This article was originally published in Ad Age.
AI is flooding digital spaces with low-quality content, and brands are at risk of getting buried beneath the noise. But with the right strategy, they can rise above AI slop and reclaim attention.
In just two and a half years since ChatGPT’s launch, AI and generative AI-produced content have been rapidly embedded into search, social platforms and everyday content, reshaping how we interact online and making AI a defining part of nearly every digital experience.
For brands, coexisting with and marketing to AI is an ongoing challenge, but still necessary to maintain a meaningful presence in consumers’ lives. While concerns around speed of development, experience quality and hallucinations persist, a pressing matter for brands is the proliferation of low-quality content across the internet.
Such AI slop includes fake blogs, user profiles and social presences often spearheaded by engagement hackers or click-farming operations now supercharged with AI. This content could be viewed as generic nonsense to ignore, but it’s also economically harmful. At best, it sucks up valuable seconds of attention from creator and brand audiences. At worst, the content can even be malicious or unethical.
When forced to compete with AI slop, it’s challenging to make a brand prominent, let alone visible. Yet in this new environment, consumers and even AI systems deserve quality content. Brands have a unique opportunity to make more useful content for consumers. Here are four ways to get started.
Let AI co-create, but not dominate, content development
AI can bring new possibilities and shortcut processes, but the human element will continue to be necessary to help creative thrive.
Think about adding edges to content, not dulling them. Leverage unexpected turns of phrase. Incorporate a surprising design choice. In other words, ensure that originality and creativity appear visible in the work, cultivating a sense of authenticity that connects with consumers.
Don’t play the volume game
Don’t focus on mass producing content just because you can. Instead, use AI and LLMs to home in on research areas and insights that matter to customers and align with their identity.
Avoid flooding the zone with content that isn’t necessary. For example, if a snack brand with a core audience of fitness enthusiasts were to suddenly create style tips or movie recommendations, it would feel random and might even undermine the brand’s support of fitness and health.
Play to your strengths
It can be tempting to use new tools to capture attention around current events or popular topics, but it’s not always the right move for a brand. While AI can open the world up for content creation around anything and everything, being disciplined and brand-relevant is what will make that content valuable.
Consider how brands that have uncharacteristically waded into areas such as politics or current events have fared.
Harness AI to boost search visibility
As search evolves with AI, monitor and adapt content for LLMs and AI overview experiences to make sure the best pages and content register and surface with crawlers. Create alignment with oft-cited publishers, too, evolving partnership strategies to help maintain visibility around relevant topics.
Consider owned AI agents
As AI technology becomes more distributed and embedded in consumer experiences, many brands might want to develop and host agents on their platforms. While history is littered with ill-conceived apps across branded web, mobile, voice and web3, AI and LLM technology are more promising. If and when that time comes, design these experiences with user research and test to understand their value to customers.
Consideration and care for content and experiences will go a long way and will become even more important in an era of marketing to algorithms and AI. Marketers have an opportunity to provide content that displays credibility, quality, relevance and commercial opportunities. Let’s make sure we don’t get lost in the slop.
