Content is being made by machines and found by them too
Let’s start with a simple truth: AI isn’t just helping marketers anymore; it’s starting to run the show. And nowhere is that more obvious than in video.
HubSpot just dropped a ranking of the top nine AI video tools, and it reads like a who’s who of the new creative class. Google’s Veo and Runway are out here flexing cinematic-level visuals, while smaller players like Kling and Hailuo AI are making it weirdly easy to generate lifelike motion with barely any input. LTX Studio, a fast-moving open-source project, is quietly proving that you don’t need a trillion-dollar budget to push the envelope.
The real headline? The production bottleneck is cracking. What used to take a team of editors and a few sleepless weeks can now be spun up in a single afternoon. But here’s the catch: as the tools get better, the expectations go up. When everyone can make a decent-looking video, the only thing left to compete on is the idea itself. Storytelling isn’t optional; it’s the whole game now.
Discovery Is Changing—Fast
Alright, so the machines are making the content. But how’s it getting seen? That’s changing too, and fast.
Ahrefs just analyzed nearly 82,000 websites and found something kind of wild: AI-generated referral traffic has jumped nearly 10x in the past year. ChatGPT alone now drives over 80% of that traffic, beating out old-school sources like Reddit and LinkedIn. Sure, we’re still talking about a tiny slice of the total web pie—just 0.25% of all traffic—but the curve is steep and headed one way.
And it’s not just the volume that’s interesting. It’s the type of traffic. AI referrals don’t care about backlinks, domain authority, or whether you’ve been guest posting your heart out. They’re driven by how well your content answers a prompt—not a search term. A prompt. That means structure, clarity, and usefulness matter more than ever. If your content reads like it was built for a human to understand quickly, you’re in better shape than if you just stuffed it with keywords and hoped for the best.
The New Pitch: From Audience to Algorithm
So now we’re staring down a world where AI is both making the content and deciding what gets surfaced. The implications for marketers are… well, a little uncomfortable. You used to pitch to an audience. Now, you’re pitching to a prompt, hoping some large language model decides your page is worth suggesting.
That doesn’t mean traditional SEO is dead, but it does mean the rules are shifting—fast. And the usual signals, like domain authority, aren’t pulling the same weight. In fact, according to another Ahrefs study, domain metrics are pretty lousy predictors of whether AI tools will mention your content at all.
What Marketers Can Still Control
So what now? Honestly, it’s a bit of a reset. Marketers need to rethink not just how content is created, but how it’s judged. The gatekeepers have changed; and they’re not people anymore.
If you’re feeling a little off-balance, you’re not alone. But there are a few things you can still control. Your message, for one. HubSpot has a handy breakdown of six behavioral science tricks that can make your marketing messages hit harder. Simple stuff like social proof, urgency, and framing still work on humans, even if machines are the ones teeing up your content.
And if you’re trying to figure out what people actually want before you start creating, Ahrefs has a lean guide to product research that’s surprisingly human-friendly. It’s built for marketers and founders who don’t have time to overthink things but still want to get the lay of the land before launching something new.
The Bottom Line
The content game is evolving, and the referees are now algorithms. But that doesn’t mean creativity’s out. It just means the rules have changed. Keep your ideas sharp, your structure clean, and your expectations flexible. The machines may be watching, but they still need something worth showing.
That’s it for today, folks.
Catch you in the next post.
Until then, keep building.
– Perfect Sites Blog