The AI Sandwich: A Practical Framework for Responsible AI Writing

Hot take: Last semester I spent a week teaching my Business Communication students about AI and marketing.

More specifically, I taught them how to use generative AI to write their assignments.

Some educators might cringe at that idea. I don't.

My students are going to graduate into workplaces where ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Copilot are part of the daily workflow. Pretending those tools don't exist doesn't prepare them for the careers they're about to begin. What does prepare them is learning how to use AI responsibly. One of the most practical frameworks I've found is the AI Sandwich, a concept developed by marketing strategist and copywriting educator Kerry Harrison. I first learned about it during one of her webinars in 2024, and I've been using it ever since because it keeps humans where they belong—at the beginning and the end of the writing process.

For this assignment, students had to show their work, just in a 21st-century way.

Step 1: Write a 150–250 word executive summary completely on their own. No AI. Just their ideas, organization, and voice.

Step 2: Create a thoughtful AI prompt, include their original draft, and ask AI to improve clarity, organization, tone, or flow.

Step 3: Submit the prompt they wrote, identify which AI tool they used, and include the unedited AI response. I wanted to see exactly how they interacted with the technology—not just the final result.

Step 4: Rewrite the AI version into a polished executive summary that reflected their own voice, experience, judgment, and professional perspective.

That's where the learning happened.

• AI can reorganize sentences

• AI can suggest stronger transitions

• AI can make writing more concise

AI can't tell the story of a difficult client meeting, explain why one recommendation fits your organization's culture better than another, or decide whether the final message truly represents what you believe. Those decisions still belong to the writer. After a semester, I know how most of my students write. If someone submits work that suddenly sounds nothing like them, it's usually obvious. My goal was never to catch students using AI. My goal was to teach them how to use it well.

That decision has only been reinforced during my own job search. Several companies I've applied to have explicitly asked how I use generative AI in my work and how comfortable I am incorporating it into marketing and communication workflows. The conversation has already shifted from "Do you use AI?" to "How do you use it responsibly?"

Why? Because after graduation, employers aren't going to ask whether someone used ChatGPT. They're going to ask whether they can trust the work that has their name on it. AI tools will continue to evolve. Original thinking, sound judgment, and authentic communication never go out of style.

The AI Sandwich: A Practical Framework for Responsible AI Writing