AI Rewriting: Publish Original Posts From the Content You Curate

I run a coffee roasting website where I share posts from coffee blogs, manufacturer news, and a couple of trade publications. So far, I’ve been showing a snippet of that original content and linking out to the source for the rest. Although that’s kept the site busy, it’s handing my readers off the moment they get interested in something. I’ve done the work to gain my readers’ trust and build my reputation, but then I’m sending that attention, and the traffic, somewhere else.

As of last week, I started doing things differently. I’m now publishing full posts in my own voice, with unique headlines and original content. But I haven’t done any of the writing myself. Instead, I’m rewriting the content I was previously curating so that my reader stays with me. And on top of that, search engines now have something real to index from me and AI tools have a reason to cite me.

This is why we built AI Rewriting into Aggregator v5.2.0, and it’s the biggest shift in what Aggregator can do since we introduced full text import all the way back in 2014.

What rewriting looks like in practice

That coffee site is just one example. Here are three others, all applying the same idea.

A news aggregator

A WordPress news site follows the official WordPress release notes, a handful of developer blogs, and two community publications. The editor used to post a link to each publication and watch readers click straight through to the source.

Now, every imported item is instantly rewritten in the site’s conversational tone, with its own headline and a TL;DR section up top. The same dozen sources are still the ones doing the reporting, but the published content has become the site’s own coverage, and the reader has no reason to leave to get the full story.

In some cases, like with the official WordPress release notes, the published post still includes a link back to the source at the very bottom. This credits the original publication for the news and shows readers where the information came from.

Providing more value to agency clients

An agency runs content for a dozen clients, each in a different niche with a different way of speaking. Keeping all of them publishing regularly used to mean a writer assigned to every account while aggregating industry news for added value.

Now, each client’s feed can be set to generate unique content in that client’s voice. So a fintech client reads measured and precise while a wellness client reads warm and direct, all from the same curated sources. The agency instantly covers more ground and provides more value to its clients.

Building authority in your niche

A consultant who’s building authority in her field might import research papers, industry analyses, and the occasional technical post. In their original state, they’re not the best fit for her audience because they want the answer in simpler terms, without the jargon.

Rewriting turns each feed into a clear, accessible post in her conversational voice, so she’s publishing informed commentary several times a week and building a reputation as the person who makes the complicated stuff make sense.

What ties these examples together is that in none of these cases is anyone writing from scratch or publishing someone else’s words. We’ve all got sources we trust, and we all want what we publish to be ours.

What AI Rewriting does to an imported article

A rewrite produces the post itself, which can include the title, the body, the excerpt, or any combination of the three, written in a voice you pick. You choose that voice from a fixed set that varies from neutral and journalistic to conversational and casual. If you’d rather keep the same tone as the original piece, you can tell it to write that way too.

You also set how far the post moves from its source, from a light retelling that follows the original’s structure to a heavy rewrite with completely different structure and sentences.

For product names, brand terms, or anything that has to appear exactly as the source wrote it, you can keep a per-source list of protected words that the AI leaves untouched.

One detail worth knowing if you curate content that’s not in English is that all articles come back in the source’s own language. A French article produces a French rewrite, and a Japanese one a Japanese rewrite.

The option to translate the original content into your language is something that will be coming soon, so if it’s something you’d like to use, leave a comment below so we’ll know when to prioritise it over other features.

Previewing a rewrite with Test Rewrite before it publishes

Before any of this runs on a real import, a Test Rewrite produces the result on a single item so you can read it next to the original. This is the one place that the two versions currently sit side by side, and it’s where you set the voice and the rewrite intensity until the post reads the way you want.

Once a source imports the content for real, the post that is created on your site will include only the rewritten version. Use the preview as the place to get it right before committing to the full import.

Setting AI Rewriting to draft or auto-publish

Once a source is set up, you decide how involved you want to be with the rewritten versions.

You can have each rewritten article saved as a draft so you read it over and publish it yourself, maybe even adding images or other media that might add value for your readers. This is how I recommend starting while you get a feel for the output.

Once you trust what’s coming through and if you’re happy to publish the content as is, you can let a source publish on its own and check in when you feel like it. The same site can do both at once too, with one source you watch closely on manual and another you’ve handed over to autopilot.

How to turn on AI Rewriting for a feed

The AI tools live in each source’s Advanced settings, under their own tab, with an option for each tool your plan includes. On the Elite plan, turning on AI Rewriting takes about a minute:

1. Open a source (or add a new one) and go to its Advanced settings.
2. In the AI tab, select AI Rewriting and switch it on.
3. Pick what gets rewritten (title, content, excerpt, or all three), then set the intensity, tone, and any protected words.
4. Run a Test Rewrite to preview the result on one item before it imports for real.

One limit worth knowing up front is that rewriting works on sources that import items as posts or a custom post type. It needs a real post to write into, so a source that is set to keep items only as Feed Items won’t show the AI options.

Which plan AI Rewriting is for, and why it’s Elite

You’re likely one of three people who open Aggregator for one of three different reasons, and Rewriting is built for the third.

If you display feeds, you run a personal site or a niche hub and you want a good-looking stream of sources on your own domain, but that’s it. The Basic Plan does that and the AI tools stay out of your way.

If you publish curated content as posts, this is where AI Summaries and AI TL;DRs on the Pro Plan earn their place. A long imported article gets published with a short summary or a scannable TL;DR up top, so a visitor knows what they’re looking at before they commit to the whole thing.

If you want to create original editorial, you’re the publisher I described at the start. You might be a content marketer, a small agency running client sites, or an operator scaling a real publication on top of curated sources. You want your own unique articles, written based on what your trusted source originally reported, and that’s the Elite Plan, where Rewriting is the tool that does it.

Give rewriting a go today

We’re already building the next steps that will go further to giving your readers something even more unique and valuable which will make them want to come back for more. If there’s something you already know your audience would love to see from you, let us know in the comments below or submit your ideas here.

AI Rewriting FAQ