AI in marketing By Laura Llames · 3 min read

A Practical Way To Use AI In A B2B Content Workflow

AI can make a content team faster, or just wrong at higher speed. A five-step approach for B2B marketers.

AI tools can make a content team noticeably faster. They can also make it noticeably worse, at the same speed. The difference is where you let them in.

Used carelessly, they produce generic copy and confident mistakes. Used well, they take care of the slow parts of the work and leave more time for the thinking that makes content worth reading. In other words: let AI amplify your thinking, not replace it. (Because nobody wants a robot writing their heartfelt LinkedIn posts. Yet.)

I use Claude and ChatGPT to speed up research synthesis, agenda drafting and content workflows. Here is the approach that works for me, in five steps.

1. Map your workflow first

List the stages your content goes through: research, outline, first draft, review, edit, repurposing and distribution. Then mark which ones are slow or repetitive. Those are the best candidates for AI. The stages that need judgement, such as choosing the angle, deciding what you believe and approving what goes out, stay with people.

2. Give the tool your own material

Generic input, generic output. Share the research, notes, brief and audience description you already have, and ask for help with them: summarising a long report, finding the main themes across several sources or proposing an outline. The results fit your context, and you stay in control of the facts. (“Garbage in, garbage out” has had a good run. It is not retiring any time soon.)

3. Ask for options, not answers

Request several headlines, three possible structures or different ways to explain the same idea, then choose and refine. Treat the output as a draft from a fast junior colleague: useful, quick and in need of review. Don’t ask for “the” answer. Ask for five and be picky.

4. Verify everything that matters

Check every name, number, date and quotation against its source before anything is published. AI can sound very certain and be very wrong, like that one person in every meeting. Build this check into the process as a step, not a hope.

5. Keep a human edit and a shared prompt library

Every piece needs a final read by someone who knows the audience and the brand voice. And save the prompts that work, with notes on when to use them, so the team doesn’t start from zero every time and the quality stays consistent.

A simple way to start

Pick one repeating task this week, for example turning a long report into a first-pass summary for your team. Write down how long it takes now, use AI for the first pass, edit it properly and compare. If it saves time without lowering quality, make it part of the workflow and move on to the next task.

Speed is nice. Speed in the right direction is the point.