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I know it’s the popular thing to crap all over, but I have no beef with AI or even SEO. No direct beef, that is.

These are just tools and tech. They amplify good strategies. They also often amplify bad ones. But they're never the core issue.

My bigger concern is that the content most teams should be creating isn’t even on the roadmap.

The stuff rooted in you and/or your team’s perspective, earned experiences, and observations. The stuff that makes it easier for your audience to make a decision because they can see/learn the difference between you and everyone else in your space.

It's rarely a consideration in terms of the content (think LinkedIn posts, blog posts, emails, etc.) and maybe more importantly, the content IP (the premise of your podcast, newsletter, etc.) that teams invest in.

It's not because people don't want to or fail to see the value in it.

It's usually because they're too close to the work. They don’t recognize how valuable their insights are. They assume it’s too obvious. Too specific. Too anecdotal.

So they default to what I call Secondhand Content. Content that:

• Their competitors are creating, so they feel they should too.
• SEO tools (or other inputs) that everyone else is using is telling them to write, so they do.

It's content that's borrowed. Unoriginal. Undifferentiated.

Maybe they’ve shifted platforms — less SEO, more LinkedIn, more newsletters — but the approach hasn’t changed. They’re still creating tactical, listicle-style content that everyone else in the space is creating.

And with AI in the mix, they can now do it faster, cheaper, and across more platforms.

So what happens? Your audience drowns in a sea of same-sounding advice. And the content they need...the stuff that allows them to spot differences between solutions and make their decision(s) easier? That stuff never gets made. It never makes it to market.

Because that kind of content?

• It requires your perspective.
• It requires your point of view.
• It requires you to say, “Here’s how we see it — and here’s why.”

So how do we make the shift?

It starts by rethinking the voice of your content. Right now, most content is written in “how you” mode:

• Here’s what you should do.
• Here are five ways to solve this problem.
• Here’s why your system is broken.

But the content that actually breaks through — that builds connection and credibility — is written in “how I” mode:

• Here’s what we’ve learned from working with 100 clients like you.
• Here’s where we got it wrong the first time — and what we do differently now.
• Here’s something we believe that others don’t.

Less “how you.” More “how I.”

That’s what earns attention today. Not because it’s louder, but because it’s real. It's authentic. It's you.