Should We Stop Writing With AI?

There’s a increasing speech astir the domiciled of AI successful scaling contented marketing. Every clip I unfastened LinkedIn, I’m inundated pinch experts claiming to person built analyzable agents that tin constitute awesome contented pinch minimal quality oversight.

Some of the statements I've seen include:

• Google can't observe AI contented (maybe, but AI contented isn’t the problem)
• Bot postulation has eclipsed quality traffic, truthful constitute for agents (volume is only half the communicative because anyone tin build a cardinal bots)
• Our agentic workflow scores contented quality, and thing beneath the people is sent backmost to the loop until it passes (congratulations, you've automated mediocrity)

So, should we extremity penning pinch AI? Short answer, no. 

I constitute pinch AI each the time, and I tin show you it’s not the problem. 

I deliberation we’re focusing connected the incorrect point by obsessing complete AI detection. The bigger rumor is contented value and really we build ownership arsenic find becomes much fragmented.

Let’s get into it.

AI contented is not the problem

Google doesn't look to penalize contented simply because you've utilized AI. Their guidance focuses connected whether a page is useful, reliable, and designed to adhd value.

Ryan Law's squad astatine Ahrefs confirmed this with a study of 331,000 pages. They recovered that 5.3% of pages ranking successful positions 1-3 are afloat AI-generated, pinch nary grounds of a select blocking AI contented from the index.

Claude has besides started watermarking AI-generated text, but it’s excessively early to cognize really useful that will beryllium for detection. 

Either way, I deliberation we’re focusing connected the incorrect thing. When group statement AI content, they're really debating 4 abstracted problems:

• Authenticity: Don't dishonesty astir who wrote your content
• Quality: Don't people hallucinations and errors
• Spam: Don't mass-produce pages to crippled rankings
• Value: Don't people derivative contented that adds nothing

During my last MozCon NYC talk, I gave a fewer examples of what happens erstwhile brands get the first 2 wrong:

• Sports Illustrated had an authenticity problem erstwhile it published reviews nether clone writer profiles
• Gannett had a quality problem erstwhile its AI-generated sports recaps contained awkward errors
• The Chicago Sun-Times had the aforesaid problem erstwhile it published a reference database containing clone books

AI was progressive successful each case, but wasn't the origin of failure. All 3 published contented that should person gone done an editor.

Nobody's defending immoderate of that. 

The absorbing statement is value. If the contented is useful capable that the scholar doesn’t request to return to the SERP, that’s a triumph successful my book, AI aliases not.

See Chima Talk astatine MozCon London - Nov 13, 2026

Bots outnumber humans, but you shouldn't constitute for them

Imperva's 2026 Bad Bot Report recovered that bot postulation now accounts for much than 53% of each web traffic, up from 51% the twelvemonth before. 

Cue the basking takes: the quality web is dying, truthful start writing for agents.

Raw bot measurement tells america very small astir assemblage behavior. Automated postulation includes search crawlers, monitoring tools, scrapers, malicious bots, and increasingly, AI agents.

Bots grew faster than humans, but that doesn’t mean your quality assemblage shrank.

Bot measurement is not an assemblage metric. A crawler requesting a cardinal pages does not create a cardinal customers. Also, astir half of web postulation is still human, truthful moreover if the future opportunity is agentic, the coming is human.

I perfectly judge agents will play a bigger domiciled successful buying decisions. Successful agents whitethorn even reduce website traffic by gathering accusation and completing tasks without sending users to your site.

It makes referral postulation a mediocre metric for measuring their importance.

But there’s a immense leap betwixt saying, “More machines are accessing websites,” and “We should create contented chiefly for machines.”

I'll spell further. Google hunt results include AI features, and the statement betwixt optimizing for hunt and AI is already blurring.

If the platforms are built to support users wrong their ecosystem, past visibility is thing you rent, not own.

I person a mentation astir why we support chasing it. Bot hits, crawl rates, and AI citations are measurable, and our manufacture loves thing we can put connected a dashboard. Even erstwhile the measurement is worse than the postulation and conversion information we already have.

Yes, support search some accepted and AI hunt metrics. We person the devices for this astatine Moz with Moz Pro and Moz AI Visibility. But you must deliberation of hunt arsenic an ecosystem, not arsenic siloed, single-channel activities.

We told ourselves we were penning for users, but we were really penning for Google. We built bloated contented clusters that made hunt worse for everyone.

I ended that portion hoping we'd learned something. Clearly, we haven’t.

Think astir really we created contented earlier generative search:

• Build an outline utilizing the skyscraper method and an optimization tool
• Write contented while keeping connection count successful mind
• Optimize for entities and upload to a contented optimization package to get a score 
• Publish, rinse, and repeat

Now, let’s look astatine the modern agentic contented workflow:

• An supplier studies the SERPs and creates a little from top-ranking pages
• A 2nd agent repurposes existing content into a draft
• A 3rd model layers E-E-A-T utilizing quotes from thought leaders and soul SMEs
• A 4th scores the output and sends thing beneath the period backmost for a rewrite

How is this different from the aged contented playbook?

To beryllium clear, I’m not against automation. I automate parts of my content process that consciousness repetitive, and I'd urge you do the same. 

I person a bony to prime pinch end-to-end contented automation. I don't attraction really blase your contented workflow looks. If there's nary master successful the loop, you're creating cookie-clutter content.

See Chima Talk astatine MozCon London - Nov 13, 2026

Machine contented has nary Point of View (POV), and POV is what group salary for

My biggest rumor pinch AI slop is that it doesn’t person a POV.

Most AI workflows commencement by analyzing existing content, past usage the skyscraper method to make connection salad.

There’s nary lived experience, opinion, aliases chopped logic to return action.

Meanwhile, publishers for illustration The New York Times are proving that group will salary for awesome content.

NYT added 1.4 cardinal nett integer subscribers successful 2025 and crossed $2 cardinal successful integer gross for the first time.

It added different 310,000 successful Q1 2026, bringing the full to 13.1 million. All this while everyone other panics astir declining clicks. 

Yes and no.

Yes, extremity publishing contented wherever you outsource reasoning and strategy to machines. LLMs are yes men pinch zero authority, truthful relying connected them arsenic the root of truth won’t nutrient awesome work.

No, you don’t request to extremity utilizing AI. I’ve utilized it passim this article to investigation claims, move my scattered thoughts into an outline, and find evidence.

Here's what I advice:

Keep the master successful the loop

This article is the champion illustration of really I deliberation AI should beryllium utilized for contented creation. Below is my process for penning this article pinch AI.

Share past examples truthful it learns my voice

Find investigation studies and grounds to backmost up my claims

One of my favorite use cases for AI is uncovering outer evidence. I’ll transcript a information of matter and inquire the supplier to find verifiable investigation and studies that support the claim. 

Sometimes it provides anemic sources aliases information unrelated to the argument. It’s my job as an expert to push backmost and inquire for amended evidence.

Edit contented and item mendacious statements

My first drafts are ever lengthy. I built a contented editor that removes fluff, turns passive sentences into progressive ones, and flags claims that request verification.

Create mockup images for our contented designer

Design is not my beardown suit, truthful I usage AI to place ocular opportunities and create unsmooth mockups for our contented designer. 

Throughout the penning process, my judgement supersedes the AI, and I thin to rework what it generates to fresh my voice.

Add soul links

Stop penning contented AI tin summarize

A norm of thumb I usage is to inquire whether AI tin easy summarize the contented without unrecorded retrieval.

Definitions, basal explainers, and many what-is articles autumn into this category.

Don’t compete there; instead, build your contented moat astir formats AI can’t easy summarize, including:

Emails & newsletters: 

Email is simply a superior channel for engagement and conversion. I judge this is what we should clasp arsenic the beatified grail of content marketing.

Webinars: 

One of the champion ways to drive email signups, prosecute customers, and show merchandise successful action. 

Research reports: 

Provide information nary 1 other has. Some of our most-read blog posts, including this one from Tom Capper, are research-led content. 

Op-eds: 

Have an sentiment and take sides it pinch evidence-led argument. Some group will emotion it, others will dislike it, but everyone will talk astir it. My past op-ed connected the Moz blog was 1 of our most-read pieces successful 2025.

Trend pieces: 

Get successful connected the speech while everyone is talking astir it (like this article you're reading). Trend pieces thin to thrust a ton of shares on industry newsletters, Slack groups, and societal media.

Actionable how-tos: 

Provides readers pinch the resources to instrumentality your advice. For example, this how-to article on building taxable clusters is 1 of our highest-traffic blog posts because of the free resources we gave away.

See Chima Talk astatine MozCon London - Nov 13, 2026

Create contented that builds habits

Publishing is still worthwhile if it makes your contented the destination and builds habits.

The New York Times is simply a masterclass astatine this. It has diversified beyond news into The Athletic, Cooking, Games, Audio, and Wirecutter.

People whitethorn observe NYT done a news story, but they person aggregate reasons to return. They tin play Wordle, look up a recipe, publication sports analysis, perceive to a podcast, aliases investigation a acquisition done Wirecutter.

The underlying metric is habit:

• I spot group playing Wordle connected their commute
• Folks who emotion cooking prevention and revisit recipes
• The Athletic is wherever I spell for reliable sports news and insider stories
• Many group make The Daily podcast portion of their routine

Each merchandise creates a logic to return, making hunt the beforehand doorway alternatively than the full house.

The communicative isn’t that NYT defeated declining clicks. It built habits that trim dependence connected them, and that’s the contented moat I want.

It besides changes how we measurement clicks from conscionable postulation to include:

• Returning visitors
• Newsletter subscriptions
• Branded search growth
• Direct traffic
• Webinar registrations
• Product adoption
• Community engagement
• Revenue influenced beyond last-click attribution

Track what drives repetition attention, and it changes your mindset astir hunt behavior.

I deliberation we’re spending excessively overmuch clip worrying astir watermarks and AI contented and not capable clip worrying astir really difficult find is becoming.

SparkToro and Datos analyzed hunt activity crossed 41 websites and recovered that hunt is progressively distributed.

Claneo’s 2025 State of Search study supports this. Search patterns alteration by intent and property group. Outside accepted hunt engines, societal media sites, YouTube, shopping sites, and comparison sites besides bask a decent magnitude of traffic.

That’s a batch of platforms to optimize for.

Search is nary longer linear, and that's scary. It's distributed and messy, and we don't power really these algorithms activity aliases what they take to favor.

Worrying astir AI contented is truthful narrow. We're arguing astir really contented is written and whether watermarks impact ranking, while forgetting that contented is simply a intends to an end.

The extremity end is ownership, not SERP ranking. The much fragmented hunt becomes, the much valuable assemblage ownership is.

The only measurement to past this alteration is to show up wherever your assemblage searches while building destinations you own.

See Chima Talk astatine MozCon London - Nov 13, 2026

If hunt is happening everywhere, your contented strategy can’t trust connected algorithmic channels you don’t control.

These platforms determine who gets visibility, really overmuch postulation you receive, and erstwhile the rules change.

As I said in this LinkedIn post, the semipermanent play is building contented experiences you own. 

The Guardian is my favourite newspaper, and different awesome example. They've built a reader-funded exemplary astir publicity group actively take to support. 

In the US, they had 400,000 supporters and grew world integer reader revenue by 21.7%, without utilizing paywalls.

Both still request discovery, but they’ve built nonstop assemblage relationships that trim dependence connected immoderate azygous channel.

This whitethorn beryllium much important successful an agentic future. If agents progressively investigation and urge products for us, marque penchant could go a stronger signal.

Your extremity is to rank successful the user's mind earlier the hunt begins, and the only measurement to do that is to ain your contented ecosystem.

It can’t beryllium easy watching strategies that drove millions successful gross now output diminishing returns. But the manufacture is changing, and we person to move pinch it.

Use AI successful your contented workflows, but deliberation astir really it tin support contented ownership alternatively than conscionable assistance discovery.

Nobody cares if you’re utilizing AI to constitute contented arsenic agelong arsenic it’s adjuvant and thoroughly satisfies their hunt intent.

See Chima Talk astatine MozCon London - Nov 13, 2026