My drafts sound like everyone else's
Take the AI out of the first draft and put it at the end. Write the draft yourself, find the one sentence nobody else would have written, and build on that. Then ask the AI only where a reader would get lost, and tell it not to supply sentences. The sameness comes in at the drafting stage, so that is the stage to protect.
What is going on
The piece is clean. It is balanced. It has three tidy points and a conclusion that could sit under anyone's name. You may not have asked the AI to write it. Asking it to "tighten" or "improve the flow" is enough, because its idea of better tends towards what most other texts already do.
There is evidence for the effect. In an experiment with 293 writers (Doshi and Hauser, Science Advances, 2024, peer reviewed), stories written with AI-suggested ideas were judged more creative one at a time, and were more similar to each other than stories written without. Those were short stories from one session, so it may not carry over to your kind of writing. It does match what you are noticing.
What to do this week
Draft with the chat closed
One short piece this week, start to finish, in your own words. Let it be uneven. Uneven is where voice lives.
Mark your sentence
Read it back and underline the one line that sounds most like you: an odd comparison, a blunt opinion, a detail only you would know. If there is none, write one.
Ask for confusion, not polish
"Tell me where you got lost or bored. Do not rewrite anything and do not suggest sentences." Fix those places yourself.
Compare the two versions
Take an older piece the AI smoothed. Put it next to this one. Circle what the smoothing removed. That list is your voice.
What not to do
- Do not ask the AI to "write in my voice". You get an imitation of your habits, not your thinking.
- Do not accept "improve the flow" edits in bulk. Take them one at a time, and reject the ones that sand off an edge you meant.
- Do not judge the new draft by polish. Judge it by whether a friend would know you wrote it.
The honest limit
Your own draft will have more flaws, and some readers and clients prefer the smooth version. For writing that only has to be clear, the AI's average is fine. Save this effort for work where sounding like you is the point. We cannot say how long a voice takes to return. It comes back with use.
Questions
Can I still use AI for editing?
Yes, for errors and for clarity. Ask for a list of problems and solve them yourself. The line to hold is that it does not write your sentences.
What if my real voice is just worse?
It is probably rougher, not worse. Rough can be edited by you. Average cannot be made distinctive by anyone. Give it three or four pieces before you decide.
Does everyone's AI-assisted writing really sound alike?
Not always, and one experiment on short stories cannot settle it. Trust your own ear. If you noticed the sameness in your drafts, that is the evidence that counts for you.