Over the last couple months I’ve been looking at what I get in my inbox and, like most folks, I’m noticing that a lot of companies and brands are sending me AI-written mush. This is from companies and people I know and follow from my work in digital strategy, marketing, and startups.
When I get a whitepaper or “think piece” these days, I assume a lot of it is written by AI. Or, at least cleaned up and sanitzed by AI.
I can tell, most of the time, what content is “low effort.”
What’s the actual value in that? When you send me AI-juiced pieces that seem like a formula (“X ways to do Y in your _______ Transformation”), i can now just ask my friendly AI tool for the same thing and it’s probably as good or better.
I believe we’ll all need to refine and revitalize the efforts we make to offer useful “content,” much less “thought leadership.” As a reader, i’ll be asking harder questions. I think my rubric will look something like this:
- Do I know you?
- Is it really you? – I get a lot of stuff that I think is ghost written. I can sorta tell when written pieces are coming from a copywriter or a service bureau.
- Do I think you’re writing in “good faith” – That is, are you actually trying to help me in a real way? Or, are you just sending out chum for my inbox?
- Is this actually insightful – It will need to be really distinctive to be useful.
The folks I read regularly are still actual humans doing work to connect over ideas that can drive real insights for the users.