I Published a Document That I Didn't Write

I published a document that I didn’t write.

So, I did something recently that’s different from anything I’ve done before. While what I did and why are important, this gives me the opportunity to discuss what I think it says about the future of content creation.

It’s about AI-generated content and value for the content consumer, and it’s a good time to have an important conversation.

So, if you’re anything like me, you’ve been cautiously experimental when it comes to using AI. I’m not anti-AI, but I’m not using it for everything either, and I’m well aware of the very real risks involved.

My website will be 15 years old in August, and it’s built on thousands of pages of words and videos and podcast episodes that are 100 percent me. And I’m proud of it.

I’m not looking to replace myself or my content creation process. This is the stuff I’m good at, and I’m not going to pass it off.

And as a consumer, it pains me seeing where we are right now with AI when it comes to content. AI-generated content is easy to spot, and I swear that human-generated content is in the extreme minority right now.

We’ve come so far so fast. That’s not just blog posts, but social media posts and even videos and podcasts.

While AI is interesting, I miss the true human connection that has to be considered endangered at this point. I rarely respond to comments on my social media posts these days because I know most were AI-generated.

But like I said, I’m not completely anti-AI.

My focus, when it comes to AI, is using it to solve problems and add value. It’s not worth using if it doesn’t do both of those things.

Use it to do things that I couldn’t have done without it.

You may have heard a previous episode where I talked about how I used AI to generate my Ad Briefs Library. It helped solve a problem I had with outdated training material for my private community.

In the past, I’d build training courses that would become outdated within months, if not weeks. I wanted my members to have access to a resource that was always current and relevant.

So I created a dashboard using Claude Code that generated ad briefs that reflected my recommendations on the most important topics in Meta advertising.

It would prioritize my most recent content, eliminating it from training if it were over six months old. I could override this by manually removing new content or pinning older content that remains relevant.

And then I’d pick a topic and have the dashboard generate a one-pager summary of recommendations based on my content.

Let’s use Audience Segments as an example.

The dashboard would search my qualifying content that mentioned Audience Segments to help generate a resource. It would explain the history of Audience Segments, how to set them up, and how to use them.

The ad brief ends with summary bullet points and a list of sources to read more.

I created 24 of these ad briefs, and the entire library is a valuable benefit to my community.

While I didn’t write the briefs themselves, and they’re actually written in the third person, they are all based on my blog posts, videos, and podcast transcripts. And I review each brief before it’s published.

So anyway, I’ve had these 24 ad briefs this year, and I direct new members to it as possibly the most valuable resource for understanding how things work. I update it once per month so it’s always current.

But I realized that the way I assumed people would use the library didn’t necessarily match up with how people were actually using it.

I saw it as a resource to use when you need it, not consume it all at once. So if you weren’t sure how to approach ad creation, you could go through the ad brief on that topic.

But many times, new members would join who felt they needed to completely relearn Meta advertising. So they’d tell me how they were working their way through the entire library.

There are 24 briefs, so that could take a lot of time. But most importantly, there’s significant overlap found in some of these briefs.

There’s an ad brief for general targeting approach, but there’s also briefs for audience controls, age and gender restrictions, detailed targeting and lookalike audiences, and remarketing. If you read each one, there are recurring themes and a lot of repetition.

So it occurred to me that something that could be valuable was a Master Brief that consolidates all 24 briefs to provide one, easily consumed resource. It eliminates the overlap while focusing on all of the most important topics.

I set out to solve this problem, and I did it again using the dashboard I created with Claude Code. It reviewed all of my ad briefs to find the topics that were mentioned most frequently to help assemble this document.

It used the library as a foundation to help generate a single document that would help you understand my current recommendations in one reading.

As a result, this Master Brief would need to behave a little differently than the individual briefs. The master brief would be a much longer document, so I’d need to add a focus of formatting and readability because I didn’t want it to be a chore to consume it.

It’s still written in the third person, but the entirety of the content that it’s based on was produced by me.

While I was excited to create this new Master Brief and share it with my community, I thought this was also an opportunity to promote the value of the community to non-members.

So I turned a version of that Master Brief into a public blog post.

But that’s also where things got challenging. I’ve always written every word of my blog, and I would need to open this post with the reasoning behind why this post would be different.

The intro, of course, would be written by me.

On one hand, it felt extremely uncomfortable publishing a blog post that was mostly written by AI. I had an internal debate about whether I should do it at all.

But on the other, I was completely transparent about that, and I think that transparency is what is often missing, and what annoys most of us as content consumers.

The free blog post version helped people understand the value of the Master Brief. But since it was the free version, it wouldn’t be updated like the membership version would be, which would hopefully inspire signups.

So here’s where I’m at with using AI to create content now, and how I’ve found a place for it that I’m comfortable with.

First, I was completely transparent that this post was generated by AI, and it was written in the third person so that it wouldn’t mislead. I don’t want you thinking that I wrote it.

Second, it was based entirely on content I’ve already created, so the AI was mostly used to summarize and consolidate human-made content.

So it wasn’t just generated from random sources on the internet, but based specifically on my recent content.

Third, there needs to be a very specific problem that using AI is solving. In this case, the problem is both related to high volumes of content and that content becoming outdated.

I could generate something myself, but it would take a very long time, and it would be even more challenging to keep it updated. Which is precisely what I’ve been dealing with.

But that’s the beauty of the Ad Brief Library generally and the Master Brief specifically.

For now, I have a semi-manual process of updating all of the content, but I use the dashboard to do it quickly. Eventually, this could easily become a completely automated process that keeps these recommendations updated on a day-to-day basis, rather than month-to-month.

And these are the kinds of benefits to content creators that can make AI a huge driver of positive value for the reader.

So here’s the bottom of the glass.

I’ve had a bit of an awakening regarding how I can use AI for content creation that is consistent with my core values.

I despise AI-generated content that attempts to replace human connection. AI-generated comments, podcasts, videos, and blog posts that are worded as if they have a human author feel empty and flat and lack creativity.

But there are certain things I can’t do, or I won’t do because it’s just an insane amount of work beyond the insane amount of work I already put in.

AI can add value by clarifying and consolidating and keeping a reference current. And that, my friend, is how I can get comfortable with using AI for content creation going forward.

I’d be curious how you see it.

If you want to see the finished product, read the Master Brief on my complete approach to Meta ads. Go to jonloomer.com/master.