From Human in the Loop to Human at the Center

The world wide web was launched in 1991 and took 7 years to achieve 50 million users. It took LLMs less than 2 months to reach over 100 million users. With the public launch of Chat GPT in November of 2022, businesses were provided with a tool that could immediately and radically impact marketing efficiency.

Gen-Xers who once lamented declining grammar standards of the internet generation, marveled at ChatGPT’s crisp, error-free sentences. But isn’t it surprising how fast that luster wore off? Just a few years in, and the focus of our lament has turned to overuse of em dashes, sterility, and emoji fatigue. Every now and then, a good old-fashioned sentence fragment hits the spot!

The Deeper Problem is Trust

When audiences suspect content is AI-generated, trust can drop by nearly 50% and willingness to buy decreases as well【ppc.land】. Even when AI is only perceived to be involved, readers rate credibility lower【cms.ku.edu】. And while most readers say they want transparency, labeling content as AI-generated often reduces trust in the publisher unless it’s paired with strong human signals【Nieman Lab】.

Search engines echo this concern. Google’s guidance emphasizes that what matters is originality, helpfulness, and human experience — warning against content that feels automatically generated【luiginervo.net】.

Still, most of us are understandably testing the limits of AI, albeit with the added stipulation of making it more human.

Why Human in the Loop Falls Short

The phrase human in the loop has emerged as a reminder not to over-rely on AI. But is a human in the loop all we need?

This mantra suggests the human role is secondary, the editor at the end of the pipeline. AI drafts, humans polish. But these roles are not playing to the strengths of humans or robots.

LLMs create content based on pattern recognition. Without human intervention, they produce derivative but polished workslop that is often more difficult to edit into something interesting than if you just drafted from scratch.

If our goal is to create content that’s helpful, engaging, and differentiated, the kind that builds trust and authority, then we can’t start with derivative content.

We need a role reversal.

The Human at the Center Workflow

Here’s a content creation process that puts humans back in the driver’s seat while still leveraging the power of AI to enhance and save time. Use this process to create human-led thought leadership content that your audience finds valuable throughout their buying journey, and that confers trust onto your brand.

1. Identify a strategic topic or query

• 🙍‍♀️Reference your buyer persona lifecycle stages to understand needs, problems, mindset
• 🧠Brainstorm topic clusters
• 🤖Use AI for keyword research or query expansion

Tip: Choose topics that lie at the intersection of your persona needs and your brand’s differentiators

2. Research the landscape with AI

• Ask AI to summarize what’s already written on the topic.
• Look for common angles, repetitive narratives, relevant data points, and blind spots.
• Use this to clarify how your content can approach the subject differently.

Tip: Have AI cluster existing articles into themes. This quickly shows what’s overused — and where your content can stand apart.

3. Build an outline + SME question set

• Ask AI to draft an outline with title options that are “ownable”
• For each section, generate specific questions for your subject-matter expert (SME).
• Share both the outline and questions with your SME before the interview. Ask them to mark down their key takeaway or unique insight for each question, along with any anecdotes or examples.

Tip: Giving SMEs the structure ahead of time helps them stay focused in the interview and ensures stronger, more actionable responses.

4. Conduct the SME interview

• Record a structured conversation guided by the prepared questions.
• Ask SMEs to elaborate where appropriate and ask clarifying questions that the target audience would also ask.
• Allow space for follow-ups and stories — these bring depth and humanity.

Tip: Start with the prepared question, but then probe for a conversational feel, clarity, and substance

5. Transform the transcript with AI

• Feed the transcript into AI, with clear instructions to:
• Smooth grammar, flow, and readability
• Match brand or author voice
• Organize content according to the outline

Here the AI is not creating new ideas, but shaping authentic human expertise into a polished draft.

6. Human edit and refinement

• Review the AI-polished draft for accuracy, gaps, and tone.
• Ensure the SME’s key insights are preserved and clear.
• Revise section by section
• Ask AI to add data points, quotes, or other supports to strengthen impact and persuasiveness
• Identify areas for visuals – Gifs, infographics, pullquotes, tables or structured content
• Depending on the quality of your video interview, you can embed video excerpts

Tip: Have both the SME and an experienced writer (in that order) do human edit passes before publishing.

Closing Thought

Authenticity and humanity are what consumers crave from brands, and this comes more naturally from individuals. B2B and Service brands especially should be intentional about activating SMEs, executives and founders to be the thought leaders and “trust brokers”.

Authentic human voices and individual thought leadership takes commitment, and may not be an easy sell. But it may be the only thing that resonates with audiences in the future.

And by future, I mean right now.