Adding authenticity to personalized, AI-generated content

You’re a fan of AI for hacking your life. After all, ChatGPT basically planned your summer vacation. Heck, it tells you what to make for dinner with the groceries in your fridge. But that doesn’t mean you want to read a blog post or substack written by AI because, well, it would fall flat on creativity, personability, and authenticity — which is what we crave from a lot of content, including content delivered by brands.

This doesn’t mean companies should avoid AI altogether. It simply means that they need to be more strategic about how they’re using it and play to its strengths — which is something Gabriel Dillon, Contentful’s Principal Strategic Alliance Manager, knows a lot about. 

Gabe recently joined CPG icon Sri Rajagopalan and consumer loyalty expert Peter V.S. Bond on their podcast (aptly named The CPG Guys) to share his expert insights on AI and personalization as it applies to content management. Give the episode a listen, or continue reading for a look at the highlights. 

Can you give us an overview of Contentful and your role there? 

Gabriel: Contentful is a composable — or headless — content platform, a headless content management platform that enables companies of all sizes and from all areas of the world to create really compelling digital experiences for their customers. My role here is really unique because I get to bring the expertise I gained working at Ninetailed before the acquisition into the company and educate an entirely new ecosystem of people on how to use the Contentful platform with our personalization tool. It's exciting work.

Content holds a ton of value for companies — but it hasn’t always been this way. What catalyzed this change, and how did Contentful emerge to support companies?

Gabriel: It's a good question and I think there are sort of two answers. For one, technological advancements have made it possible to streamline some steps of the storytelling process, giving teams more bandwidth to ask questions like, “How are we talking about products?” and “Are we giving people experiences that entertain them?” These questions led to the second part of the equation, defining what experiences will entertain those customers. These two points, in combination with the expansion of channels and touchpoints, mandated the need for Contentful.

Contentful recently acquired Ninetailed. What was that like, and what does this mean for the Contentful and its portfolio of offerings?

Gabriel: Ninetailed was originally built for composable content. Because Contentful is the leader in composable content solutions, it was only natural that the two be combined. When I joined the company, Ninetailed already had this amazing partnership with the platform so it was a smooth acquisition. What’s interesting is that when you pair the two, you get a platform for storing, structuring, and distributing content efficiently, and then you get a tool that asks, “Is the content any good? Who’d see it, and how do we get the right content to reach the right audience?” Ninetailed provides those answers and gives companies the tools to get more value out of their content.

Speaking of tools, how do you feel about the intersection of AI and content? 

Gabriel: It has been and will continue to change the industry in significant ways because it upends traditional modes of producing content. We very quickly went from “Can AI do that?” to “AI can do that.” So, content production has become table stakes right now. Where AI is starting to get exciting is the possibility of it being able to create high-performing content at scale. Let me give you an example. Say I’m a big CPG brand, like our customer Kraft Heinz. I have hundreds of brands and each one is present in 20 different markets. If I want to start testing variants of content and personalizing it to segments of the audience, the amount of content I’d have to generate and manage would be ridiculous. So, we really do need AI for this. Where things might get a little fuzzy is ensuring that content is on brand and that it resonates well with customers. 

As a follow-up, where does AI sit with creativity?

Gabriel: When you talk about creativity, you are talking about the work that really defines your brand and gives it a special edge that’s a hit with customers. That’s not where AI’s strength lies. We still need people to provide perspective and be the voice of reason for their brand. What AI does well is pattern matching to help content work well across specific channels and customer segments based on large volumes of data that might come in from loyalty apps and websites, for example.

How does Ninetailed and Contentful help provide governance as customers use AI to create content?

Gabriel: First Ninetailed identifies an audience of folks that might be targetable by a message and it then gives that audience back to the user and says, “Hey, I've identified an audience.” Then it uses an LLM to create a title for that audience and a description of who they are and what they might want. From this, it can create content you might want to give to the audience. But it doesn’t do this automatically. You get to review it and then decide if the suggestion is appropriate and will help you reach business goals. If you approve, it can create the experience — either an AB test or a personalized variation of content. The idea is that someone on your team makes all the decisions.

Outside of AI and personalization, what emerging trends in content are you keeping an eye on?

Gabriel: The rise in loyalty apps and programs. There's the desire to create better experiences that foster enthusiasm and fandom. But how do you actually achieve it? You need to talk to your audience very personally — not just with personalization. One way that you can do that is through creating really targeted experiences for the people who already love your brand. At the end of the day, brands have to be authentic; they want to build a real, lasting connection with their customers.

For even more personalization insight from Gabe, listen to the full podcast.

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