Insights / Visibility & Authority
Are you letting AI phone in your expertise?
AI can speed up content. It can’t supply what you know. Here’s how to tell the difference and build a process that keeps your expertise on the page.
AI-generated content is everywhere. And a lot of it sounds exactly the same.
The tools have made volume easy. Anyone can publish an article a day. But volume without perspective is noise, and noise doesn’t build authority.
You’ve read it. Polished paragraphs, perfect grammar, nothing in them. You could swap the company name for a competitor’s and nobody would notice.
If it could be written by anyone,
for anyone,
it gives a buyer no reason to choose you.
The problem isn’t that businesses are using AI. We use it. The problem is using it as a replacement for thinking, instead of a way to get your thinking onto the page faster.
The real question isn’t whether AI wrote it. It’s whether anything in it came from you.
What phoning it in looks like
Here’s a clearly hypothetical example. Say you run a commercial roofing company and want a page on roof replacement for property managers. You give a tool a prompt and get this:
“Replacing a commercial roof is a significant investment. Choosing the right contractor is essential. Our experienced team delivers quality results on time and on budget, so you can have peace of mind.”
Nothing in it is wrong. Nothing in it is useful either. Every roofer in Ontario could publish it.
Now the same page after a 30-minute conversation with your estimator:
“Most of the replacement quotes we see go wrong in the same place: nobody checked the insulation under the membrane. If it’s wet, a new membrane over it won’t last. We take core samples before we quote, so the number you approve is the number you pay. If your building has had leaks in more than one spot, ask any contractor whether they’ve done the same.”
That version tells the buyer something they didn’t know, gives them a question to ask, and shows how you work. It’s specific enough to be checked, which is exactly why it’s believable.
AI could have helped write the second version. It couldn’t have known about the insulation.
What only you can add
When every competitor can generate the same article in seconds, the article itself stops being the differentiator. What’s left is what the tool doesn’t have:
- The mistakes you see clients make before they call you.
- Where you disagree with common advice, and why.
- The questions buyers ask on sales calls.
- Approved examples of work you’ve done.
- Your judgment about what matters and what doesn’t.
That’s the raw material of authority. It’s also what buyers, search engines and AI tools look for when deciding whose expertise to trust. More on that in how we build authority.
AI works from what you give it. Give it nothing, and that’s what you’ll publish.
Who does what
Good expert content has four jobs. They don’t all need different people, but each needs an owner.
- Interview. Someone asks the expert the buyer’s questions and records the answers. This is where the substance comes from.
- Drafting. A writer, with or without AI, turns the transcript into a structured page in plain language.
- Fact-checking. Someone checks every claim, number and example against what you can support.
- Approval. The expert, or the owner, signs off that it’s accurate and that they’d stand behind it in front of a client.
AI fits best in drafting and tidying. It can transcribe, summarize, suggest structure and tighten sentences. It shouldn’t be the source of your facts or your opinions. The full method is in how to get content out of your head, and if you’re deciding who should do the writing, see AI, a writer or both.
Review it before it goes out
Run every draft through these checks, whoever or whatever wrote it.
Swap the name.
Replace your company name with a competitor’s. If the page still works, it isn’t yours yet.
Find the specific.
Point to at least one detail that came from your experience: a mistake, a method, a number you can back up, an example you’re allowed to share. If there isn’t one, go back to the interview.
Check every claim.
AI tools can state things confidently that aren’t true. Verify facts, figures, regulations and product details against a source you trust. Cut what you can’t support.
Read it as the buyer.
Does it answer a question they actually have? Would they learn something they couldn’t get from the first five search results?
Cut the filler.
Delete phrases like “in today’s fast-paced world”, “peace of mind” and “quality results”. If the sentence means nothing without them, delete the sentence.
Get the sign-off.
The person whose expertise is on the page approves it. If they wouldn’t say it to a client, it doesn’t get published.
Publish less, mean more
One page that answers a real buyer question with real experience will do more for you than ten that restate what everyone else says. Edit aggressively. Add what only you can add. Use AI to get there faster, not to skip the part that matters.
The goal isn’t to publish more. It’s to be trusted more.
Use AI as a tool, not a crutch.
The expertise has to come from somewhere.
Make sure it comes from you.