So I’ve been testing a few AI email generators over the past couple of weeks, mainly for client outreach drafts, and I have genuinely mixed feelings about where these tools are right now.
The speed is real. I’m not going to pretend it isn’t. Dropping a context brief into a prompt and getting a usable first draft in under a minute is legitimately useful when you’re juggling five client retainers and none of them have the same tone requirements. I get that.
But here’s the thing: ‘usable first draft’ is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The problem I keep running into isn’t that the emails are obviously bad. They’re not. They’re competent. Grammatically clean, structurally sensible, no major errors. The problem is they read like every other AI email I’ve seen. Same opening moves. Same rhythm. Same tendency to land on phrases like ‘I wanted to reach out’ and ‘looking forward to connecting.’ It’s the uncanny valley of professional communication.
For low-stakes internal emails, this is fine. Schedule a meeting, confirm a brief, follow up on an invoice. Sure. But for client outreach, especially cold outreach where first impressions are doing heavy lifting, I’m not convinced the generic-but-polished output is actually better than spending 20 extra minutes writing something that sounds like a real person.
I’ve been using Walter Writes for some of the structural work, and the drafts are cleaner than raw ChatGPT output, but I still end up rewriting about 40% of any email I actually send. Which is fine. But it makes me wonder if ‘AI email generator’ is actually the right mental model, or if these tools are really just sophisticated starting-point engines that still require a real writer to finish the job.
Anyone else building these into their workflow? What’s the actual time saving looking like for you once you factor in editing?
ngl i use these for school stuff sometimes and even I can tell when something sounds too canned. if a 17 year old with basically no email experience can spot it, probably not a great sign for actual professional use lol
40% rewrite sounds about right for anything that needs a real voice. I’ve landed on using these tools for the boilerplate parts only. Subject lines, CTAs, the opening context sentence. The middle has to be mine or it reads like a template. Saves maybe 15 minutes per email, which adds up across a week of client work but isn’t the revolution the demos promise.
The ‘looking forward to connecting’ problem is real and I haven’t found a consistent fix for it. I’ve tried adding style notes to my prompts, giving examples of my actual writing, even pasting previous emails I was happy with. It helps. It doesn’t solve it. The tool still defaults to a certain professional blandness under pressure.
For SEO outreach specifically, where I’m sending volume, the time saving is worth tolerating mediocre personalization. For anything relationship-dependent, I write it myself.
The rewrite percentage depends a lot on how much you invest in the prompt upfront. I’ve been coaching clients through this and the ones who treat the prompt like a brief, with tone guidance, recipient context, desired outcome, and examples, consistently get more usable drafts. It’s still not done, but it’s closer. The tool is only as specific as what you give it.
Back when we were scaling the agency, we tried fully automating outreach emails and the open rates tanked. Didn’t take long to figure out why. People are surprisingly good at detecting templates even when they can’t articulate what feels off.
The lesson still applies. These tools work when they’re part of the workflow, not the whole workflow. What most teams miss here is that AI email tools are a leverage play for writers, not a replacement for them. The margin lives in the 60% you keep.