Escaping The AI Slop Trap With Smarter Content Marketing

[00:00:00] Tessa Burg: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Leader Generation, brought to you by Mod Op. I’m your host, Tessa Burg. Today I’m joined by Jon Gillham. He’s the founder of Originality.ai, and we are gonna talk about how you can increase your visibility and LLMs with without falling into the AI slop trap. John, thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:00:24] Jon Gillham: Yeah, thanks Tessa. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:27] Tessa Burg: So we know a lot of the listeners are our clients, and content marketing has always played a massive role in going to market and B2B, and even in B2C for building communities and connections. It’s a big part of brands. Before we dive into the importance of content marketing today, the role it can play and how we connect and reach our customers, tell us a little bit about your background and your role at Originality.ai.

[00:00:54] Jon Gillham: Yeah. Thanks. Um, yeah, so Originality, um, I’ll sort of skip to the, the, the, the end when we launched and then I’ll, I’ll, I’ll talk back. But, uh, we actually ended up launching Originality as the first commercially available AI detector. We actually ended up launching three days before ChatGPT launched. And we had seen, so the background before that was that, uh, been in the world of digital marketing.

[00:01:17] Jon Gillham: Uh, content marketing had built and sold a content marketing agency, had a portfolio of websites, um, and had seen this wave of generative AI coming, um, that predated ChatGPT so on tools like Jasper, right? Sonic. And there was, there was others. Um, and we had a content marketing agency and we struggled to be able to say, uh, we had a policy around AI use, but we struggled to have a, have a sort of mitigating control around when it was or wasn’t used.

[00:01:41] Jon Gillham: So we built an AI detector, evaluated its effectiveness, launched it, and then yeah, three days later ChatGPT launched. And it’s been on a, been on sort of an, an interesting ride, uh, since, since then.

[00:01:53] Tessa Burg: Yeah, I mean, interesting to say. The least. That is quite a time to start a company, especially when I feel like no one expected ChatGPT to have the impact, the immediate impact that it did.

[00:02:09] Jon Gillham: Yeah. I mean, I think I was, I was very early to using it. Um, like certainly like day one when I, when it launched like a hundred billion other people, um, in, in the world. But, uh, it was, uh. Pretty interesting. But I mean, even somebody that had been using AI before, like with, with AI writing tools, I mean, it was just sort of an improved wrapper on GPT3, um, which, which we had, I had played with GPT-3 and it was impressive.

[00:02:34] Jon Gillham: Um, and so yeah, I guess, I think, I think it was, I wasn’t surprised at the adoption, but I was really surprised at, at the length of this sort of bubble that it has, has created.

[00:02:47] Tessa Burg: Yeah, it’s, and now it’s having like tentacles into so many different types of applications and use, and before we push record, you know, I was saying I get so annoyed when people just generate content that so clearly came out of ChatGPT and didn’t make it their own.

[00:03:10] Tessa Burg: So when you were, it’s, I think it’s. Really insightful that you were ahead of recognizing that there’s going to be this problem. Like when you were doing the early days originally, Originality.ai, what were some of the problems and challenges that you were solving for clients and and who are some of the clients that you have?

[00:03:31] Jon Gillham: Yeah, so some, the, the clients that we have are some of the, like the. Really big cross section. We have students, we have writers. The who, who we build for are people that are publishing content on the web. So people that are doing digital marketing and want to, um. Who used to use a, a plagiarism detector and now use Originality as a plagiarism detector, fact checker, AI detector.

[00:03:53] Jon Gillham: And so we’re sort of every activity that a content editor does when they receive a piece of text and anything that, so if you function as an editor, ’cause you have a team of writers, you receive their text and before you publish it, we are a, a toolkit for a copy editor to make sure their content meets their, the, the standards of that, of that company.

[00:04:13] Jon Gillham: So when sort of pre-ChatGPT, what we were building was, um, a plagiarism checker that was sort of a modern approach to plagiarism checking, um, and then an AI detection tool because it was being, AI was still being heavily used, I mean. AI writing tools like Jasper got a $1.5 billion valuation off the backs of, of its sort of adoption and its revenue growth.

[00:04:38] Jon Gillham: Um, and so there was, there was usage in pockets, but then ChatGPT just blew it up and, and it went incredibly kind of hor horizontal.

[00:04:48] Tessa Burg: So for marketers who are being pressured to do more with less, create more content. Especially with personalization being so important as a main piece, like we want to have a story or want to have an experience, but then we also wanted to have it personalized.

[00:05:09] Tessa Burg: A lot of people are kind of falling into this trap of using ChatGPT to at least maybe do a first draft. A second draft, a third draft, and so some of the content is written by. An LLM, how do you break down what is and is not AI slop and what is, and is not a good use of LLMs as it’s related to writing and generating content?

[00:05:37] Jon Gillham: Yeah. Uh, no, it’s, it is a great question. Um, and, and so I quote that I, I like to say, and actually ended up getting quoted on the, on the, the Daily Show or the last week tonight with, with John Oliver on it, but oh my God, it’s. Uh, that, like not all slop, not all AI content is, is slop, but in, in 2025, all, all spam is certainly AI generated.

[00:05:57] Jon Gillham: And so you’re right that not all AI is, is, um, you know, spam or slop. Um, but right now, certainly, certainly any spam is, is being generated by AI. The what, what we like to say is that, um. Companies should be deciding on what the appropriate use of AI is and then applying tools to make sure that that usage is, is being followed.

[00:06:23] Jon Gillham: So if that’s some companies, um. Are no AI ever, period. And so a lot, there’s a lot of, uh, pharmaceutical, uh, users, um, pharmaceutical companies that use our platform where the amount of AI, they want to know that though each word that has been written has had, was done by a human with humans reviewing it, and that there’s no opportunity for AI to get in there and introduce risk.

[00:06:48] Jon Gillham: And then there’s other use cases where the, there’s a lot more tolerance for. AI research and AI um, editing. And so the, the, the important thing is that there’s sort of a policy that is agreed to, and then there the appropriate tool gets used to sort of police that policy. Um, and, and so Originality we have different models that have different sensitivity.

[00:07:13] Jon Gillham: And so if you want no AI ever, we have a turbo model. If there’s sort of like, yeah, five to 10%. Of the text being edited by AI. That’s cool. Um, we have a, a model that’s called our Light model that allows for, for sort of AI editing.

[00:07:30] Tessa Burg: Oh, I love that. So you can scale it up or down. And I think there’s some people in a camp that would be, well, how big of a deal is it?

[00:07:37] Tessa Burg: Like, what’s the cost to the company or the brand if they decide to loosen up those parameters and go all light.

[00:07:47] Jon Gillham: Yeah. Yeah. So, so all, all light. No problem. I think if, as long as there’s a human in the loop and it’s, and it’s quality content, I, I think that’s a pretty, I think that that’s where we are, that that’s a pretty good use case of, of AI.

[00:07:59] Jon Gillham: If that has helped you produce a better piece of work, then that’s great. Where the biggest risk is is AI running unhinged. With, you know, you got a junior marketer, they fire up an A get an API access or, or get really efficient with, with ChatGPT and publish, you know, a hundred blog posts a month. Um, with, with limited or no reading of the content with no added value and you’re just producing derivative work that reads well, but it’s just, it’s just slop that, that isn’t adding, adding unique value into the world.

[00:08:32] Jon Gillham: Um, and that’s, that’s where companies are the most at risk of things going. Really wrong. Um, things can go less wrong than that, but that’s the sort of most common path that we see that things go really wrong. Is somebody thinking they’re doing a good job, having no guidance and then just going, going to town with, with the AI.

[00:08:51] Tessa Burg: Yeah. And I, I can relate to thinking, doing a good job. I remember being young in marketing and having really aggressive goals, and so I wanted, you know, to meet them. And one of the goals were, I think. You start to entertain using LLMs and AI more is when is visibility, is when you want to rank, want to be in more places that your brand or product service is gonna get discovered.

[00:09:20] Tessa Burg: Is quantity of content a big thing for visibility or are there other factors that marketers should really be focusing on in pairing with authenticity to increase visibility in LLMs?

[00:09:33] Jon Gillham: Yeah, so, so LLM visibility, fascinating. Um, sort of item to study. Um, right now what. There, there, there’s certainly some theories that are out there.

[00:09:44] Jon Gillham: The, some of, some of the stats that have been sort of, I’d say reasonably proven that suggest, um, things that you can be doing that helps your content be sh showing up in LLMs more is, is giving LLMs what they, what they want, which is. Um, the confidence to know that that content was high quality. So adding citations into and, and links, um, and showing where you got your stats from so that the LLM can have higher confidence in knowing that that content that you’re is, is based on, um, sort of foundational knowledge.

[00:10:19] Jon Gillham: And I’ll sort of expand on that a little bit. We’ve done some studies looking at. Um, if LLMs are more likely or less likely to cite AI generated or human generated content, it’s a, it’s similar, but there’s you some cases where it’s clear that AI is put, is sort of the, the companies that build these AI are.

[00:10:41] Jon Gillham: Concerned about the risk of grounding. So if an AI answer is grounded in, um, a response from somewhere else that was AI generated, then it’s just a snake that’s eating its own tail, and that can lead to, to model collapse, accelerating bias. Um, and so a adding citations so that lms know the, the sort of the source of your, uh, information is, is great.

[00:11:04] Jon Gillham: Um, statistics is sort of another item that is, is proven to increase LLM visibility. Um, so if you can add statistics into your content, especially if you can, um, create some u unique statistics, have that as sort of the feature of the content and explain it that, that’s really, really good. Um, and, and quotes.

[00:11:24] Jon Gillham: So those, those are, are sort of three of the main things, um, that, that, um, like. Citations. Stats and and quotes are, are often attri are, are definitely attributed to higher visibility in, in LLM search.

[00:11:44] Tessa Burg: I’m literally taking notes because when I think about. Working with clients to do their content strategies, there’s some really great ways to generate that level of quality in your content, like citations, doing your own sort of market research, even looking at your company internally and getting a pulse on what thought leaders within your own company.

[00:12:09] Tessa Burg: Think about specific trends and tasks, statistics. Looking at the data that you have, are there other avenues to monetize that data? If you analyze it and slice it and dice it in different ways, I, and then quotes, I think that a lot of B2B marketers don’t realize the trove of expertise and knowledge they’re sitting on, and that there’s actually a very big opportunity for them to start translating that into.

[00:12:40] Tessa Burg: On-brand unique points of view that will increase their visibility in LLMs.

[00:12:47] Jon Gillham: Yeah, I mean the, it’s for sure, I mean, any, anytime that you have, um, knowledge that goes beyond the sort of the, the. The hive mind of the world, um, which, which is sort of what LLMs have ingested. And you can produce something unique that is outside of their, their training data.

[00:13:04] Jon Gillham: They, they want to be ingesting that. Um, and, and so producing content that is unique to your, um. Specialty geographic, um, you know, wherever that sort of Venn diagram of your own knowledge and, and skillset creates some unique advantage is the sweet spot. You wanna be creating content the world does not, and sort of the what’s so, what’s like the opposite?

[00:13:26] Jon Gillham: What’s the stuff that has really limited value in producing in 2025? And that’s sort of just the. Top five way is to do X, right? And that’s super generic, already been covered. You’ve got no unique take on it. Um, no unique data, um, that, that type of content that can get answered by an AI overview. You’re not gonna be cited ’cause there’s already tons of other content.

[00:13:48] Jon Gillham: You don’t have a unique take that, that type of content is, is a, a pretty big waste of time in, in, uh, in kind of this world.

[00:13:57] Tessa Burg: I agree. It feels like a much higher bar than when we used to think about SEO or even when you would try and create like listicles to go viral. I legitimately remember like three jobs ago, we spent a lot of time trying to think of like what we were going to create for it’s viralness or the level of viral, right?

[00:14:17] Tessa Burg: Potentially go. And there’s in that, what I learned from that is you overinvest. Trying to capture lightning in a bottle. But then the other extreme is after you’ve put in too much of that investing, you underinvest in having an original point of view. You know what’s,

[00:14:39] Jon Gillham: Yeah, that’s interesting.

[00:14:41] Tessa Burg: Uh, so I think for market is about finding, you know, that balance and there are other ways to use AI to generate content that have nothing to do with, with writing it.

[00:14:53] Tessa Burg: Uh, you know, there are right. And. When you look at, um, that you know the word slop and that you allow people to determine how much AI should be intervening in their content, what have you seen as sort of the hallmarks of really high quality content that you can tell ha like beyond citations and statistics and quotes, like there, how do you guide clients to be like, you know, it’s quality if it can elevate up to these standards?

[00:15:25] Jon Gillham: Yeah. Yeah. Great. Great question. I think that’s a key point right now. And so the, so, and this is what we do internally. Internally, we’ve had, we’ve had reasonable success with, with sort of traffic and, you know, kind of million visitors a month, um, plus. Um, and, and the, the kind of core message that we have, both internally and then I, I share, is that you need to think beyond words.

[00:15:45] Jon Gillham: And so if you’re adding value with just words in a world where words are being produced. You know, coherently intelligently, um, by, by these LLMs. Um, and you’re fighting with your, hey, my words are better or more clever. Um, that, that’s a challenge. And so adding value to your audience beyond just words, um, is, is I think the, the key in, in sort of today’s, today’s search.

[00:16:08] Jon Gillham: So that can be the things we just talked about, the stats, the, um. The unique, unique data quotes, unique perspective. Um, it can also be other things like free tools, um, primary data that can be used for other people to do their own research. Um, the, so thinking, thinking beyond words. What’s the, what’s the user?

[00:16:32] Jon Gillham: What, what’s the person? Um, what’s the person’s problem that they’re trying to solve, and how can you best solve it with a, with a page? Um, that and, and doing so beyond words. If all you can offer is. Words, you know, what is the boiling point of water? There’s no, there’s no combination of words that you can put together that will result in you winning any, any traffic for, for a somebody that’s looking for that, uh, that example.

[00:16:58] Jon Gillham: So yeah, thinking beyond words is sort of the, the message both internally and to others when we think about, um, how to win today.

[00:17:06] Tessa Burg: Yeah, and I love that you’re elevating it up to really. Not just telling people information, but giving them an experience. And I think content becomes, also becomes more visible when it can cross channels and be online and offline.

[00:17:25] Tessa Burg: Like if you, where are you providing so much value or such a rich experience that it also translates to something that they would take into. A conference call or a trade show or a webinar and start to put it in places that have a lot of domain value. ’cause we also know that when you are on high domain value, like I’m sure now that you’re cited at a late night show, you know, like.

[00:17:50] Tessa Burg: Probably wi your visibility just shot way up because those networks have very high domain value. And so Yeah. With, when you take things out of just words and make them experiences that can, um, add value, spark conversation, spark interest and engagement across channels, um, that’s, that’s worth investing in.

[00:18:09] Jon Gillham: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think, yeah, no, it’s, uh, I think the, the, the game has, has sort of like, of marketing and has, has certainly changed, but I think a lot of. Aspects of it. Um, the, certainly the, the kind of call it higher quality end of it has, has really remained, has remained the same. Um, a lot of the same, a lot of the same skill sets that worked, you know, five years ago, um, are, are the same skill sets that that can be used.

[00:18:35] Jon Gillham: Can be used now with just, I think an increased focus on, um, on, on, on helping, helping solve problems for the, for, for your audience.

[00:18:47] Tessa Burg: So when we think about how much money marketers should be investing in, we’ve talked a lot about time. Where’s the right, where are the right places to put their time? But has this shift impacted budgets?

[00:19:01] Tessa Burg: Like have you, are we seeing more actual marketing dollars go go towards content marketing today?

[00:19:08] Jon Gillham: Yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t know. I think, I think it’s the other way. I, I would say that I think there’s it, I think there’s been a slight decrease in, in spend. I think. I think we are seeing, um, Google, um, taking, uh.

[00:19:26] Jon Gillham: So I, so I think it’s gonna, I think it’s going down for now and then up, so the short answer is down for now and then, and then up in the near future. And so there’s been a lot of talk that sort of AI overviews and people that sort of go to either an LLM to, to, to find out and sort of start their, their journey to a transaction or go to Google to start that journey to transaction.

[00:19:49] Jon Gillham: Um, both of which AI now does a lot of the top of funnel stuff. And so a lot of companies are seeing, uh, decreased traffic from, um, from Google that has not been totally compensated for with traffic from LLMs. But however, what they are seeing is improved traffic from both, meaning that the sort of the funnel where it’s like, what is X.

[00:20:16] Jon Gillham: Like, okay, I need to buy, you know, your background’s, got some, some fancy chairs in it. Um, you need to buy chairs. Then you’re back. Then you start that journey. You look at some design, get some ideas that is now occurring within either LLM or often in AI overviews. And then that, so that funnel is now collapsed to, it’s, it’s the transaction.

[00:20:37] Jon Gillham: People are moving off of those platforms to, um. A site to, you know, book a call by the, by the chair, um, whatever sort of the transaction is that it’s occurring on the site. So the transactions still happen on the site, but that sort of information collection is, is, um, happening within, within LLMs more. And so, uh, right now people’s budgets are declining, but I think as they, ’cause they’ve seen the sort of top of, top of, um.

[00:21:08] Jon Gillham: Top metric around traffic declining. Um, but there as so they learn what the new conversion rates look like. We’re gonna see, I think the, the marketing spend, uh, climb, climb back up.

[00:21:21] Tessa Burg: Yeah, I agree. I feel like the other reason why they’ve declined is directly related to marketers overemphasis on getting more traffic. I feel like the metric of always being primarily focused on, we spend money for traffic and conversions and sales, and that sounds really obvious, but where there’s a massive opportunity in content and high quality content. Is also on retention. And to your point, if you are, look at your core customers.

[00:21:52] Tessa Burg: Who do you have now and how are you delivering that value beyond the sale? Giving them tools, giving them data they can use. Uh, not only does that increase retention or help deliver your brand and your brand values in a way that hasn’t been done before. Again, it’s also things that can be picked up by a really high quality domain.

[00:22:16] Tessa Burg: A high quality domains that give you more visibility. And I feel sometimes I’m like this very underutilized. I a lot of business gets so hooked on new, new, new, new. Yep. And more and more and more. And are missing that opportunity of, you know, we do have a community, we do have customers. And those people, especially if it’s authentic, high quality, could be our greatest.

[00:22:39] Tessa Burg: Deliverers virality. That does then increase our visibility, you know, across all alarms and search engines.

[00:22:47] Jon Gillham: Yeah, no, I think that that’s a great point. Um, the, yeah, I think, I think the evolution of like. Content marketing metrics being attached to like we produce content. ’cause we do top of funnel work is going to change in a lot of directions, I think initially to, it’s like it’ll be two, two conversions, um, and, and to revenue.

[00:23:06] Jon Gillham: But I think retention is, is absolutely a, a place where, um, you know, the evolution of content marketing will, will continue to go that your, your job as a content marketer is no longer gonna be just to. Failed the top of the funnel. Um, but it’s to, to function in across the entire journey of customers.

[00:23:25] Tessa Burg: Yep.

[00:23:26] Tessa Burg: And I, if marketers haven’t spent any time looking at how much revenue they would generate, if they increased their retention by even like five, 10%, they should. It’s tremendous impact. And again, it will give you that top of funnel, not immediately, but it’s. You can tell. I just read a research report on retention because this is all like, I’m like, oh my gosh, like this really underserving the leads we just closed.

[00:24:01] Tessa Burg: So we do a lot of B2B marketing, spend a lot of time focusing on quality, not quantity. And then now we’re investing all this time in these high quality relationships. And then they’re becoming extremely disappointed after they’re onboarded. You know? And like if we, you, if companies really looked at what are we producing?

[00:24:18] Tessa Burg: And it’s content. It’s content and communications is the gap. So what’s happening in those first 90 days after someone becomes a customer? And is there an opportunity to go above and beyond in value? Um, but yeah, I’m very bullish on content marketing. I think budgets should go up because slight challenges and relationships and marriages and whatever.

[00:24:41] Tessa Burg: Communication usually ends up being the problem, and then also you can find a solution.

[00:24:49] Jon Gillham: Yeah, no, that’s a good, good point.

[00:24:52] Tessa Burg: So what are you most excited about as you look ahead at the next 12 to 18 months? What do you think CMOs and marketers should be preparing for?

[00:25:04] Jon Gillham: Uh, I think, uh, traffic from Google will continue to decline.

[00:25:09] Jon Gillham: Traffic from LLMs will continue to increase. The quality of that traffic will, um, imp will continue to improve compared to what your current traffic is. Um. I think understanding those, like, hey, traffic is down 25%. That might not be a problem, but conversions are up 40%. That’s great. Um, and so, and, and retention.

[00:25:36] Jon Gillham: Uh, 5%. You know, I think, I think understanding what am I most excited about is just sort of, um, having, having a, a close eye on this transition that I think is inevitable. Um, and, and I don’t, I cannot imagine why this will not be the case in the future. And I think it’s just gonna be a question on the rate and the, the impact of less traffic from Google, more traffic from LLMs.

[00:26:04] Jon Gillham: I can’t imagine that it’s not. Going to be hap uh, the case in a year from now and, um, understanding the, the impact of that on someone’s business and getting it right. So the company that sort of, if your competitors all freak out and stop spending on, on marketing because their top funnel traffic is down, but you have sort of analyzed the metrics enough to know, okay, what the, that oh great, what my value is increased by.

[00:26:32] Jon Gillham: So I can increase sort of my customer acquisition costs by, by Y. I think that’s gonna be a really unique competitive advantage over the next couple years as this sort of transition continues to shake out. It might be a few years, might be three, four years that, uh, until we sort of hit some kind of stability between, uh, LLM traffic to, to kind of Google traffic.

[00:26:53] Tessa Burg: Yeah, I love that prediction. I think it’s also interesting and very bold that, you know, Google is leaning into these AI summaries to somewhat the detriment of their own cash cow, which is paid search. And it, it also shows, and I, some people say, well, if they’re super rich, they can, they can do that. But if you just take it at the concept level.

[00:27:17] Tessa Burg: You have to be willing to let go of those things that historically always worked really, really well for you. Don’t figure out how much more to optimize paid search or even, you know, as we know, cookies will be going away. Paid media. Look at where do you need to be to deliver value first? Where does the content, the message, and the experience need to be and lean into that.

[00:27:39] Jon Gillham: Yeah.

[00:27:41] Tessa Burg: So we are at time, Jon, that that flew. I just looked at the clock. I’m like, crap. Uh, if people want to learn more about Originality.ai, where can they find more about that and where can they find you?

[00:27:56] Jon Gillham: Yeah. Uh, you can find more about Originality at, at the site. We have all of our tools, uh, AI detector, plagiarism checker, fact checker, grammar, spell checker, all have a free tool that you can, that you can use to sort of evaluate, uh, how your content, um, stacks up.

[00:28:11] Jon Gillham: Um, and that’s, uh, that’s available. Uh, you can contact me at Jon [email protected].

[00:28:18] Tessa Burg: Perfect, and I definitely wanna check out the tools. I love that. And if you want to learn more about Jon and see his bio, and we’ll link off to the site and more Leader Generation episodes can be found at modop.com

[00:28:31] Tessa Burg: That’s modop.com. Jon, until next time, thanks so much for joining us.

[00:28:36] Jon Gillham: Okay, thanks Tessa.