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Everything My AI Bots Write Gets One More Pass Before It Ships

By Jon Ng, Founder, Novatise · 5 min read · 11 November 2026

Everything my AI bots write goes through one more pass before it ships. Its only job is removing AI slop.

That isn't a line I wrote for this page. Since 9 November 2026, every generated English and Japanese text across my bots and sites has to get a final edit with a shared skill I use for this. The pass can rewrite awkward sentences and cut stock phrases. It cannot add facts, and it is not permission to publish.

I started doing this because the first draft from a model usually still sounds like one. Customers can tell.

The slop conversation, this week

A thread from Zhizhuo Zhou (@zhizdev), posted on 10 November 2026, 04:25 JST, opens with a question a lot of people already had: "Why is AI slop so frustrating to read?"

He argues that AI writing often obscures main ideas and invents awkward phrases, so sentences end up more complex than they need to be, and that many of these patterns break principles from English writing books. In a benchmark of his own, he says AI writing breaks those principles far more often than human writing, with Claude Code replies by far the worst offenders. As of 11 November 2026, the post had 1,829 likes and roughly 119,000 views.

I am repeating his claims here, not confirming how the benchmark was built. The attached chart, "How Often AI and Humans Break Writing Rules", compares AI and human writing on three faults: hidden characters and actions, vague wording, and empty statements with misplaced emphasis. In each group the AI bars are higher.

That matches what I see when a bot drafts a page. The facts may be fine, the voice is not.

Why this matters for a Singapore business

Many Singapore SMEs already use ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini to draft website copy, emails, blog posts and WhatsApp replies. As I wrote in Singapore SMEs Still Treat ChatGPT Like a Toy, buyers also use those tools to shortlist suppliers. There is a second problem, closer to home. If the text you publish still sounds like the tool that drafted it, readers notice.

This is not a ranking claim, and I am not going to invent a traffic number for it. It is a trust problem. A service page stuffed with "leverage", "seamless" and "in today's fast-paced world" makes a small firm sound like every other AI-written page on the internet. In Japanese the tell is often different: every sentence ends the same way, and the piece marches through 「まず、次に、さらに、最後に」 as if it were a template.

At Novatise I build AI bots and websites, and I run those bots across sites in English and Japanese. If I let a bot draft, I have to take responsibility for what ships.

What the last pass actually does

The pass has a narrow job. It should make the text read like a person wrote it, in the same language as the draft, without changing the meaning.

It cuts stock English phrases that show up again and again in model output: "delve", "leverage", "seamless", "unlock", "game-changer", "it's important to note", "in today's fast-paced world". It also looks for habits around those phrases: em-dash piles, neat lists of three, and paragraphs that each end with a tidy summary line.

For Japanese, it looks for the same kind of padding: 「〜することが重要です」, 「さまざまな」, 「いかがでしたか」, 「鍵となります」, and a run of sentences that all end in 「です。」 or 「ます。」. The fix is not slang. It is a more natural mix of sentence length and endings, while keeping the original tone.

What it must not do matters as much:

  • Keep every fact, number, name and claim.
  • Never invent statistics, quotes, sources or personal stories.
  • Stay roughly the same length.
  • Keep the original format. A paragraph stays a paragraph. A table stays a table.

If a draft is missing a real example, the pass can leave a blank for me to fill. It should not invent the example.

An illustrative before and after

The passages below were written for this article. They are not from a client, and they are not from a live site.

Before (a typical AI draft):

In today's fast-paced world, it is important to note that Riverside Dental Clinic in Tampines leverages cutting-edge technology to deliver a seamless, robust patient experience. Whether you're booking a routine check-up or seeking emergency care, our dedicated team is committed to unlocking your best smile. In conclusion, choosing the right clinic is a crucial step on your journey to better oral health.

After the pass:

Riverside Dental Clinic in Tampines offers routine check-ups and emergency dental care. The clinic uses modern equipment, but what matters to a patient is simpler: you can book a visit and see, in plain terms, what the practice actually does.

The clinic name, the area and the two services are unchanged. The filler is gone.

This is an edit, not a publish button

The pass is a final editing step. It is not approval to publish, send, or put a page live.

It will not catch a wrong price, an outdated phone number, or a service you do not actually offer, if those errors were already in the draft. And it will not turn thin research into a good article. If the first draft invented a claim, the right move is to delete the claim, not to polish it.

Someone still has to read the result, check the facts and decide whether it should ship. The draft can be produced by a model. The decision to publish cannot.

A short checklist if you use AI to write

Before a page, email or post goes out:

  1. Cut the stock phrases and the tidy wrap-up lines.
  2. Check every name, number, date, price and claim against a source you trust.
  3. If the draft added a fact you did not give it, delete that fact.
  4. Keep the piece close to the length you actually needed.
  5. For Japanese, read it out loud. If every sentence ends the same way, fix the endings.
  6. Have a person read it once more. Only then publish.

A Novatise AI-search audit is a different job: checking whether assistants name a business accurately. Both start with the same habit: do not ship the first thing a model gives you.

If you want help putting an edit step like this into your own bots, or you want to know what assistants say about your Singapore business, get in touch.

Sources

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