As content marketers, we're constantly experiencing how artificial intelligence is changing the way that we live and work—from its ability to automate administrative tasks to its skill at parsing through vast amounts of data and its knack for delivering lightning fast answers. Considering that AI is so universal (and here to stay) I’ve been surprised by how unprepared many of us are for how it has impacted our ability to reach and influence audiences.

If you're still creating and optimizing content the same way you always have—without adapting to the new AI landscape—you may already see diminishing returns in the form of reduced traffic, clicks, and revenue. 

Recently, I had a conversation with a colleague who now leads digital strategy at a major financial services firm. We talked about the importance of having a documented content strategy that takes many of the recent AI-driven changes and opportunities into account.

As we discussed, it’s no longer enough to just produce high-quality content you need to evolve with the way people are looking for information. The entire search landscape is transforming so rapidly that brands that don’t adapt now are jeopardizing their organic visibility, competitive standing, and even the security of their own proprietary content.

This conversation made me realize that, despite all of our talk about AI, many brand leaders are still unprepared for the very real, business-critical consequences they could face if they don’t integrate AI into their content planning. These are conversations we’re having with our own clients right now—and the key challenges your brand should be aware of as you look ahead to 2025.

Content Risk 1: Reduced Organic Visibility and Discoverability

As we’ve shared recently, search engines like Google are now providing answers to a lot of searcher questions directly within AI-generated answer boxes. This is particularly true for informational “What is” and “How to” queries—users are likely to find answers to most of what they need without ever clicking on your site. 

Brands that rely heavily on organic search traffic have likely already seen a drop in both visibility and clicks from SERPs. 

The Solution: Instead of relying on informative or prescriptive information that AI can easily summarize, you should focus on creating deeper, more valuable content that AI can’t replicate. Think in terms of long-tail keyword clusters and content that dives deep into specific, niche topics that AI struggles to summarize effectively. Be sure to include expert insights (from real people at your company), proprietary data, and a clearly differentiated brand voice. 

The goal is to give your content not only depth but a clear human perspective that makes it stand out from the glut of content developed by machines. By doing this, you'll not only protect your organic traffic but could also capture new search opportunities that AI-driven responses won’t address.

Content Risk 2: Falling Behind Your Competitors

Even if you’ve adopted a “wait and see” approach, there’s a good chance your competitors have already started to change their marketing tactics—if not their entire content and SEO strategies. 

Several leaders at brands I’ve spoken with have created AI task forces in the past year to experiment with and potentially implement new tools to support idea generation, research, and measurement of content. I’ve also noticed that some marketing departments are being reshuffled to take better advantage of AI-driven opportunities. 

Your competitors are likely taking AI and its effect on content development, search, and customer engagement very seriously. They are wasting no time in revising their strategies and resources to take advantage of the opportunities.

The Solution: Potentially unpopular opinion: You’re going to need to take your content plan from last year and either completely overhaul it or scrap it all together to create a completely fresh approach to reaching and engaging with your audiences. I believe it’s fine if your 2025 strategy includes a mix of a few tried and true tactics, as long as there's a lot of experimentation packaged in. The goalposts are moving almost by the hour as audience behavior changes and adapts to content and messaging in a post-AI world. 

Over a longer period, your brand needs to integrate AI as a core part of your content and marketing strategy and operations. This means investing in AI tools that can analyze audience data, predict trends, and continuously optimize content performance. 

Content Risk 3: Missing Opportunities

When AI exploded a couple of years back, I’ll admit that I was primarily focused on the risk that it might try to replace real human-created content (spoiler alert: it didn’t!). What took me longer to appreciate is that we as content marketers can actually use artificial intelligence to take a lot of guesswork out of our jobs—making us a lot more effective at storytelling. AI’s ability to assess audience behavior and parse large amounts of data means we now can:

• Identify high-performing content topics: AI can pinpoint topics that resonate with your target audiences and have high search intent. This can help you hone your editorial calendar and ensure resources are directed toward content with the most potential for engagement and lead generation.

• Optimize and customize content for specific audience segments: AI can personalize content recommendations based on user demographics, interests, and past behavior. The content marketing team at Nationwide is in the early stages of doing this with their newsletter, leveraging tech to personalize content based on the type of insurance recipients have. "Quote from Chelsea here about what you're working towards."

• Discover new content formats: AI can analyze user preferences and content performance to identify emerging content formats that might be a good fit for your audience. This could include interactive content, infographics, or even voice-activated content experiences.

The Solution: Redirect your attention away from AI tools for written content creation and test out those that make specific recommendations around your own unique audiences and proprietary performance data. There are thousands of them out there; use a directory like this one to help you search by specific need or ask for recommendations within your professional networking groups. At Masthead, we’re experimenting with tools like Google’s Notebook LM (which makes accessing information from your own proprietary/internal content easier and Waldo (which speeds up and automates complex research tasks). 

Content Risk 4: Unauthorized Access to (and Sharing of) Content

As you may have seen or experienced yourself, AI-powered tools have a knack for uncovering both publicly available and hidden or gated content. For example, users can input entire white papers into these tools to summarize them, which can inadvertently make your valuable information part of an AI's data repository. 

This poses a significant risk of unintentional exposure and misinterpretation. Your proprietary content could end up being shared or misrepresented, leading to confusion among audiences who weren’t the intended recipients.

The Solution: While we can't completely prevent AI from crawling and being trained on our content, we can adapt our strategies to make it more clear where that content comes from in the first place. 

First, be transparent about your content sources and ensure that perspectives are communicated clearly. Be sure to take credit for these thoughts (if they’re yours) and give credit (to anyone interviewed for the piece) by using direct quotes and attributions throughout. 

Focus on sharing your data and insights in ways that highlight your brand's unique voice and expertise, making it harder for AI to replicate (without giving you some well-earned credit!)

If the goal of the white paper or ebook is to generate leads, you may have a shorter window than you once did before AI makes your content “public information.” You may want to release more gated content, more often, in order to generate interest, downloads, and engagement among your target audience. Once you have the leads—work them!

Ultimately, we need to learn to work alongside AI, by sharing information that reflects the care and precision of our content creation process. By being proactive and transparent, you can help mitigate the risks of unauthorized access and ensure that your audience engages with your brand in a meaningful way.