Say you make hand-poured candles and you are listing a new one. You type “Lavender candle, soy wax, 8 oz” and stop. It is accurate. It also tells a shopper nothing about why they would want it.
Product and service descriptions are one of those jobs that never feels big enough to prioritize and never feels good enough to finish. AI can help you get past the flat first line. It cannot know your product, so the trick is to feed it the right facts.
Why plain descriptions fall short
Most owners write a description the way they would fill in a form: name, size, material. That covers what the thing is. A shopper is asking a different question: “What will this do for me?”
The other common mistake goes the opposite way: big, glowing words like “premium,” “high-quality,” and “exceptional.” They sound like every other listing, so shoppers skim past them.
A good description does three small things. It says what the item is, who it suits, and what it is like to use, in plain words.
Give the AI facts, not adjectives
AI writing tools (ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are the well-known ones) are very good at turning notes into smooth sentences. They are bad at knowing your product. If you give them thin notes, they fill the gaps with confident guesses. That is how a candle ends up “burning for 60 hours” when you never tested it.
So start with a short fact sheet. Bullet points are fine:
- What it is, and what it is made of
- Size, weight, or how long a session or job takes
- Who buys it and why (a gift, a treat, a fix for a problem)
- One thing you do differently
- Anything a buyer should know before ordering (allergens, care, what is not included)
Only put in facts you know are true. If you never measured the burn time, leave it out.
A prompt you can copy
Paste this into your AI tool, with your fact sheet underneath:
I run a small business and need a description for one of my products (or services). Below are my notes. Write two versions: a short one of about 40 words, and a longer one of about 100 words. Use plain, friendly language, as if I were explaining it to a customer across the counter. Do not use words like “premium,” “luxurious,” or “high-quality.” Only use facts from my notes. If something important seems to be missing, ask me instead of guessing.
[your notes here]
The last line matters. When you tell AI to ask rather than guess, it will often come back with useful questions, such as “How long does a candle this size usually burn?” That is a sign the description needed a fact you had not written down yet.
The same trick works for services
Service descriptions have the same problem. “Bookkeeping services” tells nobody anything. Say you are a freelance bookkeeper. Your notes might read: “Monthly books for sole traders. I reconcile the bank account, chase missing receipts, and send a one-page summary by the 10th. No jargon.”
Ask AI to turn that into a service page blurb, and add one line to the prompt: “Explain what happens after someone contacts me, step by step.” Buyers of services worry about the unknown, and a short “what happens next” reassures them more than any adjective.
Check what comes back
AI drafts need a careful read before they go anywhere public. Look for these:
- Invented claims. Any number, material, or benefit you did not supply. Delete it.
- Health or safety promises. “Calming,” “safe for kids,” or “cures” may not be true or allowed in your area. If your product touches health, food, or children, check the rules that apply to you.
- Words you would never say. Read it aloud. If you would not say it to a customer, change it.
- Sameness. If the description could be pasted onto a competitor’s page, add one detail only you would know.
Do a whole range at once
Once you have a description you like, keep it as a model. Paste it back and say: “Here is a description I like. Using the same tone and length, write one for this next product,” then add the next fact sheet. Your listings will read as if one person wrote them, because one person did.
Try this today
Pick your one best-selling product or service and write a five-bullet fact sheet from the list above. Paste it into a free AI chat with the prompt in this guide. Read both versions aloud, delete anything you cannot stand behind, and keep the one that sounds most like you. Ten minutes, and you will have one listing that finally does its job.