your work is a competitive edge. Besides early-stage writing tasks, 2025 freelancers use AI tools for content strategy to surface pain points, objections, and plan editorial calendars. Here are some popular AI tools strategic freelancers use to organize their work.
Favorite Freelancer Tools
From research to improving workflows, these are a few of the current go-tos:
- ChatGPT: For organizing brain dumps, outlining, and messy first drafts.
- Claude: Anecdotally, many freelancers mentioned Claude as an excellent writing partner.
- Perplexity: Easily verified research
- Notion AI: Project planning and building content calendars
- GrammarlyGO: Grammar polish
- Otter: for recording and summarizing calls
Tech Content Writer Anuradha Shiv says,
Writer and Strategist Donna L. Batchelor, MBA, PMP, adds:
Top uses freelancers mentioned for AI tools include:
- Content outlining
- Audience and persona research
- Pulling snippets from testimonials/videos
- Organizing Voice of Customer research
- Content repurposing across platforms
- Exploring new angles
Savvy freelancers are always testing, refining, and adapting their stack to current changing market needs.
How a Freelancer Can Use AI for Strategy
AI tools can help you think.
Specific prompts, follow-up questions, and role-playing make all the difference. The more detailed your prompt, the better your output. You can ask AI to think like a stakeholder. When you prompt it to think like a marketing manager, editor, or ideal buyer, AI can help you identify gaps in coverage, address objections, or refine messaging.
Here’s an example:
“Act like a Marketing Manager at a B2B SaaS company with 50-200 employees. You’re evaluating a new platform to improve your SEO and lead generation. What are your biggest concerns, internal hurdles, and decision-making criteria? What do you need to see or believe before saying yes to a demo?
You can even mine Reddit threads like r/SEO or r/marketing. Grab the top comments or questions and paste them into ChatGPT or other AI tools to analyze pain points and objections. This Voice of Customer research doesn’t replace customer interviews, but it provides insight that can help you refine copy and content strategy.
If you have existing resources, such as customer service tickets, customer interviews, or a community, these are valuable resources for gaining a better understanding of your customers.
One content marketer shared, “I gave it all the posts from a community in our ICP and asked ChatGPT their most relevant concerns/questions/etc. to our product and how we’d message each problem.”
You can swap different roles too, such as “What are the biggest concerns of an operations director at a logistics company?” You can ask what you might be missing or overlooking.
When you have a big list of pain points and objections, you can use those to pressure-test your outlines, messaging, and brainstorm titles. Ask yourself if your draft speaks directly to your reader and guides them to the next step.
AI can help you explore. Use AI tools to explore angles, generate multiple headlines or CTAs based on your research, and revise them using your voice and customer knowledge.
AI can be your thinking partner to help you produce faster and more compelling content.
How to Spot AI-Generated Content
AI tools leave tell-tale signs human editors often catch, and too many of these “tells” scream “AI-generated.” Savvy freelancers eradicate such AI writing flags.
Tell-Tale Signs of AI Writing
These are some of the most common patterns.
- Sentences that start with “By.”
- “By using AI, freelancers can streamline…” Such phrasing can sound stiff or passive. Use the active voice. “AI helps freelancers work faster without sacrificing quality.”
- Sentence-case bullet formatting.
- Human writers tend to use title case for easy scanning. Unless your client’s style guide says otherwise, stick with title case.
- Improper capitalization in headers.
- AI often capitalizes common words like “A” or “Is.” Style guides like the Associated Press or the Chicago Style Guide don’t.
- Long, meandering sentences that may stretch to 30 words or more.
- Short sentences are easier to read (especially on phone screens). Break long sentences into two or three shorter ones.
- Overuse of “This” at the start of sentences.
- Sentences like “This allows businesses to… this means marketers should…” get repetitive and confusing. Instead, use specific nouns, “Notion AI” replaces “this tool.”
Why These Patterns Should Matter to a Freelancer
People can tell the difference between a human voice and a robot’s. AI writing has a mechanical rhythm, and if you read enough of it, it starts jumping off the screen at you. It might be factually accurate, but the repeated patterns and vague phrasing sound robotic.
AI tools are only a starting point.
The “Ugly Draft” Approach to AI
AI makes a great intern. AI tools are fast, tireless, and can turn a meandering idea into a rough draft in minutes.
Smart freelancers use AI to generate first drafts, explore ideas, and potentially uncover blind spots. Using AI for your ugly first draft gives you fodder to ignite your creativity.
Need to organize a pile of messy handwritten notes? Stuck on a blog intro? AI organizes and delivers options in seconds.
As best-selling author Jodi Picoult famously said, “You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”
Why Ugly First Drafts Are the Best Use Case
AI is excellent at building structure and eliminating writer’s block. You’ll bring your writing brain to rewrite for voice, tone, accuracy, and flow.
AI tools are great at organizing ideas and pulling research, but they can’t share your lived perspective or brand nuance. You also need to validate every fact, as AI tools are known to “hallucinate” or lie.
Use AI to kick off your writing work, and use your brain to revise, polish, and shape the story.
Real-World Examples from Freelancers
Lisa Plendl is a former IBM copywriter and tech journalist. She also runs an AI tool for freelancers.
Amy Ragland is a freelance writer for financial firms:
Here’s how one marketing manager is using it:
5 Freelancer Rules for Using AI Well in 2025
Thriving freelancers are exploring ways to use AI. These rules can help you harness its capabilities without losing your human edge.
- Use AI for structure, not soul: AI excels at shaping outlines and jumpstarting ugly first drafts, but it’s not a replacement for human nuance or brand voice.
- Edit with your voice, not its tone: AI can mimic tone but can’t match your rhythm, quirks, or judgment. Expect to rewrite heavily to preserve your unique voice and style.
- Validate everything AI generates: You’ve heard AI “hallucinates.” AI tools confidently deliver perfect quotes or statistics for your article, but they don’t exist when you double-check. Verify facts, review bullets and headers for formatting, and shorten long sentences.
- Treat AI like a research assistant: Use AI to explore personas, ask about pain points, surface potential objections, or suggest angles. Use your human insight to add personality and originality to the work.
- Show your work when it adds value: Used AI to build an outline or jumpstart your draft? Share the before-and-after images with your client to build trust.
The AI-Augmented Freelancer Wins by Staying Human
In 2025, AI-savvy freelancers treat AI like a tool, not a shortcut. AI can shorten research time and get your first, messy draft out quicker, but your human insight and voice make your work shine.
About the Author
Jennifer Phillips April is a seasoned B2B technology copywriter with a focus on hospitality tech, pet tech, and B2C pet industry. With a background in journalism and over a decade of experience, she blends SEO expertise with customer psychology. Check out her nDash profile to learn more about how she can level up your content strategy: Jennifer Phillips April.