Visibility.
It was once the most common answer I heard when I asked marketing manager what was wrong with her content processes. “We only have limited visibility in the planned and produced content and how effective it is,” they would say.
A CMO of a Fortune 1000 company even admitted that she learned the company’s pioneer by subscription to the newsletter. “I have no idea what they are planning,” she said.
This word has faded in the past two years.
Generative AI stormed into our vocabulary and was associated with the creation of content into the content. Speed and quantity are the new catchphrase, and high -ranking managers seem to have resigned as the cost of business activities in the waste of content.
“Visibility? Meh. Why do we worry about it when we produce so quickly? What is the worst thing that can happen? It is not used?”
Well, yes. And that is exactly the problem. I talk about it and the solutions in this video. Read on for even more details.
The same logic was applied to digital advertising expenses. Despite the estimates 22% of all advertising budgets are lost by fraudPresent Only 23% of marketing managers in a survey 2023 Described fraud as a matter of 14%that they were “unscathed”.
Now we are shaking into the same space with a content strategy – or more precisely in the lack of one. Forrester estimates that 65% Customer -oriented content is unused due to problems with findings, relevance or quality.
Let us make a few quick math: If the marketers have also recovered half of this wasted content, could the entire marketing results improve?
The messy content machine
Think about how raw ideas become marketing messages, thought leaders, articles and campaigns. This process – now charged by generative AI – usually begins with someone creating or curating the “right” inputs to feed the content machine.
Managers may determine the topics, but those who are soon distorted by new new teams with tools who promise efficiency but deliver chaos.
Here is the irony: Ai should make it easier.
Spoiler: It doesn’t.
AI strengthens the chaos. Ideas are invisible until they are transformed into content. And without visibility, companies fall into the same trap: content is the order of all, but none strategy.
Frontline teams use AI to pump out hyper-specific content for immediate needs. In the meantime, central teams have difficulty managing the tidal wave of content or hesitation to trust everything – because they have no visibility in what was generated by AI and what was produced by people.
Imagine you carry an automotive assembly. The average car has 30,000 parts along a line that is about 1,000 feet long.
Imagine now that you only have a visibility in the last 50 feet. You would have no idea how many cars come, which models and whether someone exchanged an important part.
This is how the content processes of many organizations look like today: no visibility, no orientation and no control.
The fear factor in working with content
At the center of this visibility crisis is a deeper, often overlooked topic: a fear of cooperation.
I have found that this fear has grown in recent years – especially in environments in which the production speed has a priority. Cooperation is often perceived as a bottleneck that requires more time to hear several voices, consensus and conflicts to solve. Simply put: the focus shifted from “tinkering with purposes” to “publish for reasons of speed”.
KI only contributed to this challenge and reinforced the tension between speed and sensible cooperation. Let us further unpack this:
Fear of losing control (to the machine)
A global company that I worked with tried to use AI to expand massive amounts of SEO-oriented content. But regional teams often find it deaf and irrelevant. Leadership resisted in cooperation with regional teams to improve the relevance and feared that they “pollute” the training data of the AI or the slow production. The result? KI content that is quick, but increasingly ineffective.
Fear of too much process
The CEO proudly claimed at a SaaS company: “Genai will soon replace employees of medium -sized employees.” They have implemented AI tools for everything -content creation, analysis, publication plans, etc., but without collaborative framework, the tools have become processes. Teams generate more content, but the strategic orientation is missing. The result? Algorithmic disorder.
(This situation reminds me of actors and director Ben Affleck’s comment About AI and Art: “At best, AI is a craftsman … craftsmen know how to work. Art is to know when you stop. “)
Fear of failure (in the Ki -Spotlight)
I know medium -sized advice in which AI tools were used to centralize content marketing creation. But I also know that individual practitioners fear that the common system will uncover their work as less polished. So you tried to use your own models. Instead of promoting cooperation, increased AI silos. The result? Missed possibilities and a more complicated case for future AI investments.
Generative AI will do much better in environments with precise inputs, processes and cooperation.
Logistics offers a perfect analogy: AI optimizes the supply chains when it has complete visibility in raw materials, production levels and delivery time plans. Their content “supply chain” is no different.
Include the AI-affected chaos
Here is the unpleasant truth: Ai does not remove our content chaos – it reinforces it.
Regional teams continue to create their own content. Subject experts nevertheless upload folia decks that do not match the strategy. AI will still generate headings that sound properly but miss the point.
And that’s okay – as long as there is a mechanism to make chaos visible to people who have to mean the content.
Imagine your content strategy and the visibility that you offer as air traffic control. They do not dictate every start or landing. But you need to know what is in the air, what is ready to start and what is grounded.
Generative AI does not disappear – it only becomes more central for the creation of content. The first step to thrive in this new era is the recovery of visibility.
How to start:
- Map your content chain: Identify every phase of the creation of content, including the time that contributes to the AI.
- Test and choose collaborative tools: Prioritize tools that improve visibility and teamwork, not just automation.
- Build a culture of the partnership: Include the AI as a tool that works with The people in their team and their role in the process, not instead of them.
- Get slower to accelerate: Sometimes the most effective way is to pause, reflect and create deliberate friction in your content process. This break is not about delaying progress – it is about ensuring the sharper focus, promoting creativity and making decisions that lead to effective, sustainable dynamics.
It’s your story. AI can help you to say it – but you still need you (and a strategy) to guide it.
Hand injured content:
Cover picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute