Visibility.
Once upon a time, this word was the most common answer I heard when I asked the marketing leaders, which did not go with their content operations. “We have limited visibility on the planned and product content and its effectiveness,” they say.
A CMO of a Fortune 1000 company even admitted having learned the company’s opinion department by being straightening to the newsletter. “I have no idea what they plan,” she said.
Over the past two years, this word has faded.
The generative AI burst into our vocabulary, leaving content creation. Speed and quantity are the new waiting words, and senior leaders seem to have resigned themselves to the waste of content as a business cost.
“Visibility? Meh. Why care when we produce so quickly? What is the worst that can happen? It will not be used?
Well, yes. And this is precisely the problem. I talk about it and the solutions of this video. Continue to read even more details.
The same logic was applied to digital advertising expenses. Despite the estimates that 22% of all advertising budgets is lost for fraud,, Only 23% of marketing leaders in a survey in 2023 Describes fraud as a concern, 14% saying that they were “indicated”.
Now we are sleeping in the same room with a content strategy – or, more precisely, the absence of one. Forrester estimates that 65% Customer -focused content is not used due to problems of finding, relevance or quality.
Let’s do quick mathematics: if marketing specialists have recovered half of this wasted content, do you think that global marketing results could improve?
The disorderly content machine
Consider how raw ideas become marketing messages, enlightened leadership, articles and campaigns. This process – now supercharged (or confused) by generative AI – usually begins with someone who created or retained the “good” entries to feed the content machine.
Managers can establish themes, but these are quickly distorted by partitioned teams using tools that promise efficiency But deliver chaos.
Here is the irony: the AI was supposed to facilitate this.
Spoiler: this is not the case.
Amplifies it the waste. Ideas are invisible until they turn into content. And without visibility, companies fall into the same trap: content is everyone’s work but person’s strategy.
First line teams use AI to pump hyper -specific content to immediate needs. Meanwhile, the central teams find it difficult to manage the tidal wave of the content or hesitate to trust everything – because they have no visibility on what has been generated by AI compared to what has been made by humans.
Imagine the execution of an automotive mounting chain. The average car has 30,000 parts assembled along a line about 1,000 feet long.
Now imagine you only have visibility in the last 50 feet. You would have no idea of the number of cars, what models and if someone has exchanged a key part.
This is what many organizations content operations Looks like today: no visibility, no alignment and no control.
The fear factor in the collaboration of content
At the heart of this visibility, the crisis is a deeper and often neglected problem: a fear of collaboration.
I noticed that this fear has increased in recent years – especially in environments where production speed is priority. Collaboration is often perceived as a bottleneck, which requires more time for several voices to be heard, the construction of a consensus and the conflicts to be resolved. In simple terms: attention has made “craftsmanship with intention” to “publish for speed”.
AI only added to this challenge, amplifying the Tension between speed and significant collaboration. Overflow this further:
Fear of losing control (machine)
A global company with which I worked has tried to use AI to produce massive amounts of SEO -oriented content. But regional teams often find it deaf and not relevant. Leadership resists collaboration with regional teams to improve relevance, fearing that it “pollutes” AI training data or slow production. The result? AI content which is fast but increasingly ineffective.
Fear of too much process
In a SaaS company, the CEO proudly said: “Genai will soon replace employees of intermediate level”. They have implemented AI tools for everything – content creation, analysis, publication hours, etc. But without a collaborative framework, the tools have become distractions. The teams generate more content, but it lacks strategic alignment. The result? Algorithmic clips.
(This situation reminds me of the actor and the director Ben Affleck’s commentary About AI and Art: “AI is at best a craftsman … Craftsman knows how to work. Art is to know when to stop. »)
Fear of failure (under the AI spotlight)
I know an intermediate size advice that has deployed AI tools to centralize the creation of content marketing. But I also know that individual practitioners fear that the shared system will expose their work as less polite. So they tried to use their own models. Instead of promoting collaboration, AI has strengthened silos. The result? Missed opportunities and a more complicated case for future AI investments.
The generative AI will work much better in environments with precise entries, processes and collaboration.
Logistics offers a perfect analogy: AI optimizes supply chains when it has complete visibility on raw materials, production steps and delivery times. Your “supply chain” content is no different.
Kiss the disorder fueled by AI
Here is the uncomfortable truth: AI does not eliminate our content mess – it amplifies it.
Regional teams will always create their own content. Experts in the matter will always download slides that do not line up with the strategy. The AI will always generate titles that sound correctly but lack the point.
And it’s ok – as long as there is a mechanism to make the disorder visible for humans who need to ensure that the content means something.
Think of your content strategy and the visibility it offers as control of air traffic. You do not dictate each takeoff or landing. But you should know what’s in the air, what is ready to be launched and what is anchored.
The generative does not disappear – it only becomes more central to the creation of content. The first step to thrive in this new era is to recover visibility.
Here’s how to start:
Card your content supply chain: Identify each step in content creation, including where AI contributes.
Test and choose collaborative tools: Prioritize the tools that improve visibility and teamwork, not just automation.
Build a partnership culture: Adopt AI as a tool that Works with individuals In your team and their role in the process, not in place of them.
Slow down to accelerate: Sometimes the most effective path is to take a break, reflect and create intentional friction in your content process. This break does not consist in delaying progress – it is a question of ensuring a clearer concentration, promoting creativity and making decisions which lead to a relevant and lasting impulse.
It’s your story. AI can help you say – but it still needs you (and a strategy) to guide it.
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Conversely sorted on the pane content:
Joseph Kalinowski / Content Marketing Institute cover image
