I Used AI to Help Me Sound Firmer in a Client Negotiation. The Client Called Out the Tone in the First Reply, Faster Than Any Real Negotiation Point Ever Landed.

Everyone warns you about getting caught using AI. Nobody warns you about the subtler failure: your client doesn’t think a robot wrote it. They think you’re acting strange.

Chris Ng

13 min read

·

Oct 12, 2026

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I spent about four years leading engineering teams in Vietnam for two Canadian companies.

I wrote to foreign clients almost every working day of those four years.

And the one message I remember best is the one I didn’t really write.

Here’s what most people believe about using AI for business writing:

The risk is getting caught.

That belief is wrong.

Here’s what people do to manage that risk right now:

• Run the draft through an AI detector before sending
• Strip out the obvious tells, like stock phrases and emoji bullets
• Ask the AI to “make it sound more human”
• Keep quiet about using it at all