AI Quantity or Content Quality? Why Not Both?

Ever since it debuted in late 2022, ChatGPT has firmly established itself as content marketing’s Sauron. There’s a new scumbag in town, the cry goes around, and we must fight for creative marketing’s soul!

Given my proximity to AI as a part of what I do for a living, I’ve done my part in rebutting all of this.

Both of my readers know my position on AI hand-wringing: If what you’re saying doesn’t make sense for a screwdriver and furniture, don’t say it about AI and content.

What now interests me is how AI’s scaling abilities are being used as proof that it cannot generating high quality content. Is it possible to scale more and ensure quality?

I believe so. For me, the solution is simple—we must become better marketers and move beyond common quality benchmarks in content.

One reason I’m writing about all this is the rise of popular content marketing voices suggesting that SME expertise is the antidote to low quality AI content. “Live the experience then write about it,” these voices say.

I’ve always viewed injecting SME expertise as a piss take in content marketing conversations.

Bad content? Talk to a SME. Need good content ideas? Talk to a SME. Want differentiated content? Talk to a SME. Want a superhero alter-ego by Monday? Talk to a SME.

One voice even coined the term “Gonzo Content” which just about makes sense when I squint at it sideways at 6PM on second Sundays. I’m exaggerating, of course.

SME input is invaluable in content.

But Gonzo Content and its ilk are climbing up the wrong tree. SME differentiated content has long been table stakes and is hardly a quality benchmark anymore.

This advice simply takes “talk to an SME” to a different level. Besides, anyone who has actually spoken to an SME in technical B2B niches knows how impractical this is.

I can definitely see this advice working well in a few niches (like SEO and Martech tools), but for the large majority of B2B niches, hiring and cost-effectively producing “lived experience content” is utterly impractical.

I mean, does anyone picture software engineers or FP&A analysts huddling together to figure out how SEO works or how social media engagement connects to brand searches? And now we want content marketers to “live these experiences” and talk about it?

Please tell me where I can sign up to learn an industry veteran’s experiences in record time so that I can pump an article out. While you’re at it, please tell me how I can even convince an SME to hop on a call with me once a week to discuss a different topic every time.

Advice like this is the product of zero-sum thinking. If AI helps us increase quantity, surely quality must suffer? Quantity versus quality is well worn rubric and it’s easy to fall for this line of thought.

But I believe AI, when executed well at a sensible pace, smashes this sort of thinking. You can have quality and quantity. You can have SEO performance at scale and high qualitative engagement.

What we need is a process—not “lived experience”.

Marketing expertise is your biggest differentiator in AI-led content, not SME expertise. In fact, AI’s abilities are completely besides the point.

Don’t believe me? Well, let me prove it to you.

Compare these scenarios where a company is using SEO as its primary distribution channel:

1. Scenario A: An SEO analyst conducts KW research, identifies SERP competitors, sources topics, and proposes a strategy.

2. Scenario B: A content marketer understands the product, niche, competition, product marketing narratives, sales objections, customer tendencies, and then moves to SEO, and proposes a strategy.

Who is going to develop the better strategy here? Notice how AI doesn’t factor into this equation. At least not yet.

Assuming our company decides to run with both scenarios, here’s how an LLM-driven content creation flow will unfold:

1. Scenario A: The SEO analyst feeds basic brand information, SERP competitor information, and points the LLM to superficial research sources due to a lack of marketing nous.

2. Scenario B: The content marketer feeds topic-specific information, content angles, information that connects to the product, and points the LLM to niche-relevant resources since they’ve done the research.

Again, who is going to generate better content? The same tool in the hand of two different practitioners will produce wildly different content.

And here’s what we learn from this example. Marketing expertise and creativity is the key to great content. AI simply takes this expertise and helps us scale it.

So instead of hiring an SME-writer-marketer-lived-experience-gonzo-know-it-all, we’re better off focusing on handing AI to people who are great marketers. A great marketer now has the ability to land an outsized impact thanks to AI’s scaling abilities.

Ironically, the process that ensures high-quality content hasn’t changed. It’s just the production mechanism that has wildly shifted.

We still need marketing expertise to figure out content angles, audiences, and product connections. We still need to review content with SMEs and inject their expertise at the right points.

In short, everything has changed yet nothing that we ought to do has changed.

The hysteria over AI and its impact on quality just shows how cutesy content marketers can get about what we do. A lot of us are creative writers and journalists on the side, and mistake content marketing for some grand creative pursuit.

The reality is that our words exist to sell stuff. If a tool helps us do it better, why the fuss over using it?