The Only Moat Left Is Knowing Things

Summary

I run a marketing agency. We use Claude, ChatGPT, Ahrefs, Semrush. Same tools as everyone else. Same access to the same APIs.This is the honest part: our tools are not our advantage.A disclaimerI'm obsessed with AI. As a non-native English speaker, for years my ideas were better than my grammar. AI finally closed that gap. It handles the syntax so I can focus on the substance. I use it to remove the friction between my brain and the page, not the friction between the page and your brain. What follows is not an anti-AI take; it's about the parts of creativity that can't be automated.The data backs this up. 54% of LinkedIn posts are now likely AI-written (Originality.ai). 15% of Reddit posts too, up 146% since 2021. Every competitor has the same capability to generate keyword-optimized, structurally correct, grammatically polished content. In about twelve seconds.So what's left?The InversionFor years, content creation was the bottleneck. Knowing what to write about was relatively easy. Actually producing the content required real investment: research, drafting, editing, iteration.That equation has flipped.Production is now trivial. The bottleneck has moved upstream to the input: what you know that isn't in the training data. What you've observed that hasn't been published. What you've learned from doing the work that can't be scraped from the internet.Where the Bottleneck Lives Now2020Ideas (easy to find)BOTTLENECKProductionOutputLimited by production speed2026BOTTLENECKNovel InputProduction (trivial)Infinite output capacityLimited only by what you knowTap to enlargeClick to enlargeThe question used to be: can you produce enough content? Now it's: do you have anything worth producing?The Authenticity TestNot all content needs to pass this filter. Informational articles, how-to guides, reference pages: these serve a purpose. They're somewhere between Wikipedia and a blog post. They cover ground. They answer questions. They're fine.But what about the content that makes ...