The Unseen Work of Great Content (And Why AI Still Can’t Do It Alone)
Source: ChatGPT
There’s a particular kind of silence that follows the handover of a piece of content you’ve worked on for weeks, maybe months, to a client for feedback.
The client says, “Looks great. Thanks!”
And that’s the last you hear about it.
On a good day, that silence means the content is working. It flows. It’s clear. It meets the brief. It doesn’t raise red flags. At the best of times, content is like plumbing—you don’t notice it when everything is working properly.
But often, it also means something else: People don’t see the work behind it.
They don’t see, for example, the 12 different conversations it took to reconcile what five internal stakeholders thought “voice” meant.
They don’t see the deep dive you did into how similar organizations are talking about the same topic and how you consciously figured out to say it differently.
They don’t see the duplicate content you gently killed, the excess bits that unceremoniously fell off the thing as it evolved, the awkward calls-to-action you reframed and enveloped into the mix, or the four different ways you tested the page layout in your head while staring at the ceiling at 2 am.
They don’t see the parts of the job that aren’t writing at all: the diplomacy, the negotiation, the psychological pattern recognition, and the wisdom of knowing when to fight for clarity and when to let something bland slide.
As a content creator and strategist, I’ve learned to not mind that people don’t see all this. In fact, I enjoy fostering the illusion that I can simply roll out of bed and do this work with minimal effort. But making this stuff look easy and straightforward does come at a cost, because, increasingly, it invites questions like: "Couldn’t we just use AI for this?"
The short answer is: you can, but eliminating the human from the picture—at least at this point in the technology’s evolution—is a recipe for material that only sort of works and fails to truly deliver the goods.
Yes, AI can help speed things up, generate starting points, and spark new phrasing. I use it all the time myself for outlines, drafts, or structure, especially towards the end of the day when I’m tired and stuck. But the truth is, AI doesn’t know your audience. It doesn’t understand the politics inside your organization. It doesn’t hear the nervous tone in your client’s voice when they say, “We need to sound confident, but not like we’re selling something.” It doesn’t ask, “But is this what your users actually need to hear?”
Good content isn’t just text. It’s judgment, context, empathy, and listening. In other words, it’s humanity in digital form.
It’s understanding when the words are wrong even if they’re technically right.
AI can simulate the surface. But the deeper work—the invisible scaffolding of strategy, nuance, and intent—that’s still (and thankfully) human. When content really works, it does more than fill a page: it makes people feel seen, builds trust, and helps them find their way.
That doesn’t happen by accident. And it doesn’t happen by prompt.
That’s the unseen work. And that’s still the job of people who do the work I do.
If your organization wants content that doesn’t just sound good, but actually works—let’s talk. I’ve been doing this for the better part of two decades and I’ve spent much of life eating, sleeping, and breathing content. I do it in multiple languages and across numerous industries and cultural landscapes. If it has to do with content, I’ve probably done it. Contact me here or reach out to me on LinkedIn; I’d love to hear about what you’re working on and what your needs are.
