Content Strategy Audit Hiding Inside AI Initiative

The corporate had a warehouse of actually good content material.

Nicely researched. Nicely written. Strategically sound. Three years of funding in assets, weblog posts, and long-form articles. The form of B2B content material library most advertising and marketing groups would envy.

They usually have been getting nowhere with it.

A expertise firm within the monetary providers house, they have been a challenger model in a crowded market. Like a lot of their friends, they have been repositioning as AI-forward. They got here to me with what they thought was a scaling problem — utilizing generative AI to create extra content material for extra channels.

However the true downside was deeper. That they had a content material technique problem, and the work we did ended up altering not simply their AI implementation however their model voice altogether. The connection between their content material, their capability to provide it, and their goal audiences was the precise work.

In final week’s episode of the June Reckoning sequence, I provided a reality check on the state of AI in content and marketing: partly cloudy to stormy.

Associated:The Mid-Year AI Reality Check for Every Marketing Team

This week, I flip to a sensible query: How can we work on this content-led advertising and marketing climate?

What I see rising by means of consulting engagements is a sensible five-domain audit disguised as an AI integration evaluation. The audit forces the fashionable content material technique dialog most groups have averted for years.

The 5 domains: Technique. Functionality. Output. Viewers. Measurement.

Right here we go.

Technique: The place your AI ought to really be working

The primary query is the meta one: What are your targets for generative AI implementation in your content material technique? Why did you implement AI for content material within the first place?

In case your reply is “we would have liked to scale or pace up our content material output,” you’re ripe for this audit.

Right here’s what we discovered with my consumer. 

They constructed the AI initiative round what appeared to be a wonderfully affordable aim: extra content material, quicker, in additional codecs. With practitioners and subject material specialists on the wheel, AI wrote first drafts of thought management and content material requests from the remainder of the enterprise. It additionally generated social variants and summarized lengthy items into quick ones. An enterprise AI resolution checked all the things for tone and model consistency. The crew reviewed and authorized AI output fairly than originating it.

It labored. Kind of. They printed greater than they ever had, however they actually didn’t enhance their share of voice or differentiation within the market.

Observer vs. participant content material

AI is good at observer content material. Summarizing. Explaining. Restating. If you happen to want a proof of a SaaS scalability mannequin that features available trade benchmarks, AI will provide you with a flawless one in 30 seconds.

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However AI is horrible at participant content material. The non-public story. The contrarian scorching take based mostly on private expertise. The standpoint that emerged from final month’s onerous quarter. The argument that solely the one that was within the room could make.

That distinction performed an enormous function in my consumer’s audit. Observer content material had been their bread and butter. Business analyst reviews. Exterior research about their software program. Govt interviews about trade information. The complete technique was observer-oriented. Their notion: We’ve got a content material technique, so AI can scale it. They usually weren’t fallacious about that.

However observer content material is what each competitor’s AI produces. I name it the beige wall. Camouflage. It really works towards you. It makes you invisible.

So, we beneficial the consumer relocate AI’s job. From drafting to stress testing. From producing content material to producing higher considering. From shallow analysis to formulating the strongest opposing positions. People write the content material. They convey the non-public tales, the contrarian takes borne from expertise, and the factors of view AI can not manufacture.

Nonetheless, relocating AI’s job to gradual the crew down and create much less content material is a tough promote when the entire level of the AI initiative was producing extra. That results in the second area.

Functionality — story bible, no more assets

Does your crew’s functionality match what the technique requires?

Based on CMI’s latest research — and anecdotally from my consumer expertise — the reply is sort of at all times no. The follow-up demand is sort of at all times “we want extra assets.” For many advertising and marketing groups in 2026, that want is actual. 

However requests for extra assets typically don’t land as a result of the entire level of the super-important 2026 AI initiative was to do extra with much less.

In my consumer’s case, the crew was good at product advertising and marketing content material. They might write function explainers and analyst-view-of-the-platform items fluently. They weren’t geared up to writer participant-grade thought management. They wanted subject material experience and the analysis expertise to assist it. They didn’t have a useful resource problem. That they had a functionality hole.

The audit recognized a particular repair: Construct a present bible.

Right here’s the way it works.

Develop a narrative pillar

Get your editorial or management council in a room (you have one of those, right?). Choose a pillar, or two, or three. A pillar is a deeply held perception about your market. A standpoint. A narrative that rivals will not be telling or will not be telling properly. It isn’t a tagline. It isn’t a product positioning line. It’s a place the CEO would defend in entrance of a hostile journalist. I talked about building POV exchanges final yr.

For every pillar, the crew produces a single asset. That asset is your present bible. It could possibly be a manifesto. A proprietary analysis research. A e-book. An inner story necessities doc. Totally different channels get completely different expressions. Every little thing the model publishes for the approaching months attracts from it. 

Now, AI can do actual work. AI stress checks the pillar’s thesis. AI formulates the strongest opposing argument. AI does the deep analysis that helps or contradicts the thesis. AI surfaces the newest exterior information, so the council at all times has recent inputs. 

People writer the content material. They convey the knowledge, expertise, empathy, and private tales. The present bible is sharper than something they may produce with out AI.

That work reframes the potential query. The true query is: Does your crew have what it wants to provide participant-grade thought management?

As I discussed last week, don’t begin your reply with a expertise evaluation. Begin with capabilities. Ask what work deserves a human’s time. Then ask how AI helps deepen that work so the market can’t confuse you with a competitor.

Output — from AI generator to AI editor

Upon getting a pillar asset, the remainder of your output runs downhill from it.

Need a sequence of LinkedIn posts? Pull from the pillar. Need video scripts? Pull from the pillar. Need op-eds bylined to the CEO, the chief expertise officer, and the chief buyer officer for 3 completely different commerce publications? Pull from the pillar. 

The pillar is the supply. Every little thing else is by-product.

The inevitable pushback: “It sounds such as you’re going to decelerate the creation course of.” The reply: “Sure, we’re. However wait until you see how we pace up manufacturing and repurposing.” 

AI’s function expands once more. AI checks the by-product content material for consistency — with the proprietary frameworks, the named arguments, the buzzwords and anti-buzzwords outlined by the pillar asset. AI flags a video script wandering off the pillar’s phrases. AI catches a weblog publish when it softens the sharp bits (my technical time period). AI compresses a 2,000-word piece right into a 200-character social publish that doesn’t lose its spine.

That’s editorial AI — utilized the place it really provides worth.

Viewers — you don’t have one

The fourth area is viewers, the one most advertising and marketing groups uncover they don’t even have.

They’ve a listing. Lists will not be audiences. Lists are databases of people that handed you contact info in a transactional trade. An viewers is a relationship.

Earlier this yr, I argued that the era of the monolith brand — one consistent message broadcast to one phantom market — is over. What replaces it’s the plural model — a construction with a set, singular core that permits completely different expressions of the identical fact relying on the room.

A room isn’t just a channel like e-mail, Reddit, or YouTube. It’s a tradition. It is a trendy, self-selected group outlined by shared language, incentives, and beliefs. Executives in finance learn various things than engineering leads in finance. They don’t even use the identical phrases for a similar ideas. A plural model reveals up in each rooms with the identical core however vastly completely different expressions.

This issues as a result of 83% of B2B buyers do their research in rooms your model could by no means see — the conversations in Slack teams, Reddit threads, non-public Discord servers, peer dinners, and analyst calls you don’t (and will by no means) have entry to.

In my consumer’s case, the audit surfaced 4 rooms the place they wanted a place: government (op-eds, enterprise journals, CFO peer teams), technical engineering (group boards, Substack newsletters), buyer success (trade conferences, buyer advisory boards), and inner. Sure, their very own staff have been a plural model viewers that had been neglected.

They translated the pillar asset into every room’s language. Similar singular core. Totally different dialects. AI can assist with the translations.

That brings us to the ultimate area: What does success appear to be?

Measurement — begin with belief

When the AI initiative is all about “doing extra with much less,” just one measurement issues: Did we make extra with much less?

Whenever you change AI’s function to deepen the work, the measure of success modifications too.

Earlier this yr, I created the Audience Trust Index. It replaces consideration metrics (views, clicks, downloads) in favor of relationship metrics. It assesses well being throughout three dimensions:

AI performs an intricate function within the Viewers Belief Index.

In my expertise consumer’s case, the measurement plan was easy. Hold the demand-gen measurement intact because it’s doing its personal job. Add a belief lattice scorecard throughout the 4 audiences:

Additionally, measure the share of voice for the pillar’s core themes throughout all 4 rooms.

Utilizing their AI instruments, we constructed agentic purposes that pull feedback, sentiment, and qualitative belief alerts internally and externally.

It is early, however what’s clear is that this can be a completely different and extra fascinating software of AI in measurement.

Run the audit this week, pivot your mid-year evaluation

Audit all 5 domains — technique, functionality, output, viewers, and measurement. It gained’t take quite a lot of days. Your output is a clear learn on the assumptions beneath your AI initiative for content material and advertising and marketing, so you may decide what to maintain and what to vary.

Take into account the instance of the corporate getting nowhere with the warehouse of actually good content material. The audit modified how they used AI. Extra importantly, it modified how they thought in regards to the work. They’re now out there with a sharper voice and a clearer view of the rooms the place they wish to earn a place.

That’s what the audit buys you. It offers you a number of months between June and This autumn planning to pivot. 

Now, get your crew in a room. Choose a pillar. Run the audit.

Your second half is the prize.

It’s your story. Inform it properly.

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