Twenty-five years of marketing have trained businesses to publish. We went from websites and blogs to Facebook posts, Instagram, newsletters, video and reels. Every new channel came with another demand for content.
Now AI can produce a month's worth of polished posts in minutes. If almost anyone can do that, how valuable is the next post?
I'm asking this in my own marketing, and it's a question that became sharper while working through our first Build Your AI Marketing Practice program. We explored how to make AI useful for real marketing work, not simply whether it could write faster. The prospect of agents and automation is exciting. But before you automate a campaign, someone still needs to decide what is worth saying and what the business can stand behind.
A fast answer can still be an empty one
Imagine two businesses asking AI for 20 social posts. Both get fluent copy about quality, community and customer service. Neither post tells you what the business learned from its customers, what changed in its offering, or why anyone should choose it.
The output looks like marketing. Where's the substance?
In September 2026, Gartner surveyed 1,006 US consumers. It found that 65% believed brands were producing too much AI-generated marketing content, while 57% said such content made them less trusting of brand messaging.
That's a perception survey from one country, not proof that AI-assisted content is always less valuable. But it does challenge the assumption that more output is good marketing.
I don't want to go back to writing everything by hand. AI can help people express real expertise more clearly, test ideas and make useful explanations accessible. The question is whether there's something worthwhile underneath the polish.
Being found is changing as well
At the same time, the way people find information is shifting.
Pew Research Center studied US Google search behaviour in March 2025. People clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits where an AI summary appeared, compared with 15% without one. That's an observed difference, not a prediction for every website.
In Australia, IAB's July 2026 commerce research found shoppers moving between search, retailer sites, reviews, social media and AI tools to make decisions. AI was adding to those habits, not simply replacing them.
So what does someone find when they ask an AI assistant to compare businesses like yours? A stream of similar posts, or current information about what you actually do, evidence of your work and an easy way to reach you?
Even Google's May 2026 guidance emphasises valuable, unique content and sound search fundamentals, rather than a special trick for getting into AI answers.
What I'm changing in my own marketing
This connects to what I've been exploring through organisational intelligence. If a business understands its customers, keeps its information accurate and learns from the work it does, it has something more useful to share. That knowledge can improve how it works, how it answers questions and how others discover it.
I'm trying to change my own starting point. Less what do I need to post this week? and more what have we learned, built or questioned that someone else would actually find useful?
The conversations, research and real work should supply the substance. AI can help me shape it, explain it and make it easier to find.
I'm not giving up on content. I'm questioning the pressure to produce it regardless of whether it adds anything.
If AI can make the post instantly, what makes it worth someone's attention?