You’re researching enterprise security solutions and stumble upon two articles. One’s bylined by “AcmeCorp Marketing Team.” The other’s authored by a CISO at a Fortune 500 company with 25 years of cybersecurity experience.
Which one gets your click?
If you’re like many B2B buyers in 2025, it’s not even a close competition: The human byline wins every time. And for content marketers, that instinct — that immediate trust calculation — should be a wake-up call when you’re producing certain types of content.
The Great Trust Recession (And Why It Matters)
Audience trust has been spiraling for years with the rise of misinformation, insidious influencer #sponcon, and content-farm clickbait — but it’s gotten even thornier since the release of ChatGPT. Suddenly, anyone could publish 50 articles a week, or, heck, a day. The internet got noisier. AI slop flooded our feeds. And trust became the scarcest commodity in content marketing.
Today’s audiences have a sixth sense for AI-generated content — just look at the debates online about whether an em dash is a surefire ChatGPT giveaway (editor’s note: you can pry my em dashes from my cold, dead hands).
The point is that discerning audiences can tell when something’s been stitched together by a bot. Smart brands are already adapting: Wealthsimple’s magazine features financial advisors and economists by name, complete with headshots and bios. Klarna’s blog intersperses general updates with posts from executives, product experts, and engineers. The personal touch makes it seem as if they’re building a bench of trusted voices, not generating questionable financial advice from voiceless, faceless bots.
To Byline or Not to Byline?
Of course, AI content is not inherently a bad thing. Here at Contently, we’re all-in on using AI when it makes sense. It can save brands valuable time and budget, and significantly reduce production bottlenecks. We pride ourselves on our AI Studio’s ability to help teams move from the blank page to publish-ready content in a fraction of the time it used to take.
So, we’re certainly not saying that every piece you write needs a human byline. That’s neither scalable nor strategic.
But it is worthwhile to break your content strategy into two streams: where AI can assist, and where human authorship is still essential. Some formats demand a real voice.
Consider human bylines for:
- Thought leadership and elevating internal SMEs. When you’re challenging conventional wisdom, predicting trends, or offering a behind-the-scenes look at your company’s strategy, it matters who’s talking. A founder or product lead sharing insights on LinkedIn feels far more authentic in their own voice, even if their posts contain the occasional ramble or run-on sentence.
- Reviews, personal insights, and perspective pieces. When you’re expressing an opinion or taking a stand, readers need to know whose neck is on the line. “Why We’re Betting $50M on No-Code” hits differently from your CTO versus a generic Staff Writer. And an AI-generated product review is the ultimate reader ick in 2025.
- Trust-critical content. If you’re giving advice on topics that directly affect customer risk, human credibility is non-negotiable. This applies to high-stakes categories like financial guidance or healthcare recommendations — anything where bad advice can cause real harm.
- Customer success stories. If you want to build credibility and connection, you should include real names and real results. This means you’ll most likely need a real human to conduct interviews, ask follow-ups, add context, and shape the narrative with nuance.
Where AI is perfectly fine or recommended:
- Creating utility content (how-tos, basic comparisons, etc.): AI thrives in structured formats with clear parameters. If you’re producing evergreen content at scale — like “how to set up 2FA” or “compare software X vs. Y” — AI can significantly reduce production time.
- Product descriptions, metadata, and landing pages: These are areas where clarity and consistency matter more than voice. AI can generate high-quality drafts that humans can review and refine quickly.
- Filling content gaps in your SEO or AIO strategy: As Ahrefs notes, Google doesn’t necessarily dislike AI-generated content, so long as it’s helpful and high quality. In fact, more than 86% of top-ranking pages contain at least some AI input. Using AI to fill SEO/AIO gaps can be especially useful when speed and scale matter more than unique voice or personal authority — think middle- or bottom-funnel keyword content.
- Repurposing existing internal content: AI excels at summarization and reorganization when the source material is strong. It can be a godsend for remixing or reformatting a high-quality piece of big rock content that already exists — like turning a webinar into a blog post, summarizing a slide deck, or compiling FAQs into a checklist.
Still Undecided? Put Your Journalist Hat On
A good rule of thumb is to assess the journalistic value of a piece of content: Would a reader expect real reporting? Does it demand clarity, accountability, or original insight? Then it probably deserves a heavy human hand. When content starts to look and feel like journalism — interviews, expert analysis, ethical nuance — it should be treated with the same editorial care.
Research backs this up: A 2024 study found that while audiences were fine with AI handling low-stakes content, their trust dropped sharply when they suspected AI had written something resembling journalism. When the stakes are high, readers still want a human behind the keyboard.
The AI Partnership Model That Actually Works
The most sophisticated content teams aren’t choosing between AI and human authorship — they’re using a smart mix of both. At Contently, we help brands implement a human-in-the-loop model that plays to each strength.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
AI handles the heavy lifting:
- Research aggregation
- First draft generation for human enhancement
- SEO optimization and metadata creation
- Content repurposing and channel adaptation
- Performance analysis and iteration recommendations
Humans provide the irreplaceable:
- Industry insight and trend interpretation
- Personal anecdotes and case studies
- Ethical judgment and nuanced perspectives
- Accountability and reputational stakes
- Authentic voice and personality
Trust is no longer a passive benefit of publishing. It’s an asset you have to design for. AI can help you scale — but only humans can create the kind of credibility that builds lasting audience relationships. The smartest brands are leaning into both.
Want to dive deeper into building trust through content? Check out our guides on navigating AI search and training AI for authentic brand voice.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
- How much of my content needs to be authored by a human in order to have a human byline?
There’s no hard-and-fast rule, but the general principle is honesty. If a piece includes significant human input — original thinking, unique perspective, firsthand experience, or editorial judgment — then a human byline is fair game. If the human “author” merely skimmed and approved an AI-generated draft without meaningful contribution, it’s better to credit the team or keep the byline anonymous. When in doubt, disclose the collaboration.
- What’s wrong with putting human bylines on AI-generated content?
It erodes trust. Readers are becoming more attuned to AI-generated writing, and if they sense that a human byline is masking machine-made content, it can feel deceptive. Worse, it puts the “author” in an awkward position — they’re now accountable for content they didn’t actually create. Transparency builds credibility; shortcuts damage it.
- How should I decide whether a piece needs a human author or not?
Ask yourself: Would a reader expect expertise, opinion, or accountability here? If the content includes analysis, interviews, or thought leadership — or if it covers sensitive or trust-heavy topics like security, finance, or healthcare — it should have a real human behind it. On the other hand, if it’s utility content or SEO-driven copy where voice and nuance matter less, AI can take the lead — with a clear editorial check.
