Dylan Thomas 1937: Photo by Nora Summer
If you feel like you’re being ignored. If your subscriber count is flatlining despite following every best practice the AI marketing gurus are recommending. I want to offer you some reassurance. It isn’t your SEO, GEO, the freshness of your content or your publishing frequency.
The problem is much simpler, and a lot more human than that.
The rise of perfectly okay content
In 2016, we were worried about content creation fatigue. In 2026 we are drowning in a vast, automated ocean of content. Anyone can now generate a mountain of ‘okay quality’ marketing content with an AI prompt.
And that’s exactly what millions are doing. Leaving us swimming in an ocean of automated text.
Further reading: The anti creative ‘AI slop’ problem.
The content experts are telling you to use AI to scale-up your production. They give you prompts, templates and frameworks. But these frameworks make your writing indistinguishable from everyone else’s. They focus on getting the mechanics right.
Here’s the thing.
No one ever felt a connection with the mechanics of AI content. They connect with the person behind the words. And increasingly, there’s no person there. Just a chunk of automated content.
The Real Solution: How to build an audience in 2026
Building an audience today isn’t about out-producing the machines. It’s about out-thinking them. It boils down to three things that no algorithm can fake.
Here they are.
- Have a point of view worth sharing. Don’t just report the news. Tell us why it matters. Don’t just give us a tip, tell us why the standard advice is no longer effective.
- Say it with soul. Write in a way that sounds like a conversation over a good cup of coffee. Be brave enough to be imperfect and real. Be yourself.
- Respect the reader’s time. Whether it’s 200 words or 2,000, make sure every sentence carries value.
If you do this, something magical happens. You might start with only five readers. That’s fine. Because those five people will feel something. They will feel seen, helped or inspired by your words. And because they felt a connection with you and your thoughts, that can inspire some of them to tell their friends.
A subset of their friends feel that same connection… repeat.
The Dylan Thomas test: So rich. So strange. So new
I’m reminded of the introduction given to the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas before a performance in New York. The MC described his work as: “So rich. So strange. So new.”
In a world of soulless, mechanical, AI-generated sameness, being strange or different is maybe your greatest competitive advantage. I call this the Dylan Thomas Test: if your work isn’t rich with insight, strange (different) enough to be human, and new enough to challenge the consensus, it will be largely ignored.
Dylan Thomas didn’t become a legend because he optimised his poetry using H2 headings and bullet-points correctly. He didn’t become a household name because he published on the right day of the week. His work isn’t recognisable because he was a mechanically perfect writer.
He succeeded because his poetic voice was unmistakably his. It was too rich to ignore. It was too human to be replaced.
In 2026, the world doesn’t need more content. It needs more of you. And it needs you more than ever.
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