Posted: June 11, 2026 Posted by: John Scalzi
The other morning I was sorting through the multiple emails I receive daily from scammers. People using “marketing” services, appearing on “podcasts,” joining “book clubs,” using “AI” to praise my books in order to make a name for themselves in Hollywood, were all a front to extort money from me, and one email in particular caught my attention, written in “Ai.” This wasn’t because it was more trusted than other domains, but because the domain it came from was a specific, legitimate business domain, not Gmail, Hotmail, or even (surprisingly) AOL.com. In a fit of panic, I tracked down the contact email addresses of the company’s director and his management team and informed them that I suspected the domain had been hacked by a scammer.
I then received a reply saying that no, in fact, the email was clearly written using “AI” and was legitimate to me.
People: Don’t do that. Don’t use “AI” for business communications, especially creatives. Until now.
Let’s put this into perspective: Okay. Literally dozens Every day I receive dozens of spam and scam emails, all of which use “AI” to flatter me about my work and try to scam me out of cash. In fact, I receive so many of them that I can tell at a glance that not only is the text written in “AI”, but which of the “big four” LLMs was used for farts at this point. Hell, I literally just now I received a scam email in Spanish, but even before I pressed the “translate” button, I knew what it was saying.
This shows how predictable “AI” writing is and how often it is used for fraudulent purposes. At this point, my brain immediately associates the text “AI” in the email directly with “scam.” That is its only purpose.
The point is, I’m not special. every Writers and creative people, from the most successful to the newest, are inundated with fraudulent spam emails like this. There are many every day. Almost all of us would attest that we have come to associate “AI” generated text with attempted fraud.
If you, a legitimate company, were to use AI to communicate with me, I wouldn’t think, “Wow, that’s a really well-crafted email that makes me want to engage with the sender in a mutually collaborative way.” You think, “This is a fucking scam,” or, in the most charitable scenario, “This company has been hacked and scammers are using their domain to scam people out of money.” perhaps you You don’t know this because you are not a victim of endless fraud via “AI”. but I It is because I know this that I would like to say this now. Using “AI” in professional communication makes one look unprofessional. Sounds like a fucking scammer.
There is a solution! Do not use “AI” to write professional correspondence. Remember the days just four years ago when you wrote almost all your emails by hand? Do it again! It’s not difficult. You won’t look like a fraud either. Your email also looks less like other bad email scams, so it’s more likely to be read and treated as if it came from a real person. It makes business sense.
Also, aside from the “scammer-like” perspective, would you want to do business with someone who can’t even write a single email by themselves? This is a question of “basic ability.” If you can’t write simple business communications yourself, how can you be confident about other aspects of your business? What value do you have to me? That is, I Also I have access to “AI,” but if that’s what you’re bringing to the table, what do I need you for? As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. If my first impression of you is that you’re letting an “AI” do the talking, then my impression is that you’re not offering me anything.
So, yeah. “AI”? Do not use it in business emails. It does nothing positive for you, only negative things. Write the email yourself, or if you’re the boss, pay someone to do it for you. It will make a difference, and at least it will be much less likely to end up in the spam folder right away.
By the way, as of now, about 30 minutes after I started writing this, I have received 8 fraudulent emails using “AI”, including the one in Spanish mentioned above. This is what you will face when sending something to my email. If you’re using “AI” to compose your business emails, this is also about classifying yourself. Think about it.
— J.S.
