GenAI Content Is Everywhere. That's Why Thought Leaders Must Go Deeper
Archaeologist working in field, carefully revealing ancient skull
As thought leaders or emerging thought leaders, writing with AI is not just about using AI better. It's about making sure that our ideas still matter — and that they are ours.
Generative AI makes it easier than ever to produce clean, competent text. In seconds, it can generate blog posts, social media captions, newsletters, and more. What once took hours can now be done in minutes.
And yet, as I reminded participants, it takes more than expertise to resonate with an audience.
Decent writing may fill space, but thought-leadership writing should fill minds.
This distinction is more urgent than ever as AI makes surface-level content alarmingly easy to produce.
One of the dangers of AI is that it encourages what I call 'headline thinking.' This happens when we let algorithms stitch together the most common phrases and concepts from the internet, leaving us with ideas that sound good but say little.
For emerging thought leaders — people who aim to introduce, spread, and champion important ideas in service to their audience — this is a serious risk.
If your thinking stays safe, generic, and frictionless, your writing may be indistinguishable from what AI produces.
Worse, it may be indistinguishable from what hundreds or thousands of other professionals are already saying.
That's why I challenged the Accelerator participants to go deeper.
At this point in the session, I introduced a deceptively simple exercise: freewriting.
For five minutes, I asked everyone to silence their inner critics, shut down their devices (except for the document they were writing in), and just… write.
The prompt, which I clarified was only for humans, was this:'Write about why it is so important for you or your organization to show thought leadership. What's at stake? Why now? Why you?'
As the timer began, the (virtual) room went quiet. No AI prompts. No structured outlines. No instant drafting tools. Just minds meeting blank pages.
At first, the exercise seemed awkward to some. 'I felt like I had nothing new to say,' one participant shared later. Another confessed, 'Without AI, I realized how much I rely on having a structure handed to me.'
But that was exactly the point.
After our freewriting, something shifted. As we discussed what emerged, participants shared surprising discoveries.
'I ended up writing about something I never talk about publicly — my frustration with how slow change happens in my industry,' one said. Another found herself zeroing in on a niche, overlooked challenge her clients face — something she had never considered turning into content.
This is what happens when we give ourselves space to think and write without shortcuts.
Ideas that are deeper and more personal begin to surface. The easy clichés and conventional wisdom fall away. What's left is real.
AI can be tremendously useful once you've done the heavy lifting of idea generation and clarity. It can help:
But what it can't do — and what thought leaders must guard fiercely — is determine the what and why of your ideas.
Only you know which hills you want to plant your flag on.
Only you have lived your particular professional journey and can distinguish your thinking from that of rivals with more resources.
Only you can bring the nuance, vulnerability, and conviction that makes writing memorable.
One of the Accelerator participants put it like this:
"AI can help me say something faster. But only I can figure out what I really want to say."
If you want your thought leadership to rise above the AI-generated flood, try these strategies:
AI is not the enemy of thought leadership. Used well, it can be a helpful collaborator, freeing us from rote tasks and enabling us to focus on the work that matters most.
To be seen and heard as serious thinkers, AI must remain in the passenger seat — not the driver's seat.
As I reminded the Accelerator participants, depth wins. In an age of infinite words, people are hungry for ideas that make them pause, reflect, and perhaps even change course.
So go deeper. Give yourself permission to write badly in service of writing bravely.
Freewriting is the way I began the actual writing of my book, Write Like a Thought Leader. I had outlined and researched and lined up my concept, but I hadn't actually started writing the manuscript. So I found a friend for a spontaneous round of freewriting via Zoom.
You can do the same.
Find what only you can say, and say it with clarity and conviction.
AI can generate words. Only you can generate wisdom.
That's why thought leaders must go deeper — they must have the ability to access their wisdom, bring it forth and articulate their gems of ideas that had been hiding beneath the surface.
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