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AI didn’t write this … but does anyone care?

September 23, 2026

I was asked to share my thoughts on the use of AI in tech comms and the first questions that came to mind were 1) who cares what I think? and 2) do I just use Claude to draft it?

Self-questioning aside, I think for many the temptation is to go to an LLM of choice and have it do the work. I get it, we’re time poor, it’s faster, more fluent, draws material from sources we never knew existed. You could argue it’s the smart approach, and for many applications, it is.

But what’s the point if people know I did that? What’s the point if I know I did that?! How can I preach trust and authenticity in communications if I leave my own voice and personal brand to a machine? I’m totally up for using AI to save time and improve output but I see a lot of abuse out there that just destroys trust.

The dilemma for brands is similar, possibly worse because there’s so much said about them in ways, and in places, they have no control of. Yet, they need to balance between doing what’s best to support a solid GEO strategy and being authentic. I question how compatible these two things are. Or are brands, and those responsible for them, given little choice but to resort to some level of AI slopping simply to create enough content to adequately feed the LLMs for citation?

AI gives brands the scale to become more visible to machines, but that’s not much good if humans trust them less. It makes me wonder how important authenticity is and will be in our GEO future. It won’t go away but it might be less important. GEO’s different to SEO where people could click on things, interact with the content or the brand and then judge for themselves whether it was credible and authentic. LLM output is different, in many ways the machine’s done the thinking and judgment for you.

I guess what’s good for comms and marketing professionals is that LLMs like authoritative sources; something credible and unique carries more weight in the eyes of the LLMs as they trawl for answers. But LLMs also care about repetition, frequency, volume and freshness, things where authenticity matters less, if at all.

It looks like consistency, more than authenticity, reigns supreme for GEO. For communicators, many of us already lack adequate human resources to do what we need to. Are we just meant to generate as much content as possible with a lot less concern about quality and authenticity?

As dead internet theory becomes more of a reality, I genuinely worry that we’re headed for a future where information systems value authenticity less and people care less. If people care as much as I hope, an authenticity revolt might not be far off!

Whatever happens, one thing I feel strongly about is that we need to be honest with the audience. You’d think that telling them what has been created by a human, assisted by AI, or entirely AI-generated would be a bare minimum in a trusted relationship. The efficiency gains from using AI are real, but not if the cost is trust and credibility. In full disclosure, I wrote this myself, but I checked with Claude to make sure it made sense. Predictably, it told me it did … and made some good suggestions too.

“Would you like me to redraft it in a more authentic and authoritative tone?”