GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani has a strict rule for himself when it comes to AI: He won’t use AI to write. And he expects his employees to follow suit.
“If somebody sends me a document and I can tell pretty quickly it was written by AI, I don’t read it,” GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani told Business Insider. “Because if the person couldn’t take the time to write it, then I definitely shouldn’t take the time to read it.”
This is part of a series of stories from Business Insider’s conversation with GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani:
• The life-changing leadership advice Uber’s CEO gave GoDaddy’s CEO
• GoDaddy’s CEO on when small businesses should — and shouldn’t — use AI
Bhutani said employees can use AI to help them for things like better understanding a word or phrase, but that employees are expected to be able to convey their ideas in narratives that others can understand. This is an important skill because it enables them to continue “practicing the art of iteration,” or continuously getting better, he said.
“What I’m really looking for is: What was the original observation? What was the original hypothesis? What got you interested in this idea? Why do you think it matters? Right?” he said. “Because AI only knows what the internet already knows. It doesn’t know what we know deep inside us, and there are ideas coming from us all the time.”
Bhutani isn’t the only business leader who has a problem with employees using AI to do their writing.
Earlier this year, Varun Anand, the cofounder of AI sales and marketing startup Clay, shared his company’s AI writing policy on LinkedIn. The policy, which was written by an engineering employee Sophie Alpert, states that “Writing is thinking” and that employees must be able to explain every line that they write.
Figma CEO Dylan Field said in an X post in September that his organization requires employees to add the disclosure “written with AI” if they use the tech during their writing process.
Bhutani said there are a few signs that indicate to him if something is written by AI. He said that he works with a diverse group of people and English is often not their first language.
So if the language is a little bit too perfect, that can be a tell. Another hint for Bhutani is the length of the writing. He said if something is too long, that can be a giveaway. And if it’s short, it’s often “punchy and clear,” which can be another sign.
