My Week with GPT-5: An AI Writing Experiment Revealed

8/10/2025

My Week as a Writer Using Only GPT-5: The Good, The Bad, & The Boring

Alright, let's talk about the elephant in the room. Or rather, the ghost in the machine. AI. Specifically, OpenAI's shiny new toy, GPT-5. The buzz has been impossible to ignore since its release on August 7, 2025. It’s supposed to be smarter, more creative, & better at reasoning than anything we’ve seen before. As a writer, my feed has been a chaotic mix of utopian dreams & dystopian nightmares about what this means for our craft.

So, I decided to do something a little crazy. I spent an entire week using ONLY GPT-5 for every single writing task I had. Personal essays, blog posts for clients, social media captions, emails, even my grocery list. I wanted to see what it was really like to hand over the keys to the kingdom. Was it the creative partner I'd been hoping for, a soul-crushing content machine, or something else entirely?

Here's the unvarnished truth of my week with GPT-5: the good, the bad, & the downright boring.

The Good: My New Superpower is Speed & Endless Ideas

I’m not gonna lie, the first couple of days were mind-blowing. The sheer speed is the first thing that hits you. That blinking cursor on a blank page? The agonizing process of just starting? GONE.

I had a 2,000-word article on sustainable travel to write for a client. Normally, that’s a solid day or two of research, outlining, & drafting. With GPT-5, I fed it the topic, a few key points I wanted to cover, & my target audience. In less time than it takes to make a cup of coffee, I had a comprehensive, well-structured draft. A study by Neil Patel's team found ChatGPT could write an article about four times faster than a human, & my experience felt pretty similar.

This wasn't just about speed, though. It was about breaking through creative barriers. We all know that feeling of being stuck, of having an idea but not knowing how to start. GPT-5 became my personal brainstorming partner. I’d throw a half-baked idea at it, & it would spit back a dozen different angles, headlines, & opening hooks. It felt like having a whole writing group on call, ready to jam on my story 24/7.

One of the coolest things about GPT-5 is its improved reasoning capability. It doesn't just string words together; it can think in steps, which is a game-changer for complex topics. I was working on a piece about the future of renewable energy. I asked it to explain the pros & cons of sodium-ion batteries, but from the perspective of a skeptical investor. The result was nuanced, well-argued, & captured a specific voice I hadn't even fully defined myself. That's a HUGE leap from older models.

Here are some of the wins from the "Good" column:

Beating Writer's Block: This was the biggest one for me. Instead of staring at a blank page, I could ask GPT-5 for a starting point. "Give me five ways to open an article about the gig economy," I'd command, & instantly, the block would crumble.
Research on Steroids: The ability to get concise summaries of complex topics was a lifesaver. Instead of spending hours sifting through Google results, I could ask GPT-5 for the key takeaways from a scientific study or a historical event. This freed me up to focus on the storytelling.
Endless Iterations: Need to rephrase a sentence? Want to try a different tone? No problem. GPT-5 can generate countless variations of the same content, which is incredibly useful for things like social media captions or ad copy where you need multiple versions.

For businesses, the implications here are massive. The struggle to consistently create high-quality content is real. In fact, a 2024 CMI report noted that SEO optimization is a major challenge for 35% of B2B marketers. AI tools can seriously lighten that load, & the stats are starting to back it up. We're seeing a huge uptick in AI adoption, with 81% of B2B marketers using generative AI in 2024. It’s not just about churning out blog posts; it’s about creating a better, more engaging customer experience.

Honestly, this is where a tool like Arsturn comes into play. It takes the power of models like GPT & applies it to a very specific, very important part of business: customer communication. Imagine having a chatbot on your website that can instantly answer customer questions, provide detailed product information, & even help with lead generation, all trained on your own business data. It's like having a super-efficient, always-on customer service rep. Arsturn lets businesses create these custom AI chatbots with no coding, which is pretty amazing. It’s a practical application of this AI power that goes beyond just writing articles & directly impacts the bottom line.

The Bad: The Uncanny Valley of Soulless Content

Okay, so the first few days were a dream. But then, the cracks started to show. The honeymoon phase ended, & I started to notice the… weirdness.

The biggest issue? The lack of soul. AI-generated content, even from the mighty GPT-5, can feel generic. It’s like it takes all the information on the internet, throws it in a blender, & pours out the most average, inoffensive smoothie imaginable. It can mimic a human voice, but it can't feel. It doesn't have my lived experiences, my weird sense of humor, or my unique perspective.

I was working on a personal essay about a trip I took to Southeast Asia. I asked GPT-5 to help me describe a particularly chaotic market scene. It gave me a technically perfect description: "The market was a vibrant tapestry of sights, sounds, & smells. Vendors called out, spices filled the air, & a kaleidoscope of colorful fabrics adorned the stalls."

It was fine. It was also completely devoid of life. It didn't capture the feeling of being jostled by the crowd, the specific smell of durian mixing with incense, or the hilarious sight of a monkey trying to steal a banana from a vendor. It was a description written by something that has never been to a market, never smelled durian, & never laughed at a monkey.

This is the central fear for many writers: the loss of our unique voice. A Microsoft study on GPT-4 found that writers were concerned about AI leading them to produce lower-quality, less original work. There's a real danger of over-reliance on these tools, of our own creative muscles atrophying because we've offloaded the heavy lifting to a machine.

Here are some of the big hitters from the "Bad" column:

The Authenticity Gap: AI can't replicate true human emotion or experience. For any writing that requires a personal touch, a unique perspective, or a deep emotional connection, AI falls flat. It can tell you what sadness is, but it can't be sad.
The Risk of Plagiarism & Inaccuracy: AI models are trained on vast amounts of data, & sometimes they can regurgitate phrases or sentences verbatim without attribution. There's also the issue of "hallucinations," where the AI just makes stuff up. I had to constantly fact-check everything GPT-5 gave me, which ate into the time I was supposedly saving.
The "AI Sound": The more I used it, the more I could spot it. There's a certain formulaic, slightly-too-perfect quality to AI writing. It often uses unnecessary words & clichés, & the conclusions can feel tacked on & obvious. I found myself spending a lot of time editing the "AI-ness" out of the text.

This is a real problem for businesses, too. While AI can help scale content creation, there's a risk of your brand sounding just like everyone else. If all your competitors are using the same tools, how do you stand out? That human touch, that unique brand personality, is more important than ever. 60% of marketers who use generative AI are concerned it could harm their brand's reputation.

The Boring: The Glorious Automation of Mind-Numbing Tasks

Now, let's talk about the unsung hero of my AI-powered week: the automation of all the boring stuff. This is where GPT-5 REALLY shined, & honestly, it's the part I'll miss the most.

Writing isn't just about crafting beautiful prose. It's also about a mountain of mundane, repetitive tasks. Writing emails. Summarizing meeting notes. Creating outlines. Transcribing interviews. These are the things that suck up time & mental energy, but they have to be done.

And GPT-5 is an absolute beast at this stuff.

I had a long, rambling interview to transcribe. Instead of spending an hour typing it out, I used an AI tool to get a rough transcript & then had GPT-5 summarize the key points & pull out the best quotes. What used to be a multi-hour task was done in minutes.

I also used it to manage my inbox. "Draft a polite but firm email to a client who is late on a payment." BOOM. Done. "Summarize this long email thread & list the action items." EASY. It was like having a super-efficient personal assistant who never gets tired or complains.

This is the side of AI that doesn't get as much press, but it's arguably the most practical & immediately useful for most people. It's not about replacing creativity; it's about freeing up time for it. By automating the grunt work, I had more mental bandwidth to focus on the parts of writing that I actually enjoy.

For businesses, this is a productivity goldmine. Think about all the time employees spend on administrative tasks. AI can handle things like categorizing support tickets, drafting routine correspondence, & managing schedules. This is where a solution like Arsturn becomes so valuable. It’s a no-code platform that lets businesses build AI chatbots trained on their own data. Think of it: instead of your team answering the same questions over & over, you can have a chatbot do it, 24/7. This frees up your human team to handle more complex issues, build deeper customer relationships, & focus on strategic work. It’s not about replacing people; it’s about making them more effective.

So, What's the Verdict?

After a week of living in the AI future, I've come to a few conclusions.

Is GPT-5 going to take my job? No. At least, not yet. It can't replicate the spark of human creativity, the depth of personal experience, or the unique voice that makes my writing mine.

But is it a powerful tool that can make me a better, more efficient writer? Absolutely. The key is to see it as a collaborator, not a replacement. It’s an incredible brainstorming partner, a tireless research assistant, & a master of the mundane. The trick is knowing when to use it & when to trust your own instincts.

My new workflow will be a hybrid one. I'll use GPT-5 to kickstart my creative process, to build outlines, to do initial research, & to handle all the boring administrative tasks. But when it comes to the heart of the story, the part that requires emotion & authenticity, that's still all me.

Honestly, the future of writing isn't about humans versus AI. It's about humans with AI. It’s about leveraging these incredible tools to augment our own abilities, to free us from the drudgery, & to give us more space to do what we do best: tell stories that matter.

Hope this was helpful. I'm curious to hear what you think. Have you experimented with GPT-5 or other AI writing tools? Let me know in the comments.