With the rise of AI bots, is it time to rethink thought leadership?
We may need to embrace new and surprisingly old ways
If lately you've Googled or Siri-searched on your phone, you'll be familiar with the slow-drip of AI oracles, coaxing us to drink to excess in their fountains of eternal knowledge.
After years of frustrated attempts, my smart TV finally understands our requests for YouTube videos of local bands to plan nights out. Though, like most tech bias, it responds better to my enunciated British Midlands accent than my partner's second-language English. We're a few fairy steps on from the voice-recognition phone systems, which Miranda brilliantly demonstrates the absurdity of, but only a few.
For those casting out intellectual memes – aka "thought leadership" (ick) – times are a-changing.
As reported in the last issue, search traffic is in freefall. Gartner predicts search engines will be used 25% less by next year, with a halving of organic traffic by 2028. It's dire times for indie publishers.
One medium dilutes another, yet, like radio surviving television, interest exists to support both. AI search tools usage is up 1,300%. According to Adobe's study, 39% of consumers have used GenAI for tasks like shopping and product recommendation and 55% plan to do so this year.
AI chatbots will soon reach their promise of 'an assistant in your pocket'. It's like choosing the orange or the juice. Scouring, picking and cutting the orange, applying a lens of trust and taste, delivers a sweet nectar. But sometimes – and let's be honest, I'm no Gwyneth Paltrow – most times, you just want the processed juice, served in a carton.
It's more than a seasonal trend
"Traditional" ways of receiving info through a browser or voice search are waning. This isn't a passing fad. Chat interfaces promise a swifter and more personalised vibe. No more scrolling and multi-tabs of 30 web pages to research which vacuum cleaner has the best rating.
It's the sci-fi futuristic dream. We speak our desires and the disembodied oracle serves us knowledge. Now multimodal AI assistants like Manus and Kairos can find info and do useful things with it – like ordering a pizza or issuing and filing an invoice.
For organisations, embedded agents like Slack's Claude integration will shift knowledge directly into corporate workplace tools. Why leave your workflow to search when the answers can come to you? Although I can think of many reasons to log off Slack and do something less boring instead.
Despite Google changing its interface and algorithm as frequently as I buy "preloved" shoes from Vinted, there's some resistance to the onslaught of AI. Search terms including "-ai" (give me the results without AI summary) are trending.
Yet according to the Wall Street Journal, Google is for "old people" (guilty), and that's a problem for Google. And for consultants, brands et al, your precious well of knowledge is taking the biggest hit.
Is this the end of the halcyon days of executive thought leadership?
Resistance is futile. When might AI serve up better content?
There are plenty of situations where GenAI can respond better than search and research. Take complex questions requiring multiple data sources and queries. Claude gives me this example:
"Compare the environmental impact of different electric vehicle battery technologies and summarise the trade-offs."
An AI search can deftly create a nested table of comparative quant and qual metrics rather than reading multiple vendor and industry articles.
AI search cuts the waffle. For those lovely keyword-stuffed waffle recipes, prefaced with a (hyper believable) anecdote of how great Aunt Janey in Louisiana used to serve 'em hot with maple syrup and sizzlin' bacon, that could be a good thing.
Though AI searches are thought to need 10 x the energy of a Google search, if you aren't searching, scrolling and downloading 10 long pages to get a recipe, could this lead to a leaner content model?
You're lying awake at 3 AM wondering whether chronic insomnia is a symptom of irritable bowel syndrome, or vice versa. The immediacy and privacy of AI chat feel preferable to scrolling search results.
With its soothing voices, always-on and eager to please attitude, it's no wonder people are getting emotionally attached to AI. Now, ChatGPT has a memory function to remember past preferences and instructions. No more goldfish bowl tedium of cut and pasting again from your prompt list. Leap to what you need now. That closeness and personification could feel hyper-real.
Thoughts leaders are turning into the invisible (wo)man
The rub for thought leaders and their ghost-writing underlings: In traditional search, your brand is front and centre. In AI, attribution is an afterthought.
The citation problem is a widening rift between publishers and AI developers. LLMs swoosh together insights from many sources into the chat blender. Your carefully crafted piece is but one ingredient in the stew.🍲
How to get ahead with GenAI search
Some are now creating AI-optimised thought leadership. That's content specifically designed to be picked up and regurgitated cited by LLMs. It's known as GEO (Generative AI Optimisation) and it complements established SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) practices.
Tactics include creating web content that’s factual and citation-rich, unique data points from the brand's own research and complex topics carved into defined chunks. "Fingerprints" can help with attribution, using common phrasing like "keep it curious" so your phrases become a form of branding.
For 'SEO' style factual copy, it makes sense to evolve for new platforms. I don't know about you, but using this approach to mine and my clients' work makes me want to poke my eye out with a rounded lolly stick.
Choose a path (or two) to stand out in the artificial noise
So, which path should you take in this increasingly artificial new world?
Route 1: Be definitive
AI search favours content that's comprehensive, well-structured and authoritative. Similar to SEO, invest in deeper topic-specific resources that AI will reference. Help LLMs be better with accuracy and bias. Research from Stanford shows that AI systems tend to over-represent mainstream views and under-represent specialised expertise, particularly from sources outside of the Global North.
Route 2: Be authoritative. Be an original author
Your research and proprietary data serve AI info that it must then attribute to you. Just Ask Jeeves (or Claude) how many pages there are for "According to Gartner". (I did. They didn't know. But we both agreed it's LOTS). To become authoritative, publish. Be an author.
Route 3: Build authority beyond content
As AI becomes the information's interface, consider other channels for your ideas: conference talks, YouTube videos, podcasts, academic citations. It's like the old days of social. Try everything, see what you enjoy and what people connect with. You may need to get out in the real world to get noticed in the online world.
Route 4. Have your own point of view
Vanilla, consensus opinions are the basic ingredients for AI stew. Clearly articulating your thoughts will help you become the main dish. Don't be beige. Or muddy brown.
Route 5: Use formats AI can't steal
Not everything can be smashed into an AI summary. Interactive tools, community discussions, live events and mixed-media big-ticket campaigns can inspire real folks, and help share knowledge beyond the algorithm. I love podcasts. You can extract great videos, articles and audio from one smart interview.
Should leaders keep their thoughts to themselves?
Getting noticed in the ever-swirling sinkhole of online words is going to be a challenge. Route 5 suggests for the typical written thought piece, perhaps we should just give up. There are some different tactics.
Option 1: Submit to the AI gods
Accept our thoughts will be em-dashed into submission, then Bullet Pointed into Title Cased Oblivion. But they will be our memes out in the world.
Option 2: Be more human
Some claim AI will soon write everything. Well, that's what ChatGPT told me when it delivered a 'meh' contribution to this article. (It would, wouldn't it?). With the flywheel of AI "powered" content leading to more noise and low-value AI slop, the path of least resistance would be to give up writing.
Don't fear – some people still want some real human-crafted content.
Don’t get AI to speed-dial producing content that no one wants to read. Spend time investing in your thoughts. Craft sentences and paragraphs by reading out loud.
The excellent B2B content agency Storythings has a campaign, Stay Human, about ditching the zombie-robo talk in B2B comms and turning on the human switch.
How to beat the rising tides of AI mediocrity
Since content marketing was a thing, around 2013, when I worked at a publisher agency morphing into a content marketing agency, we've been swimming in mediocrity. AI is raising the sea levels.
As AI homogenises knowledge, expertise will become more valuable, not less. Recording music on a computer instead of an expensive studio, then releasing it on Napster (later iTunes, then Spotify) didn't kill recorded music. It raised the bar for what you need to produce to stand out. Thought leaders may actually need to, well, think.
About using AI.
Embrace the flow. Let the tools help you form, structure and challenge your writing. Even the free version of Claude is a brilliant sub-editor (or so it claims).
Let it fix my grammar in this lazy first draft. It's not a binary "human" or "AI" situation. But please don't follow those damn awful prompts about creating a social post from a blank screen like LinkedIn's 'can I use AI to write something for you." Don't let your LLM become a next-gen Clippy.
Jo Lazer asks in Storytelling Edge, What's the point of publishing the thought leadership equivalent of a 7-Eleven hot dog? (British readers of a certain age: that's like a tin of Princes frankfurters in brine). First drafts are the hard things we need to do to strengthen our muscles. It's the brain thinking bit of thought leadership.
Successful brands and folks in the 'changing hearts and minds' space will embrace AI as a distribution channel rather than seeing it in opposition to forming a community.
How we use 'the internet' is morphing by the day. What never changes is the human need for guidance: we're hierarchical creatures like hens. And many like to know which rooster’s crow to listen to.
Be original. Be the quiet yet powerful expert in the corner that the social algorithms and the AI bots can't ignore.
Until next time, keep it curious 🔁
Susi
What's your experience with getting your brand to appear in AI search?
Have you noticed changes in your site traffic?
This is a free post, it's open for your comments.💡