Where AI Sits In The Content Creation Process
Words by Zoe Ng
When the camera was first invented, people panicked. Would photography replace painting? Would it make artists irrelevant?
Spoiler alert: Cameras didn’t replace artists. Instead, they became another tool; a new way to see the world, tell stories and create art.
AI feels a lot like that right now. It’s the new kid on the block: sparking excitement, anxiety, and endless LinkedIn posts about how it’s taking away creativity. But at this year’s Content Summit Australia, the conversation felt refreshingly grounded. Instead of debating whether AI will take our jobs, the discussion shifted to something more useful: Where does AI actually sit in the creative process?
The session “The skills marketers will need for the next decade” summed it up nicely. The fundamentals haven’t changed. Marketing, at its core, is still about people. Human needs haven’t disappeared. What has changed is how we meet them, and AI just happens to be the latest tool we can use to do just that.
AI isn’t your competition, it’s your assistant
If you’ve ever spent too long agonising over phrasing or trying to make sense of long, drawn-out statistics, you’ll get this. AI is like the modern-day thesaurus (but with a few more tricks up its metaphorical sleeve). It’s great for getting ideas flowing when you’re stuck, speeding up research, and even reviewing content for clarity or SEO.
Think of it like a very fast and capable assistant. It can help you brainstorm ideas, summarise data, tidy up grammar and spelling, or suggest small but useful tweaks.
Even better? By handling repetitive or manual parts of the job, AI frees you and your team up to focus on big-picture thinking like strategy, storytelling, and building meaningful connections with your audience. That’s where human creativity shines.
In short: AI helps clear the noise so you can focus on the good stuff: ideating, connecting, and creating.
Personalisation: helpful vs creepy
Another good reminder from the summit was about balance. AI is incredibly good at targeting and personalisation, but it’s also very easy to tip into “how do they know that about me?” territory.
For content marketers and creators, it’s a useful nudge to:
Use AI-driven insights to better understand audiences, but let people shape the story.
Avoid over-automating your messages. Real people respond to real voices.
AI can give you helpful suggestions, but only people can decide how to say it in a way that feels honest and human without giving anyone the ick.
Where AI falls short (and why acknowledging its limitations matters)
AI can sometimes get you close to a finished product. But close doesn’t always cut it.
If you want to create content that connects deeply, makes people feel seen, or inspires action, you need people in the mix. Why? Because connection lives in nuance, and nuance is something AI still can’t quite grasp.
AI doesn’t know your audience’s inside jokes. It can’t feel when to say less, when to lean into cultural references, or when to push boundaries. It doesn’t instinctively know what feels fresh, or what’s been done to death.
People are tastemakers. We bring lived experience, gut instinct, and the ability to read the room—whether that’s knowing when to be funny, when to hold back, or when to be bold. There are things that make content land, and they can’t be automated.
It’s also worth remembering: AI is only as good as the person using it. The quality of its output depends on the quality of your inputs, like your questions, prompts and creative direction. It can support your process, but it can’t lead it.
So, yes, AI can help you make content. But only people can make content that truly makes an impact.
How to start using AI in your creative process
If you’re not sure where to begin, don’t worry. Here are a few simple ways you can use AI to help you in your content creation and creative process.
Tip 1. Stuck staring at a blank page?
It happens to the best of us! Bouncing ideas off someone is always ideal, but when you’re working solo, AI makes for a pretty decent brainstorming buddy. Throw in some rough topics, angles, or even half-formed thoughts, and see where it takes you. Sometimes, it's just enough to get things moving.
Tip 2. Buried under mountains of research?
If you’ve ever spent too much time scrolling through a giant transcript or digging through data, you’ll know how draining it is. AI can help surface the useful stuff by pulling out key points and themes so you can focus on the insights that actually matter.
Tip 3. Feeling all over the place with your first draft?
When you’ve got too many ideas competing for attention, AI can help shape them into something coherent. Use it to build a rough outline, then do what you do best: bring creativity, nuance and your own flair to make it sing.
Tip 4. Need a fresh pair of eyes?
Even the best writers miss the odd typo (or three). AI is handy for catching quick grammar slips, awkward phrasing, or repetitive sentences, especially when your brain has gone into autopilot.
Tip 5. Want more mileage from what you’ve already made?
You’ve already done the hard work, why not make the most of it? Use AI to pull highlights and turn them into captions, email blurbs, push notifications or script starters. Less reinventing the wheel, more working smarter.
So, where does AI actually fit?
If there’s one thing that stood out at the summit, it’s this: AI isn’t the villain or the hero of your content strategy. It’s simply a tool. A pretty useful one at that, as long as you stay in control of the process and stay connected to your audience.
AI will keep evolving, and new tools will keep emerging. But the role of human creativity and our ability to connect, inspire, and lead isn’t going anywhere. Staying curious, adaptable and open to new ways of working will only make our content better.
At Starr Studio, that’s exactly how we work. We use AI to help us work smarter, but the ideas, insights, and stories? Those still come from us—and they always will.
Curious to know how AI can fit into your content marketing strategy? Let’s talk. 📞