Episode 92 - Charlie Rhomberg on AI-native writing

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In this episode of Content Briefly, I spoke with Charlie Rhomberg, a freelance content writer who entered the field right around the time ChatGPT launched. Unlike many of us who had to adapt our established workflows to incorporate AI, Charlie is what you might call "AI-native" — he's never known content creation without these tools.

Charlie's perspective is fascinating because he approaches AI with no preconceived notions about how content "should" be created. Instead, he's developed a highly iterative process that combines the efficiency of AI with the creativity and critical thinking that only humans can provide.

"It's Like Sculpting Marble" — How an AI-Native Writer Works

When Charlie describes his writing process using AI, he uses a compelling metaphor: "The analogy I would use is kind of like sculpting marble almost... if you put in a prompt, 'write me a blog on XYZ,' what you're going to get out is maybe 60, 65, you're lucky 70% of the way to an actual good finished blog post."

From there, Charlie engages in an iterative process of refinement:

"So from there, it's really kind of figuring out where's the human intervention needed to get this thing into a more polished piece... A lot of the human piece is kind of thinking about what's the original thought I want to get across for this piece, or what's the unique angle somebody's going to find interesting?"

Instead of asking AI to write a complete article in one go, Charlie works section by section, moving back and forth between the AI tool and his document, gradually sculpting the content into its final form.

Quality Over Speed: AI Doesn't Mean 20-Minute Articles

One misconception Charlie wants to dispel is that AI allows you to create high-quality content in minutes:

"You can get there in 20 minutes and it can maybe be readable and fine, but it's probably not going to have really any original insights, probably going to read pretty dry, it's just not going to be high quality."

Despite using AI tools extensively, Charlie estimates that creating a polished article still takes him 5-10 hours. That's faster than traditional methods, but nowhere near the quick-fix that some might imagine.

This is especially important in today's environment where search engines are becoming more adept at identifying AI-generated content:

"These search engines, they're becoming very adept at picking out AI content as the internet is just flooded with stuff that came right out of these tools... It's actually almost more important to kind of err on the quality side of things because you're just going to get lost in a sea of AI generated [content]."

The Art of AI Iteration vs. One-Shot Prompting

Charlie's approach differs from what many content creators are doing with AI. Rather than crafting elaborate, detailed prompts trying to get perfect content in one go, he prefers rapid iteration:

"I know some people like super long prompts where they kind of fit everything in at once. I prefer much more to kind of couple quick prompts, see what it does, iterate accordingly. I find they work best that way."

This iterative approach extends to capturing a brand's voice and tone as well. While some creators spend significant time training custom GPTs on a client's content, Charlie has found mixed results with that approach:

"I've had kind of mixed results with trained GPTs actually... Sometimes it just doesn't quite get it or isn't even as good as just a generic chat where you feed in maybe three blogs as a style and tone example and then kind of just run from there and iterate."

Staying on the Cutting Edge in a Rapidly Evolving Space

Unlike many writers who feel threatened by AI, Charlie sees it as an opportunity to develop specialized expertise:

"I think it's actually been a benefit to my career thus far just because just using these tools for hours a day for multiple years, I feel like I'm kind of on the cutting edge of how to use them and what they're good at, what they aren't good at."

Charlie stays current by experimenting with new tools as they emerge:

"I'm really just always trying to stay abreast of what new tools are coming out. When you get a Claude out of nowhere last week, it's like, 'Hey, let's go play around, see what this can do.' And lo and behold, it's really fricking good at writing actually... I don't lean on any one tool specifically. I like to bounce around based on what each is good at."

This constant curiosity and willingness to experiment helps Charlie future-proof his career despite downward pressure on rates:

"The way I think about future-proofing myself is just staying on the cutting edge of these tools, making sure even if a client could maybe learn it themselves, it's like, 'Hey, this guy already knows how to do it. I'll just pay him to do it instead of going through the efforts to learn it myself.'"

The Human Touch Still Matters (Especially for Intros and Conclusions)

Despite his extensive use of AI tools, Charlie is quick to point out where human creativity remains essential:

"Intro and conclusions, AI really doesn't get how to make those snappy or get it right. I feel like those are where human intervention is required most."

This distinction between what AI can do well and what requires human intervention is key to Charlie's approach. He's not trying to remove himself from the process but rather using AI to handle the parts of the writing process that don't require human creativity, which frees him up to focus on the elements that do.

When asked if content marketers should be using AI in their workflow, Charlie is pragmatic:

"If you're not using AI tools at all at any part of the process, I think you are probably kind of falling behind and not being as efficient as possible... If you're purely the Luddite view of 'I'm doing it human only and I don't want to touch these things,' I think, yeah, I would think you're probably falling behind."

Want to learn more about AI-native content creation? Listen to the full podcast episode or connect with Charlie on LinkedIn.

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