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In 1979, the Buggles released a song for the ages called ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’. You may not recognise the band, but you will know the song. The irony, of course, is that video did anything but kill the radio star because it is radio that now rides shotgun on commutes, workouts, phones and car displays.
Likewise, while nobody has made a song about it, the predicted death of long-form content, including blogs, has also failed to occur, and if anything, the advent of AI means long-form content is going to come out punching as hard as radio.
David Ogilvy once said, “The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.”
Long-form content (dismissed by some as outdated) has found a new reason to exist. As generative AI changes how audiences find and engage with content, having a regularly updated, trustworthy blog is becoming an important marketing tool.
Marketer and strategist Amanda Li, principal at Funnelmark, says well-structured long-form content now serves dual roles. “It still speaks to humans, but it’s also read, indexed, and summarised by AI tools. That means the format, clarity, and credibility of blog content matters more than ever.”
At a time when large language models (LLMs) generate instant answers without always linking back to original sources, smaller brands risk becoming invisible unless their content is unique, well-signposted, and deeply credible.
Blogs offer the canvas to do exactly that.
Traditional SEO still values expertise, authority, and trust. Google’s quality raters use the E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) to assess how well a page might meet a user’s needs. Well-written blogs that show first-hand knowledge, cite credible sources, and explain concepts clearly can meet these standards.
But AI search models like ChatGPT and Perplexity don’t just use links and keywords. They ingest and pattern-match at scale, pulling in information from long-form web content and summarising it into answers. That makes detailed blog posts more likely to be absorbed into the datasets behind LLMs, even when they’re not explicitly cited.
“AI isn’t just searching, it’s learning,” says Li. “Publishing deep content gives your brand a seat at the table in how machines understand your subject matter.”
Ogilvy’s defence of long copy still holds weight. He argued that people read what interests them, not what’s short. In the same way, AI rewards comprehensive content because it recognises structure, clarity, and depth.
That matters for businesses in professional services, technology, and education (where trust, credibility, and complexity often go hand in hand). When a potential customer asks a question online, a well-written blog post can be the source both Google and AI models draw from, even if the click-through rate drops.
This changes how blogs should be used. Instead of chasing raw traffic, they now help validate brand authority, support reputation, and provide foundational content that search models rely on.
Clear headlines, strong subheads, logical structure, and plain language help both human readers and AI models understand your content. Avoid jargon unless you define it.
Generic summaries are easily replaced by AI. Focus your blog content on original thinking, lived experience, client observations, or case-based learning. AI systems value what they can’t easily find elsewhere.
Use author bios, links to reputable sources, and date stamps. Ensure your website follows best practices like schema markup and structured data. This increases the likelihood that both search engines and AI tools treat your blog as credible.
Social posts are fleeting; blog articles persist. Use your blog to anchor positions, clarify expertise, and demonstrate depth in your niche. This supports consistency across your other marketing channels.
As AI gets better at mimicking expertise, real expertise becomes a differentiator. Blogs that show nuanced understanding, cite evidence, and speak to lived experience help establish durable authority in your field.
For smaller firms and niche experts, a well-managed blog may be one of the few ways to compete for visibility in an AI-optimised internet. As Ogilvy argued, long copy works when it’s written for people who care.
