April 27, 2026
AI has changed how we create content, from content in digital services to technical documentation, from presentations to training videos.
People no longer fear a blank page. Anyone can generate a draft in seconds, rework it and share it. This is a big and welcome shift, but it raises an important question:
Are we creating content people need, or simply more content?
Research shows AI is increasing how much content we produce. More pages, more guidance, more variations of the same thing.
Industry data from HubSpot shows around half of marketers are now producing more content than before. Studies from Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found people can complete writing tasks up to 40–60% faster with AI support. And yet, the experience for users is not always improving.
The constraint is no longer effort, it is judgement. It is deciding what content should exist at all. It is knowing what doesn’t work and having the confidence to stop doing it. The strategic challenge is shifting.
The Equal Expert’s content design community are leaning into this shift.
AI is freeing us up to do more strategic thinking and achieve better outcomes. We’re spending less time writing. We have more time to listen to stakeholders, understand organisational needs, get to know users and check if content is working.
This is important, because AI is very good at showing you polished content that you feel confident publishing. Before we start, it’s even more important to ask ourselves and our stakeholders some key questions:
Like other user-centred designers and software engineers at Equal Experts, we’re using AI responsibly and powerfully to support how we work. AI helps us:
We’re using AI to move faster and make better decisions, not to increase volume.
Some familiar tools are coming back into focus. Imagine you have a long policy document to translate for users doing a task online. Ask AI to apply a detailed persona and pull out what matters most. It’s fast, it’s effective, but risks do exist. We recommend an experienced content designer reviews and refines the output (much like we do with code).
To create your personas, you can use AI but they must include real contexts, validated concerns and behaviours. We’re fortunate, we can ask our user research colleagues to help.
AI use for content creation will keep growing. Is your content strategy keeping up?
As content becomes easier and faster to create, the risks increase, especially without good governance. If not addressed, this can lead to familiar problems:
Without a refreshed content strategy, AI will amplify your existing problems. We’re helping organisations take control, review content at scale, set guardrails and refocus on what users actually need.
Your content strategy also needs to account for something new: AI is no longer just creating content, it is consuming it too.
If you want your content to be read by LLMs, internally or externally, now or in the future, you need to start thinking differently. It is not just what you say. It is how your content is stored, structured and accessed.
Many organisations still rely on PDFs, slide decks and other closed formats. These are harder for models to process, more expensive to extract from and more likely to introduce errors. If your content cannot be easily parsed (interpreted), LLMs are less likely to use it.
As part of your content strategy, experiment with AI-accessible formats like Markdown, APIs and structured content stores. Consider introducing MCP (model context protocol) servers. They are a way to expose trusted, structured content directly to LLMs so they can retrieve the right information more reliably.
This can feel like a big shift, but there are practical places to start.
Start by stepping back. Look at the content you have, audit it. Where is it stored? What format is it in? Is it being used by humans or LLMs? Is your metadata strong and consistent?
Content audits used to be long, laborious and expensive. We’ve been looking at automation for years, and AI is giving it to us. With the right expert as a guide, AI can review lots of content quickly. It can find data, spot gaps and highlight duplication.
You’ll need human expertise to decide what to keep, archive or delete, and to reshape content based on needs. This is another area where you can find the right balance between expertise and AI.
As content creation speeds up, your strategy and standards must keep pace.
So experience still matters. Direction still matters. Judgement matters more than ever. This is where working with content designers and having a clear content strategy makes the difference.
If you’re figuring out content and AI in your organisation, you’re not alone. We’re interested to hear how it’s going.
Post drafted by Mia, refined with AI
Mia O’Donoghue is a content strategist and designer at Equal Experts.
She is passionate about helping organisations create clear, useful content for customers or citizens. Over 20 years, she has given her energy and expertise to UK and international governments, as well as the banking and entertainment industries.
Mia believes in the power of collaboration and community. She leads Equal Experts’ growing content design community.
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