AI is changing how people find and consume information faster than any other shift we’ve lived through. Search results are turning into summaries. Click-through rates are falling. People are getting answers in situ — inside chat interfaces, AI-powered search boxes, and embedded assistants in Microsoft 365.
And as discovery moves from “search and click” to “ask and get”, it raises an uncomfortable question:
If AI gives people answers without sending them to our content… how do we stand out now?
For us marketers in the Microsoft ecosystem, especially those responsible for educating partners, building trust, and shaping demand, the answer isn’t to try and out-optimise the algorithms. It’s to double down on the things AI can’t replace.
In a world where AI handles the “known-knowns”, we think three forms of content will become more valuable, not less:
- Live, in-person experiences
- Meaningful communities
- High-quality, opinionated text
Let’s break them down — and explore why these formats will outlast the current onslaught of AI.
1. Live Events
London’s West End sold more than 17 million tickets in 2024 — a record-breaking year and higher than Broadway.
That surge isn’t really about theatre. It’s about people voting with their feet for real, human experiences after years of digital saturation.
And the same pattern is showing up in our own space.
In the Microsoft ecosystem, rooms are filling again — from Build and Ignite to ESPC, CollabDays and local user groups. As Huw from Get the Gist on Insta puts it:
“As screens saturate every part of our lives the value of digital is diminishing. Live experiences are becoming more valuable premium product.”
AI can summarise a session, but it can’t recreate the moment when someone thinks “I trust this person, they actually get it.”
Live experiences work because they let you:
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Show depth, not just claims
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Read the room and respond to real objections
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Demonstrate personality (one thing AI still can’t fake convincingly)
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Create shared moments that spill into social and email
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Shortcut long cycles through human connection
In a world where AI flattens everything into polished sameness, energy, originality and presence are becoming premium differentiators.
2. Community
AI can generate content. AI can summarise content. AI can even personalise content. But AI cannot build belonging.
And belonging is what makes community one of the most resilient, undervalued marketing levers in a world of generative everything.
As Laurie Pottmeyer shared in her recent Fresh Perspectives conversation with me:
“Community isn’t about volume — it’s about people feeling seen and supported. They want to bring each other along, not just follow a brand.”
As she put it, community is where “connection turns into momentum” — the one thing AI can’t automate.
This matters because as AI makes content more abundant, people will increasingly rely on their trusted networks to help them filter:
- What’s real
- What’s useful
- What’s worth acting on
A strong community therefore becomes your insulation against AI-driven commoditisation. And for marketers in the Microsoft ecosystem, community shows up through:
- Microsoft MVP programmes
- Local user groups
- Partner-to-partner networks (IAMCP, PPN, Women in Tech)
- In-product communities like Viva Engage
- Channel-only Slack/Teams groups
- Niche email communities or LinkedIn groups
But it’s not about building a big community — it’s about building a meaningful one.
And that means:
- Spotlighting members, not yourself
- Creating space for peer learning
- Encouraging deeper, longer-term discussions
- Showing up consistently
- Being generous with experience and insights
AI maybe able to answer the questions. But community is there to answer the doubts.
AI can generate trust signals. Whilst community can generate trust.
3. Text-Based Content
It’s tempting to believe text is the format most at risk from AI. After all, AI writes fast. AI writes well enough. AI writes at scale. But as Joe Pulizzi, the godfather of content marketing and author of The Tilt, recently argued on LinkedIn, the opposite is true:
“If you don’t have a text-based strategy, you don’t have a content strategy. Writing is how you think. It’s how you differentiate. And it’s the only way to build an audience you actually own.”
AI can generate text, but it can’t replace your perspective, your positioning, or your lived expertise.
This is why text remains critical:
- Text is your intellectual property made visible.
- If AI answers become the default, people will seek out the source thinkers behind them.
Text improves your thinking, not just your visibility. It forces clarity. Structure. Originality. AI can help you edit — but it can’t do the thinking for you.
Text is the backbone of every other format.
Talks, webinars, interviews, community posts, emails — almost all of them are downstream of good writing.
And crucially, text is indexable.
As Joe Pulizzi stresses, AI doesn’t ‘watch’ or ‘listen’ — it reads. If your ideas don’t exist in high-quality text, you’re invisible to the next era of discovery.
AI search still depends on discovering, parsing, and evaluating written content. If you don’t have text, you simply don’t exist in the AI discovery layer.
So, what text-based content should you prioritise now?
- Opinion-led articles
- Clear POV pieces
- Research-backed explainers
- Practical how-tos
- Founder or leader memos
- Email newsletters
- ‘Thinking out loud’ posts on LinkedIn
The irony of AI-generated content is that it makes strong human writing more valuable, not less. Because when everything starts to sound the same, distinctiveness wins.
So, How Do You Stand Out in an AI-First World?
You double down on the things AI can’t replicate:
- Live events → Trust through human presence
- Community → Trust through belonging and endorsement
- Text → Trust through clarity and original thinking
None of these are new. But AI makes them newly essential.
Because relevance is no longer just about being discoverable. It’s about being recognisable.
So, if you want help shaping a content plan that still works in an AI-first world… our team of journalists and media professionals can help you build a strategy rooted in real expertise, enduring formats, and content that earns trust.
Just say hello — we’re always up for a conversation.
