Hey good folks and happy Thursday! It’s finally cooler in Austin, and I swear, everyone in this city has a different personality when they aren’t sweating non-stop. It’s wonderful!

All right, let’s dive in.

There were a couple of announcements this week from Google and OpenAI that, I think, pose a big risk to anyone who thinks they can build a closed loop editorial system (i.e. no humans involved).

• On October 1, Google updated its AI content guidance to tell sites to fact-check AI output by hand before publishing (Duh…but a sign of the times that they had to say it outright), since generative models predict likely wording rather than look up facts.

• On October 5, OpenAI said it will watermark ChatGPT and Codex text in the EU to meet the EU AI Act's transparency rules. That came two months after Anthropic said it would watermark Claude text worldwide. OpenAI notes a watermark can show that AI produced part of a passage, but not how much human judgment or editing went into it. This part of the OpenAI announcement caught my eye: “Can the watermark be removed by editing? OpenAI’s tests suggest yes. In one test, replacing 10% of words with synonyms dropped detection from about 92% to 66%.”

What all of this says to me is that companies like Google are going to start double checking facts (to the extent that they can) and using AI watermarks as input to what ranks, gets cited, and what content ultimately performs.

If that happens, and reading between the lines here suggests that it will, editors are even more critical parts of any AI content production workflow. This isn’t just about quality of content or caring about editorial integrity (which is wildly important on its own). This is about content performance.

Lose your editors, and you may very well lose your ranking and citations.

We aren’t there yet, but these announcements are positive signals, to me at least, that we will be there soon. And that the building of closed-looped editorial production processes won’t come to fruition. This is good for editorial jobs. It’s also just good for the internet––a place that ideally doesn’t become a wasteland of bot content.

These announcements should also help teams make an internal case for more and deeper editing not just for the morals of it, but for the business value and goals.

AI might have killed the blank page problem, but producing high-quality and high-performing content still requires significant human oversight. Thank goodness.

A NOTE ON THIS ADVICE

You do you!

One content marketer’s best practices aren’t always right for another one, though I do try to distill out the main concepts and core practices I believe everyone can benefit from. That said, you must use good judgment when deciding whether to take advice given from folks on the internet. I am an expert, and this advice comes from my direct experience, but I am not smarter than you, and I have nothing to gain or lose because of what you do.

THINGS KEEPING ME CONTENT

• What I’m doing: All things pumpkin with the kiddos this holiday season. Last night, we went out to Pumpkin Nights, a family tradition with the girls. It was aweessommeee.

• What I’m reading: I’m a Substack addict and Brianna Wiest quotes are all over that place. It’s nice 🙂

• What I’m drinking: French press coffee, baby! The cooler weather, and a bit older children, has brought me back to my press coffee roots and I’m so happy about it! Currently on a Palomino bean kick.

Thank you so much for reading. Let me know what you think by replying to this email.

Very excited to be here with y’all. 

Tracey