AI and the rise of single use content
In the age of AI, your content needs to be less PotNoodle
Democratiser or devaluer?
A lot of debate around AI in the world of content marketing has centred on this question. But is it a fair binary? And what does it tell us about how to effectively use AI? First, let’s look at the arguments.
For the democratisers, AI is empowering. In a few prompts, anyone can create a Shakespearean sonnet, plan a holiday itinerary, condense a long-winded report, and create a cute action figure version of themselves to share on LinkedIn.
For the devaluers, AI is a threat. Creative job opportunities will have to evolve beyond recognition, artists will be increasingly plagiarised, and the overall quality of creative digital assets from blogs to video will decline – or worse, become repetitive.
As AI becomes more embedded in our daily lives and work, it’s clear the reality is somewhere in the middle: it’s a powerful accelerator that can save us hours a day and transform how we work. But it’s not a replacement for real human creativity or brilliance – and the rise of low-quality content can be a threat to both brands and consumers.
Consumers, brands, and platforms are taking notice – TechCrunch this month reports that YouTube is preparing “a crackdown on ‘mass-produced’ and ‘repetitive’ videos, as concern over AI slop grows”.
The question for us content marketers and other creatives is: How do we strike the balance in how we use AI?
Why premium experiences are worth it
Some things never change: exclusivity, quality, and unique experiences will always command a premium. As consumers, this feels natural – we pay more to go to the football than to watch it on the TV and more for a freshly cooked pasta at the local Italian than a PotNoodle from the corner shop.
The same principle applies to content marketing in the AI age. Generative AI tools can quickly create a bog-standard image or article that, like an instant ramen cup, might do in a pinch. But just like you wouldn’t want to eat that everyday, you don’t want to build your brand around empty-calorie, mass-produced content that every other company can grab straight off the shelf. And you certainly don’t want content that doesn’t inspire trust and a real human connection.
You want something a little more elevated.
Originality in the AI era
Over a century ago, Mark Twain argued there was ‘no such thing as a new idea’. With that in mind today, when anyone can access AIs trained on unimaginable knowledge, it makes the prospect of creating something original feel daunting.
However, it doesn’t have to be. Rather than looking outward to these tools for ideas, smart brands are instead looking in. It’s easy to overlook, but the best sources of content are your people. These product experts, technical maestros, brand gurus and more know your business and your customers inside out.
These are the people that should be informing your strategy – not an LLM’s output that’s based on the averaging of the content a thousand other companies have already produced. These tools are fantastic in many ways, but by their nature LLMs scrape and reproduce existing content from the internet rather than creating something original.
For brands, an overreliance on generative AI can be a big risk because you don’t want to simply rehash old arguments your competitors already made. You want to break new territory – and that calls for human brilliance.
Crafting your content strategy around your people
Now, this doesn’t mean you hand every employee the keys to your blog and leave them to it. First, those folks probably don’t have time to craft content. Second, it’s not their job. And third, you need people whose job it is to take your team’s expertise and turn it into compelling narratives, messaging, and content that drives real business outcomes.
This is where we come in. At Archetype, all of our content is built around real people with real insights. We help businesses tap into their expertise, discover the narratives and messages lurking beneath the surface, and create truly impactful content marketing campaigns.
By hosting workshops and messaging sessions with your business and customers, undertaking our own deep market, product and brand research, and constantly testing and refining creative ideas, we enable you and your brand to find your voice – and use it. And we can do that more effectively than ever thanks to how we deploy AI.
Human insight at pace
AI is now woven deeply into the outstanding content marketing work we deliver at Archetype – enabling us to meet and exceed our north stars of quality and impact. We recognise that effective AI use is no longer a nice to have, it’s an essential capability and it helps us to be better strategic partners.
In practice, that means proactively incorporating AI into our workflows – but only where it adds value. Think deep research on niche topics where AI can scour thousands of sources which our internal experts then review and refine. Or providing a first step in translation that can then be fine tuned by leading linguists.
Personally, AI transcription has transformed my approach to subject matter expert interviews. It allows me to really drill into the details with confidence that every utterance will be clearly captured for use without spending hours listening back and manually typing those findings up.
With that being said, we know that AI calls for control and our internal AI policies always prioritise privacy, security and safety over quick wins in day-to-day work. Our people remain accountable for every element of strategy, creativity, and quality control. By boosting our capabilities with AI, we can put more time into that critical work – and create incredible results for your brand as a result.
It’s about combining human brilliance – from your team and ours – with AI acceleration to achieve things we’d never be able to do alone.
If this sounds like the right fit for your brand, we’d love to talk. Get in touch – and we can guarantee a human will get right back to you.
