The Strawberry Test: Why Your AI Marketing Assistant is Probably Failing You

I’m a Wix Partner. I love tech. I love efficiency. So, when the AI marketing assistants started popping up, promising to write my blog posts, design my graphics, and handle my SEO while I sipped coffee, I was the first person in line. I thought, "well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em"

Well, I tried it. I let the AI take the wheel for a bit. And honestly? It was a disaster.

The blogs it wrote were... well, slop, is the only word for it. It was fluffy, robotic, and about as interesting as reading a water heater manual. When I tried the AI image generators for social media, things got even weirder. I ended up with unhinged graphics featuring words that were almost English but also entirely made-up. It was so obviously AI that it was actually embarrassing.

If you’ve scrolled through my blog lately, you can probably tell exactly which ones were written by the machine. I’m leaving them up as a cautionary tale.

Here’s the thing about tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Co-pilot. They are world-class people-pleasers. They’ll tell you exactly what you want to hear. They’ll agree with your bad ideas and find "data" to support your bias rather than challenging you to think critically (The rise of AI therapy is actually one of my deepest concerns for the human race at the moment). In other words, AI is a world-class sycophant.

But marketing isn't about being a yes-person. It’s about having a point of view. There are such things as bad ideas, bad advice, and bad ads. Many people fail in business because their marketing strategy and content are of poor quality. One of the biggest reasons people fail on social media is that their content is bad. Poor imagery, no real direction or cohesion, their videos are like long monologues. AI is being trained on the bad examples as much as the good ones. Arguably, there are more bad examples on the internet than good ones.

And don't even get me started on the "SEO Optimization" features. I watched an AI take a perfectly readable post and force in irrelevant keywords that had nothing to do with my business, making the whole blog complete gibberish. Good SEO means writing content people actually want to read. Nobody wants to read a blog that was "optimized" by a bot that doesn't understand the difference between a strategy and a sandwich.

Seriously, have you watched the AI strawberry video?

If you want to know how much to trust AI on autopilot, try the "Strawberry Test." Ask an AI how many R’s are in the word "Strawberry." Most of them will insist, with total confidence, that there are only two.

It’s wild. If a tool can’t get a basic fact right, or even count the letters in a fruit, why on earth would you trust it to build your marketing strategy or speak to your customers?

I’ve seen those AI summaries at the top of Google, too. They look so enthralling and fast until you realize the answer is factually wrong. (Pro tip: If you're tired of them too, add -AI to the end of your Google search. It’ll filter out the summaries and give you real websites written by real humans again.)

There are a multitude of courses out there on "how to become a prompt engineer." And sure, there are great ways to use AI. I use it to critique my drafts, help me organize my messy thoughts, or find a clearer way to say something I’m struggling with.

But using it to replace your voice? Sorry to be a buzz kill, but people can tell.

If I can tell you’re using AI, your customers can too. It’s not a secret anymore. The slop has a certain smell (or more accurately, an overuse of —), and people are starting to develop an allergy to it.

When AI was first released, we saw writing jobs disappear overnight. Everyone thought the machines had won. But guess what? I’m starting to see those jobs come back. Real people are rejecting the generated images, the horrible flood of AI books on amazon and don't even get me started on what's happened to YouTube. Your audience lives in the real world, and they want to hear your authentic voice.

Companies are now specifically posting ads that say: "Must be able to write without AI." Why? Because human connection is the only thing AI can’t fake. It can’t feel the burnout of an artist trying to go viral. It doesn’t know what it’s like to get drenched by the latest atmospheric river on Vancouver Island. It doesn't have a soul.

If it feels too good to be true, it probably is. Letting a bot handle your marketing is convenient, but "convenient slop" doesn't build a brand. It just adds to the online clutter. I'm also increasingly shocked at folks in my industry who will build you a full website using 100% AI-generated copy, or the SEOs who think 100% AI-generated blog posts are worth the same rate as a person who methodically does their research and creates content an audience can identify with. So, this is a cautionary post too; make sure whoever you hire is going to provide a product they've put their own time and effort into.

Let's rehumanize the internet. Let's get back to writing things that actually matter. Use the tools to help you work, but don't let them take your voice. Because at the end of the day, people buy from people, not from a bot that insists there are only two R's in the word strawberry.