Name: Content Is the Engine, AI Is the Multiplier
Uploaded: 2026-03-25T17:16:39.467Z
Duration: 45 min 4 s
Description: Content Is the Engine, AI Is the Multiplier

Transcript for "Content Is the Engine, AI Is the Multiplier": Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to day one of the future of AI marketing brought to you by the AI Marketing Alliance and Goldcast. I am Alexander Bleeker, head of operations at the AI Marketing Alliance, and I am super excited to have you all here. Over the next three days, we are gonna be going category by category through the most important parts of your marketing stack and showing you exactly how AI is changing the game in each one. Today, we're kicking things off with content engagement and a keynote from HeyGen. And then tomorrow, we're gonna go deep on buyer intelligence and revenue as well as a keynote from Zapier and Anthropic. And then on Friday, we are gonna close out strong with AI powered operations and a keynote from OpenAI. For those of you who don't know, the AI Marketing Alliance exists for one reason, to educate senior b to b marketers on practical real world applications on AI and the day to day work of it. So when you become a member, you get access to the latest AI advancements in b to b marketing, all presented by the brands and practitioners who are actually doing it. A lot of it, you'll see today, tomorrow, Friday. So if you like what you see this week, head to aimarketingalliance.com, and you can quickly apply there. Alright. Some exciting news. We are giving away, yes, giving away two pairs of Meta smart glasses and a three d printer. And so here's how you enter. You are going to essentially, if you're here today, you are already eligible. Next, all you have to do is send a couple of chats in, the chat just right there, in at least two sessions, and then ask at least one question in the q and a. And then that's it. You're it's super simple, then you're in the running. So we will be jumping on at the very end of each session or, excuse me, at the very end of the day after the last session, we'll be jumping on to announce the, winner. Cool. So we are kicking off today with the content factory. We'll show you how leading teams are using AI to scale content production, maximize every asset, and turn content into genuine pipeline. If you've ever felt like your team is creating a lot but maybe not getting enough return, this one is definitely for you. So with any further ado, I'm gonna invite Esther Chung, head of comms and content at Jasper, and Mike Kaput, chief content officer at Smarterx on stage, and we can get going. Good. Hello. Hello. Hey, team. How's it going? How are you? Good. Good. Esther, how's it going? It's great. I mean, this topic is very top of mind for us, so excited to dive in. Me too. Esther, do you wanna maybe start us off just by giving a little bit of background on what Jasper does and and how you help there? Yeah. So Jasper is a marketing agents platform that is specifically designed for enterprise marketing teams. So we help marketers scale AI and orchestrate work much faster from campaigns to personalization to localization while keeping everything on brand and governed. I'm the head of comms and content there, so I set the corporate narrative as well as the thought leadership strategy. Very cool. How about you, Mike? Yeah. My name is Mike Kaput. I am chief content officer at Smarterx. Smarterx is an transformation company. We help some of the world's top brands, better understand, approach, and adopt AI primarily through online education through our AI Academy platform and through events like our marketing AI conference, which is happening this year in October, which is an industry leading conference bringing marketers together to move forward with AI. So I'm in charge of everything and anything related to content at our company. And because we're a small scrappy startup, also like 18 other things. I have to talk to you about going to that conference. I didn't know that. That sounds really. fun. Cool. So to kick us off, I thought maybe for the audience, if you're not super familiar with what is going on in AI and content now, just to sort of set the scene, because content in marketing looks very different than it did last year and two years ago. You know, AI, it's impacted a lot of marketing functions, but I think, at least in my opinion and and I'm curious, Mike, Esther, your thoughts on this, but I think it's hit content one of the hardest. You know, our entire top of funnel has been rewired. SEO, as we know it, is pretty much in free fall. I know at least for us, we you know, it's something that we are struggling with and and constantly looking at. AI overviews, LM search, perplexity, like, people are getting answers without ever having to click on a link. And beyond distribution, it's also how we create content has drastically changed. You know, like, how we make it, how we QA, even, like, what good looks like, I think, is is also changing slightly. So and how we're building a team actually also is is totally changing. So I think with that, Mike, I'd love to start with you and talk a little bit about this landscape shift. I think you've been in AI marketing for a very long time, and you've been watching this space for a long time. I'm curious your thoughts on how fundamentally this content landscape has shifted in the last eighteen, twenty four months. And I'm curious if you are seeing, other marketing teams, how are they responding to this? Are they still running last year's playbook? Do you think everyone is constantly adapting adapting? Yeah. So I don't think we can underrate how fundamentally content has changed in the last eighteen to twenty four months, thanks to AI. I think we're looking at, basically, at least from our perspective, a complete inversion of this, like, supply demand curve in content. Right? It used to be really, really hard to make really, really good content. Thus, the supply was relatively constrained, and so you could win on producing the best content simply from a production perspective. That's, I would argue, kinda over with AI. We have, essentially, at the click of a button, the ability to infinitely create and scale really good content. I'm not talking about AI slop or anything like that, but more if you know how to use the tools and the workflows and you've actually integrated AI infrastructure into your company. I think you can very much argue that great content is only a click away. It can still sound like you and be part of your brand, but there's no advantage now to being really good at content production. I think that simple but powerful fact is really, really important to grasp because it turns on its head all these assumptions of how we build content teams and how we build content organizations, etcetera. So I would say to your point about our teams adapting and responding, I think yes and no. I think everyone knows we need to start figuring out how AI can actually augment the content function within brands. I think we all know. We need to figure out what AI means for search. I'm not sure if we all have yet, myself included, but there's no question people know something has changed. Our brands or our teams changing fast enough or really fundamentally rethinking things from the ground up, I don't see it as much as I would like to personally. Like, Right. we personally, Smarterx, have blown everything up. Like, we have gone back to back to first principles, back to a blank sheet of paper trying to reinvent the content function from the ground up. It's a bit of building the airplane on the way down, to be perfectly candid, but we really did see, at least a year ago, very seriously, the need to say, okay. All of our prior assumptions may not be correct now, so we need to actually start looking at content from first principles and understand what has changed, what is still the same, and how is AI either enhancing what we're already good at or completely detonating the plans we had before. So it's a very exciting but uncertain time, I would argue. Esther, I'm I'm gonna follow-up, and and I'm curious if you're seeing this with some of your customers as well. But before that, Mike, I know you you said, like, being really good at content isn't the same advantage anymore. You know? And I'm curious, where in content are you seeing that advantage? Yeah. So I think where we've landed so far, and it's always evolving, is that there's no question it's still really, really valuable to have great storytellers, great content people internally that can create narratives, create pieces of content that actually garner attention, and actually drive real business results. The problem is that a lot of that top of the funnel, middle of the funnel content is not that. I mean, we have completely reinvented how we're looking at what type of content we create. Because, basically, at this stage, if it's something that AI can create, even with some inputs from us, it's probably not worth creating. We are heavily all in on original research, original perspectives, direct, expertise from subject matter experts, unique opinions, thought leadership. This is stuff we've always known before AI is really important. I think it might be the only thing that is defensible now, for many, many brands. So and that requires a rethink. Like, you're not just writing top of the funnel articles, for instance, anymore about, you know, certain SEO or keyword rich terms that drive traffic to your website. Like, I think that that might still have some returns, but they're diminishing. And the really, the playbook needs to be fundamentally different. And so, Esther, I mean, given that Jasper is so, that content is so core to Jasper, I'm curious if you're seeing the fundamental shifts, like, that mentality shift with your clients if your team is also seeing that as well. No. We're definitely seeing it. Actually, Mike, you nailed something that I've we've been talking about a lot internally around storytelling. I think, like, there was a Wall Street Journal article a couple months ago about how the storytelling and job descriptions in marketing has gone up. Like, that's definitely never gonna change, and that's really gonna be the true differentiator. I do see that we're there the from a more from a broader perspective, we're seeing more of a shift of individual assets. Like, even, you know, eighteen months ago, it was really exciting to create one email. And now marketers are feeling pressured to create thousands of emails personalized to specific audiences, different channels, different buyer stages. And so I think it's it's actually shifting more from, like, an output, which we've I think content has always been that way, this kind of output perspective, and we're shifting more into inputs where what should be put what should be encoded into your AI tools, what like, what Mike said around, like, your narrative, your point of view, just having that having that be so strong that you're encoding your into AI to it, that scaling a bunch of different pieces of content is the thing that's gonna really take marketing teams to the next level. But yeah. So I I think what we say, actually, we say, like, the mark from, like, a really, like, simple perspective is, like, we shift we're shifting from doing the homework to grading the homework. So now we're, like, we're not actually executing. We're the ones that are, like, building these systems that scale all that content out, but it can't replace a lot of the skills that content great content marketers have. Yeah. And so we're thinking about then all of this output, but I think still, you know, at the core of what content is, it's discoverability and trying to be found on the Internet. Like, unfortunately like, yes. Storytelling is fantastic, but, we still wanna get our brand noticed. And so I think one of the most urgent questions right now, I know for our team, I it feels like we are rethinking our AEO, GEO strategy, like, every month or two. You know, there's always some new piece of information that comes out. Is Reddit helpful? It is. Okay. No. No longer. Actually, it is again. And so I'm curious how the both of you are thinking about this. How and even for the audience, I think it'd be interesting to see if, like, practically, how you're doing this, if there's any specific strategies, in how you're thinking about getting your brand noticed in LLM search and Perplexity and Google AI overviews. Mike, maybe do you wanna start with that? Yeah. Sure. To be perfectly candid, we are, like, many, many others And like you alluded to, it changes almost daily, it seems. Like, we are not someone that, a brand that is going to, you know, completely reinvent our strategy around whatever the latest, greatest AEO or GEO, whatever term we wanna use, like AI discoverability tactic is. We are in the process right now of really trying to determine what are credible useful signals to actually be measuring. That's kind of the first step here. I mean, we can start to begin to see when we are referenced in certain, AI models or LLMs, through like, for instance, we're built on HubSpot, so we have a little bit of visibility that way. It's still basic stuff, but helpful nonetheless. So I think even figuring out what to measure is a struggle and something we're actively trying to figure out. I think we've also gone down the road of saying, okay. Like, kind of that old school PR mentality is coming back into play a little bit. I used to come from the agency world, so I'm like, this is always top of mind for me where it's like, you might be very well served by being mentioned in more places by more people. Right? So we talk about, okay, Reddit or LinkedIn. I mean, even I think there's some signals now that maybe publishing there or being in those places is really good for getting discovered by AI models. That may be very true. We're kind of just trying to leverage AI to get discovered, frankly, everywhere, to be everywhere, to take the things we do really well. And the cool thing about scaling up content with AI is that you can very quickly take kind of a core asset, like our we have a weekly podcast, for instance, that has all this, like, rich material and kind of insight and stuff you can't really get anywhere else that's unique to us that can then be turned into 10 different other things very quickly. So we're kind of feeling our way towards this. Again, I'll use the phrase again, building the plane on the way down because I feel like an AI that is kind of the phrase that comes to mind most often for us. But we're trying to be discovered as many places as possible or at least cited as many places as possible, have unique information, insight, or data that AI doesn't already have. I think just both from a content quality perspective and a discoverability perspective, we've also started to experiment with how we structure certain types of written content. We are kind of moving slightly towards making it a little more friendly for AI models, in terms of, hey. Up front, let's put, like, a really rich, like, quick hitting summary, of the article or the piece itself to make sure that that's very easily citable for LLMs. But, again, we're still very early days for us trying to figure out what to measure and how to actually move the needle. How about you, Esther? I know, actually, I think you and I had a conversation a couple months ago about this in a. separate webinar. And I think I had touched on some of the things that we were doing. Like, we're obviously moving away from top of funnel, trying to do a little bit more bottom and and middle middle funnel, doing more content refreshes. How are you sort of starting to approach your content strategy with with this AEO revolution? Yeah. I mean, I definitely agree with, like, the credibility being, like, readable. I think, like, structure is really important as well. So, like, there are some, like, low hanging fruit things that we're doing currently around updating our existing content. That's updating our existing content to have better structure so that it could be readable and also ensuring that messaging is consistent. Because, yeah, I think LMs are pulling from everything from a social bio to a Wikipedia page to a blog post that has your messaging in it. So I think that's something that we're just doing from a low hanging fruit, but perspective. But, Mike had mentioned, like, coming from the agency world and how it's, like, earned media is coming back. I think that that is that is probably the the more I think it's the most important more important thing for GEO in the sense of, like, that's what they're pulling from is, like, third party validation. And I think what that really is showing actually is more that this is now no longer just like an SEO or like a part time job of content, which I feel like it's always been. But, like, it's like now PR because PR earned media is more important than ever. It's now more important to product marketing. The positioning and the messaging is strong. So there it's it's becoming more of, a team sport. And, like, even even more so, it's I mean, I don't know if everyone else is feeling the same way, but, like, our CEO is talking to us about AI search and, like right? So it's, like I think it's even, a boardroom imperative at this point. So it's it's becoming really important with, like, organic traffic dropping across the board. But, for us, we are we are doing a lot of different things from updating existing content, creating kind of topic clusters, which is funny because we all used to do that, actually. I think, like, over a decade ago, I worked in enterprise SEO. We did, like, what we called hubs, which is, like, basically, not doing volume, but, like, focusing a a bunch of pieces of content across the buyer's journey around specific topics that we wanted to be known for. But I think, like, that's all kind of coming back and becoming much more important as well as, like, working cross functionally and ensuring that it's not it's it's not just you anymore. It's it's other people that you kinda are beholden to to ensure that they're, upped, like, upping their strategy so that you can also succeed. And how are you, I'm curious. How are you, both of you, tracking LLM discoverability right now? Mike, I know you mentioned HubSpot. Are is there any other tools that you are all I know, like, for us, we use Peak. So we'll look at we'll I think we'll have, like, a 100 different prompts that we'll be tracking, and then we'll sort of a b test a few and and, you know, take some out, put some new ones in. I'm curious if, you are all doing similar or or different there. Yeah. I would say for us, personally, we are so early. One of our big we actually just had a big company off-site meeting for kind of 2026 strategy. And, like, the number one thing we are trying to figure out on the content function is basically, again, what is a useful way and tools to measure how we show up in LLMs. It's not just traffic for us. I mean, brand is so, so important for us, especially with what we do and our place in the market as an AI transformation education company. It has kind of this reputation of being, like, very independent, and credible. So that is a big question mark for us. That's a huge priority for us right now. We're just trying to keep it simple and not get too in the weeds on it. Like I said, HubSpot's really the only tool right now that we use for it, just because it is where everything lives at the moment. We are actively exploring a couple more partnerships possibly with people that are really on the bleeding edge of this to figure out how to actually measure this stuff really well. How about. you, Esther? We're on a similar page as Mike Kaput. I think, like, from a measure or from, like, a a tracking perspective, I know, like, SEMrush and Ahrefs have AI reporting. I think they're still a little early. I mean, this is just from my just. from my perspective. And so, yeah, we're still trying to figure it out too. And I think we there's obviously certain signals from different tools we're using, but, yeah, it's not it it hasn't been quite strong enough, I think, for us to get the right signals. Makes sense. On a on a side note, I'm curious. Have have either of you started to employ the, like, buyer's guide strategy? I know that that's been talked about a lot in OpenAI. I spoke with my, SEO agency, and we were talking about it. And, like, we have created more buyer's guides because it's been showing up. But interestingly enough, he had mentioned that Google and some of these LM platforms will if they see you're doing it a lot, like, you'll get a great amount of traffic, but then they will penalize you. And it's sort of like this hot up and down. And I'm just curious if either of you have experienced that or or, have used that at all. It's funny you mentioned that because, a very long time ago when we first started, doing what we do almost a decade ago, one of the things, like, we started doing was creating buyer's guides around different AI tools and things, and that kinda fell off in favor of some other strategies. But I I think it actually raises a really good point that from my kind of limited experience over here, it seems like despite how new and transformative all this stuff is, we're kinda circling back around to some of this, like, tried and true SEO advice over here. I wouldn't necessarily throw the baby out with the bathwater and say that just because AI is changing everything, that traditional or typical or fundamental SEO is somehow not valuable as well. I think, like, we're kind of just coming back around, and the fundamentals are still, in many cases, the fundamentals because that's kind of the dirty secret. Right? The models are still referencing plenty of signals and content that is heavily influenced by traditional SEO. But, no, we have not, kinda gone down the full buyer buyer guide route at the moment, but I've heard very similar things where and then it's like that's the kind of typical SEO problem before. Right? It's like you go all in on one tactic, and it works until it doesn't. And then suddenly, you're in very hot water because traffic fell off a cliff. You were penalized, etcetera. Esther, Yeah. how about you? I I I I was just talking about this with our demand team yesterday because I was like, the pendulum's gonna swing again so far the other way. Because this happens every time, like, everyone wants to game the system. Right? And then then they'll get penalized for it. And I also think, like, I think Alexander made this point, like, the AI is it's like things are changing so rapidly. Like, even AI search is changing. Like, I think Google just announced that, like, AI overviews are gonna be personalized now. So, like, that's, like, a whole other thing to tackle because, Pack a lot. like. yeah. And that's, like, gonna like, even if someone asks the exact same question, they'll get a different response. So it's like that's also something that I do think will take us back to the principles. Like, Mike, what you were saying around, like, just core what's good content marketing. Think we're gonna have to go back to that because at the end of day, the it's still the thin content's still penalized. Listicles are still penalized. Right? Like, No. that, like, old kind of SEO stuff that we used to like, everyone used to do back then is, like, this it's I feel like it's even changing faster that part. Like, what is good, what is not in SEO, what is actually effective. So I guess then to follow-up, I'm curious because we we the speed at which we can now produce is crazy, obviously. How Esther, at least from your perspective, how do you think we can still make content that is distinguishable from competitors? How do we keep our brand core, like, you know, our identity inside that content? How do we make it still human but still trying to go at the speed at which we know is possible? Yeah. I mean, I I I know I mentioned inputs early on, and I think it is really having that single source of truth. I think I don't know if everyone else is experiencing this, but, like, a lot of our customers a lot of our customers and our marketing teams are creating their own agents. And a lot of these people that are creating agents are creating their own content. And what's it's really breaking it's really break like, breaking everything because it's breaking governance, consistency, brand. It's diluting the brand. And so, like, having that single source of truth or, like, what we call Jasper IQ layer, but, like, your intelligence layer, your context layer that has, like, your product truths, your positioning, your messaging, your audiences, everything embedded in it is really, I think, the only way to really differentiate yourself and and move quickly at scale without losing who you are and, like, what makes you unique. And then on top of that, having that strong intelligence later I mean, that's something that we work on a lot is, like, just perfecting it because, like, from, for as a as an AI company, we're also, you know, adapting and moving quickly in this space as well. So, like, for us, we need to ensure that, like, we're always, training Jasper on, like, the most up to date information we have, and that's a lot of what I think, like, what we call a content engineer is this kind of evolution of this content marketer is gonna turn into is someone who is ensuring that outputs ensuring that inputs are are as high quality and on brand, and the governance is built into that so that the outputs are scaled faster and you're not losing anything about your company or your brand. So it's really, like, the manual part of it is keeping it updated, really, at all times, I would imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Or, I mean, there is a automated part of it, which is if you're most importantly connecting it to your data systems and that that is actually just in real time updating. So if you have, like, a, CDP cool. that you're connecting your AI, yeah, it will automatically, in real time, update any, like, new customer data or or performance signals. Right? Like, anything if something isn't performing well, it could also update that for you too. From a from a brand, like, ethos identity perspective, I do think that is something that, like, starts at, I think, from a human perspective. Yeah. Because I think that's to your point, I think that's the one of the things that gets the fastest or, like, the diluted the fastest is, like, the brand ethos of it all. Yeah. And everyone's like, suddenly everything has an em dash, and, you know, it looks all just the same. But I know someone wrote. I missed the m dash, and I totally missed the m dash too, I just way. I use it all the time, and I, yeah, I I miss it, furious. about it. I used to. too. my really am. writing career was, like, defined by the m dash, like, pre AI. So so upset that this is a I feel you. Mike, I wanna touch on with you content workflows. I'm really curious about, how you are, like, layering human and AI in your content workflow and what that particularly looks like. Esther, I know you will definitely have a really interesting one as well, but we'd love we'd love to start with you, Mike, on that. Yeah. For sure. Let me give you an example workflow as just a way to kind of touch on some bigger points of how we think about this. So one of the big things that we do every single week that I'm the cohost of our podcast, the artificial intelligence show, which we're lucky enough to have kinda grown into. And we're probably on track for, like, 2,000,000 downloads this year, so pretty decent audience for the podcast. And that becomes kinda the anchor or the soul of everything else that we do. So AI is ever present in every part of that workflow. This workflow to prepare for, produce, curate, record, and then actually produce the podcast itself and then take that and turn that into things like blog posts, internal activation content, longer form pieces as the case may be. All of that, it's probably 50 steps, I would argue. But the way we think about it is broadly, there's almost like humans are involved at a critical, let's say, 20%, kind of a a 10% at the front, 10% at the end, and the 80% in the middle is quite a bit AI generated or AI assisted. So upfront and, again, I'm gonna use this word kind of intentionally. Like, the soul of this content is myself and our cohost, my cohost, our CEO, Paul Raidzer. Like, our perspective every week, we sit down and go through what is happening in AI in any given week. We curate a bunch of different stories based on kind of our perspective, our insights, and our take on what is going on as a nont echnical knowledge worker or business leader, in these spaces. So the kind of original input Esther talked about a lot about inputs. Like, this is the core input. We are the algorithm, so to speak. That cannot be replaced. I'm sure AI could do a fine job of curating articles and news stories, and we've tried that. That's been interesting. But, really, like, we are the secret sauce here of why the podcast works. So there's a lot of time and energy up front manually spent curating things and interpreting them through myself and Paul's eyes and our voices. Then from there, when you actually have that core, that seed of the content, which is the podcast conversation itself, then this is where it can get really interesting where it's like, okay. Now we have a range of different models working together, range of different GPTs and gems that are saved through ChatGPT or Gemini, increasingly experimenting quite a bit with skills in quad code to chip away at each stage of this workflow. Right? So we've curated a list of links. Those links get processed by AI into a certain format that is just basically something I don't wanna spend fifteen minutes doing, like reformatting links, like really mundane stuff. That is then put into a preparation brief. That brief itself is then analyzed and curated by me. That is not an AI thing. My editorial judgment is key to making the podcast episode as good as it can be, at least, you know, hopefully, on a good day. And then from there, AI actually helps layer in supplementary research, help me it will actually have a number of kinda custom tools built at this stage to brief me on different topics so I can learn very fast, get up to speed as anyone knows. I'm sure, like, it's impossible to keep up with AI, so I need to, like, assist myself with AI to actually stay on top of anything. And then from there, AI will help, like, write lead ins to segments for the podcast, write really interesting topic angles and questions. It'll help me fact check these tools like Notebook LM, actually, to fact check all the links and resources and things I'm referencing, you know, how I introduced the topics on the podcast. We then record it. And then from there, we have a number of different workflows, tools, and skills in quad code at this stage to then turn that into video clips, social shares, blog posts. Internal content has been a big one for us actually as well. Like, figuring out how do we actually activate this internally. How do we arm sales and customer success and operations with anything that might be useful from this hour, hour and a half episode we discussed that is relevant to the internal operations of our company. And then from there, other stuff like newsletters, emails, and messaging more broadly. So it is kind of this balance of, like, just doubling and tripling down on the human pieces of this, but also understanding that you can essentially 10 x that input with the right workflows and tools using AI. Yeah. I was gonna say it sounds like a lot of your input it's all the creative, basically, is is where you come in. And. then anything else that needs to be automated or just mundane can can be taken by AI. Esther, do you do you find that that is the same similar process in terms of the balance of creative and and automation? Yes. I I mean, I like, like, what you said about secret sauce, like, I always say, like, taste. Like, Margaret. It's like you can't. account I mean, like, it's like yeah. You know, AI doesn't have taste, to be honest. But, I do think that, it's similar. I I definitely agree. I think from our perspective, we think of it less of a linear workflow and more of a, like, a continuous loop. So, essentially, like, instead of, like, the idea create, publish, measure kind of workflow, it it kind of continuously goes back around. So, like, we're we're thinking about it a little bit more like an always on engine versus, like, this is set. And, I mean, that's more just because we're experimenting with, like we've up we updated, like, 500 blog posts on our site for AEOGO purposes, and this is, like, what I'm thinking about the workflow because, like, we updated them all at once to like, for messaging and structure, but then we're able to, like, we have an optimization agent that basically flags, like, oh, here's another opportunity that you're missing or here's a gap or here's, like, something that's not being visit like, it's the we do have a little bit more of, like, a an agent that's, like that's in Jasper that is notifying us and, like, letting us know of different things that are happening. So it does turn into a little bit more of, like, okay. Now we the optimization is the next kind of the new shift of, like, going back around and then republishing it recreating and republishing it and then measuring it, optimizing, going back around. So I think that's that's this is just, like, how we're we've been experimenting with it and thinking about it somehow our customers are also working through it. But, obviously, we're thinking about it more at scale, like, creating multiple pieces at once. But I do agree, like, in terms of, like, the creative part and when a human is part of that that workflow. We we have about ten minutes. I'm gonna switch to q and a. But separately, I really do wanna hear how you updated 600 blog posts at once. Yeah. I feel like that would that would have been a serious undertaking. It was. Think for sure. I'm just I'm just looking through some of the q and a here from the audience. And just bear with me one sec while I I'm just gonna sort by by upvotes and see. Let's, let's start with this one. Oh, act oh, I like this one here. So there's a lot of talk about top of funnel content losing value since it's easy to replicate and quick to produce, But it's still an important, it's still important for targeting broader keywords and visibility. How do you strike the right balance? This is something that I know we have been speaking a lot with our SEO agency, and internally in our team. We are still creating top of funnel content, but, I mean, it feels like an uphill battle. So I'm very, cognizant that probably both of you share this sentiment. Esther, do you have any thoughts on this? I don't think it's losing value at all because I think if, like, we've been talking about a lot from a brand perspective, it's still going to be a differentiator for you. Like, top of funnel content is, your your point of view, your thought leadership, your narrative. I think from a yeah. From from from an AI search visibility standpoint, yeah, I do think there's a little bit more current lean in on bottom and middle stage just based on how people are searching right now. But I also think those behaviors are gonna change. And I think, like, the AI overviews and I mean, I just don't know if we know enough yet because it's everything is, like, invisible. Like, how someone reads your content on or someone, like, sees something on a third party site about your brand, you're never really gonna know about unless they click the link. Or if, like or they get an answer in, Claude, about about a piece of content that you wrote. So, like, I I mean, from a because I'm a true I'm like a you know, I started my career in marketing content. So for me, I still think that leadership and your narrative and your point of view and that content is still gonna differentiate you. It's still important for your brand. But, yeah, I think I think we just don't know yet, but I don't know. What do you think, Mike? Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I feel like it's a really good question and a consideration that we have to think about, but, really, it's a fundamental question we had before AI, right, which is how do you balance competing resources and priorities, especially ones that may be more top of the funnel versus middle or bottom of the funnel. The difference here is scale. Right? It's like, I get it. We can go all in and produce a ton of top of the funnel content, and that may still produce great returns. And if that's the case, then continue to do that. I mean, it's very contextual to each individual brand. I would Esther, to your point, like, I'd be really I think behind some of the questions sometimes, there's this, like, well, what do I do about all this? Like, for sure. And it's, like, totally understand. Like, I'm that way too. I'm always looking for, like, what is the answer to this? And the answer might be that, like, today, this works. Tomorrow, it might not. I might not build my entire strategy around scaling up top of the funnel content with AI or the opposite, going all in on bottom of the funnel content with only humans. I mean, it is unfortunately just going to be a mix of bets, I think. And I think if your bets lead you to kinda be diversifying between, the areas the question referenced, then that's great. I think that works for you. And, actually, I wanna add one to you just reminded me, Mike, is, like, we so we do the CFA marketing. I know we all do we all have our we all have our studies, the three of us. Yep. But but, like, that is the thing that's actually creating the most earned earned media for us. So, like, it. it is looping back around. Yeah. So, like, thought sure. leadership is gonna get cited the most. So and proprietary data. So I there is there is still that benefit. Yeah. For us, it's the data is everything. I know, like, our webinar benchmark report every year. That's one of our biggest lead drivers. You. know? And we do a webinar around it. We do, you know, paid ads around it. It's definitely a huge marketing moment for us. And we were doing that before AI, and it's just interesting how now it's more than ever becoming actually even that much more important. Yeah. And to. that point, actually, I mean, just as a final note there, we and this is specific to our business, our business goals, but we actually added to our content function this year a director of research. Like, we are all in on doing original. research because we wanna do it for parts of our education business as well. So it's not only a content pipe, but I would say that absolutely couldn't agree more that the data, the research we do is the thing that gets cited the most, referenced the most. It's what gets people to ask for us by name, which is also super important in today's day and age. So I have, I think, the most upvoted question here, so I'd love to for us to touch on it. We spend a lot of time fixing completely AI written content that is given to us by our SMEs. You have a recommended framework to make that faster to convert that to human written non AI content? It's a very good question. I immediately have follow-up questions about why this is happening, I. would say. Me too. My my. Yes. immediate answer would be, like, figure out why this is occurring in the first place because, presumably, your SMEs should be the ones with the most unique, insightful perspective. They might not be writers, though, or content creators. So maybe that's. why they are they may be lazy or have a lot on their plate. So maybe there's a better way to rearchitect that workflow. For me, personally, I'd be like, well, maybe we should be just interviewing them and doing the content ourselves. But to kind of address the question directly, I would say anything and everything you can be collecting from a context perspective about what this person actually sounds like, what human writing in the context of your brand actually sounds like. You know, Esther, you talked about, like, the knowledge layer, the brand IQ, that kind of thing. Right? What is the tone? What is the voice? What are the guidelines? What are a bunch of really good examples of stuff that has been written in the past either by these people or by your team that sounds really good? Those would be things that every single time you go to correct this stuff, you should have a model or a tool referencing. Yeah. Agreed. Esther, what do what do you think? Yeah. Kinda stresses me out because, like, the way that the question and I hope I hope that this isn't true, but this happens a lot for content people. It's like, I'll get, like, a blog post from someone, like a seller, and I'm like, what did you why did you write this? And it's all and it it's usually it's written by a I mean, I love I love, enthusiasm, but I think, like, it makes me think almost, like, fundamentally, maybe the like, the the way that that's working is maybe should be flipped in. terms of, like, you should be leading the strategy. And, yeah, I agree, Mike. I would prefer to have to inter interview an SME, get that created in AI, but, like, have you know, be able to be the one to control it. Right. I think I think yeah. I I think, like and then, obviously, I I agree with, like, the brand layer and, like, ensuring that every SME you do have has, like, a brand voice encoded into your intelligence layer. Like, ensure that that's, like, gonna be whatever you output is going to be on brand and and strong. But, yeah, that that whole comp given by SMEs, I'm like, oh my gosh. Well, I guess acts like this. I'm like but yeah. speaks to kind of that bigger point we were talking about before is that I think content people, despite how much disruption there is going on right now in this space, have a really important role and opportunity to kinda seize here, which is you are the guardian or the police of the brand, Yeah. at least when it. comes to content creation. So, like, realistically, it's actually probably either suboptimal or even just dangerous having other people using AI to create this content. You should be the shepherd of the content creation. AI tools in your organization, at least in this context, to make sure everything sounds as good as it can and is as on brand as it can be. Yeah. I'm with you. Yeah. I mean, ideally, it starts with you doing the interview. Like, that is truly and and at least that's best case scenario. I know people are busy, and there's a lot you know, timing doesn't always work, but I think that's probably how you get the best output is, you know, getting it from them alone first. Amazing. Well, we are at time. Mike, Esther, thank you both so much. This has been really fascinating. I know we there was so many questions. We will definitely be looking into these and sending some follow ups and emails with an on demand recording as well. But, again, just wanted to thank you both for taking the time and for your interesting insight into what's happening here in content and AI. Thank you so much. Much. Thank you. Awesome. For everyone else, we will be, starting the next session very shortly. I think there's just gonna be some essentially commercials in between, and then we will get going, on personalization. Take care.