Write Brand Voice Guidelines with AI
Paste 3-5 pieces of your best existing copy into @vustbot in Telegram and ask it to reverse-engineer brand voice guidelines: tone traits, vocabulary rules, sentence rhythm, and do/don't rewrite pairs. One chat produces a working style document you can hand to any writer — first answer free, no signup.
Most brand voice documents are written forward — adjectives first, examples never — which is why nobody uses them. The reverse direction works: your voice already exists in the copy that performed, and extracting its rules is an analysis task models are genuinely good at.
What the AI does in this scenario
- Reverse-engineered from copy you already trust, not invented adjectives
- Concrete rules: sentence length, vocabulary do/don't lists, punctuation habits
- On-voice vs off-voice rewrite pairs — the part writers actually consult
- Stress-tested live: ask the model to write a sample IN the extracted voice
- Iterate per section in one chat
Worked example: write brand voice guidelines with ai
01Input — what you paste
Samples pasted: 3 best-performing newsletter intros and 2 product update posts from our developer-tools startup. All share short sentences, dry humor, zero exclamation marks, "you" address, and mild self-deprecation about our own bugs.
02Output — what comes back
VOICE TRAITS: dry, direct, quietly funny — never enthusiastic. RHYTHM: sentences average 11 words; one-sentence paragraphs allowed for emphasis. VOCABULARY: say "we broke this" not "we identified an issue"; ban: "excited to announce", "game-changer", all exclamation marks. DO/DON'T: ❌ "We're thrilled to ship v2!" ✅ "v2 is out. It fixes the thing you complained about." …(+ address rules, humor boundaries, 4 more rewrite pairs)
How to write brand voice guidelines with ai — step by step
- 1Curate the evidence
Pick 3-5 pieces that sound most like you at your best — performance data beats fondness here. Paste them into @vustbot with one line of context about the company. Weak or off-voice samples produce weak rules.
- 2Ask for rules a stranger could apply
Request the specific artifacts: tone traits with boundaries, vocabulary do/don't lists, sentence-rhythm notes, and 5 on-voice/off-voice rewrite pairs. Forbid adjective soup — "friendly yet professional" is not a rule anyone can follow.
- 3Stress-test before you adopt
Have the model write a fresh paragraph on a new topic using only the extracted guidelines. If it sounds like you, the rules capture the voice; if not, point at the miss and refine the guideline — not the sample.
AI vs doing it manually
Manual wins the founding decision — what the brand should sound like is a strategy call, and if your existing copy is inconsistent or thin, there's nothing good to extract yet; write the source material first. AI wins the codification: humans describe their own voice in flattering abstractions ("bold, human, authentic"), while a model comparing your five best pieces surfaces the mechanical truths — sentence length, banned words, how you handle bad news — that actually transfer to another writer. Extract with AI, then veto anything that's a habit rather than a choice.
The prompt to copy
Analyze these writing samples and produce brand voice guidelines: [PASTE 3-5 PIECES]. Company context: [ONE LINE]. Output sections: (1) 3-4 tone traits, each with a boundary ("funny but never sarcastic about customers"); (2) vocabulary — words/phrases we use, words we ban; (3) sentence rhythm and punctuation habits; (4) 5 do/don't rewrite pairs showing off-voice vs on-voice; (5) how we deliver bad news. Rules must be concrete enough for a new freelancer to apply without asking questions.Frequently asked questions
Can AI figure out my brand voice from existing copy?
Yes — pattern extraction across samples is a core model strength. Given 3-5 strong pieces it will surface regularities you stopped noticing: average sentence length, words you never use, how you open and close. The catch is sample quality; it codifies whatever you feed it, including your bad habits.
What should brand voice guidelines actually contain?
Rules a stranger can apply without judgment calls: bounded tone traits, explicit vocabulary do/don't lists, rhythm notes, and rewrite pairs showing the same message on-voice and off-voice. The rewrite pairs matter most — writers copy examples, not adjectives.
How do I test whether AI voice guidelines really work?
Blind-test them: have the model write a fresh paragraph on a topic your samples never covered, using only the guidelines, and show it to a colleague next to real copy. If they can't reliably pick the imposter, the document does its job.
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Try it on your real task
Send the prompt above with your own facts and judge the output yourself.
Open @vustbot