Spiral: Designing an AI Ghostwriter With Taste

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Oct 22, 2025

Danny Aziz, the general manager of Spiral and a creative craftsman, shares insights on transforming AI writing tools. He discusses how the redesigned Spiral enhances editorial taste and encourages intentional writing. Danny emphasizes the importance of slowing down to improve AI-generated content quality. He also highlights the power of multi-agent workflows and the philosophy that good writing stems from deep thinking. Ultimately, he argues for using AI as a partner without compromising craftsmanship.

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INSIGHT

AI Writing Is Mostly Sloppy

Most AI writing today produces generic, sloppy outputs unless you babysit prompts for hours.
Danny frames the problem as building an AI partner that improves thinking, not just speed.

ANECDOTE

Preparing The Podcast Inside Spiral

Danny prepared for this podcast inside Spiral by monologuing context and letting the tool interview him.
Spiral asked targeted questions that pulled his scattered thoughts into clear talking points.

INSIGHT

Interviewing Beats One-Shot Generation

Good ghostwriting requires an interview-style mutual discovery, not one-shot generation.
Spiral's interviewer mode emulates how a human ghostwriter asks questions to uncover the author's voice.

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Good writing has always been downstream of good thinking. The average language model can help you write faster—but can it help you think better?

Danny Aziz wrestled with this question while building the new version of Spiral, an AI writing partner informed by our editorial taste at Every that launched yesterday.

The result is a product—and a philosophy—built by the ultimate craftsman who believes you can lean into AI without blunting your edge with slop. We had Danny on AI & I to talk about using AI without losing your craft. We get into the hidden alpha in AI tools that slow you down, how to code with AI without losing your craft, and everything Danny learned about cajoling AI to write well.

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Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Start

00:01:00 – Introduction
00:05:26 – How Danny used Spiral to prepare for this podcast
00:08:29 – Why slowing down makes AI writing better
00:13:42 – The agents working under the hood for Spiral
00:14:46 – How Spiral helps you explore the canvas of possibilities
00:24:41 – Why Danny pivoted away from the old version of Spiral
00:31:51 – How to use AI without losing your craft
00:34:55 – Danny’s workflow for building Spiral as a solo engineer
00:40:39 – Code with AI while staying in control
00:45:26 – What Danny learned about getting AI to write well
00:47:52 – How Danny used DSPy to give AI taste
00:56:16 – Dan v. AI Dan: Can the machine match the man?

Links to resources mentioned in the episode:

Danny Aziz: Danny Aziz (@DannyAziz97) / X
Give Spiral a go: Spiral
The article Every published about DSPy: I’ve Stopped Writing Prompts—DSPy Does It Better