Key takeaways
- AI is only as good as the content it pulls from. Well-structured, up-to-date content leads to better AI-generated responses, while messy or outdated content increases the risk of misinformation.
- Good content benefits both humans and AI. The same best practices that improve readability, accessibility, and SEO — clear writing, logical structure, and relevant metadata — also improve AI performance.
- AI is revealing content problems organizations can no longer ignore. As AI-powered tools surface outdated or conflicting information, businesses are being forced to rethink content governance.
- Token budgets affect cost and performance. AI interactions have a computational cost, making efficient prompts and well-optimized content essential for accuracy and affordability.
Our guest
AI will uncover the content you forgot about. Are you ready?
AI-powered tools aren’t just helping people find information faster — they’re also surfacing outdated, redundant, and even conflicting content that organizations have long neglected. In this episode of The Future of Content, we explore how organizations can optimize their content for AI, improve accuracy, and reduce costs.
Our guest, Sebastianna Skalisky, a Web Content and UX Manager at Drexel University (and former Four Kitchens Web Chef!), played a key role in building a ChatGPT-style chatbot for a major university. The project revealed how content strategy directly impacts AI performance — and why messy, unstructured content can lead to inaccurate, misleading, or just plain confusing AI responses.
The power of structured content
One of the biggest challenges organizations face is optimizing their content for AI retrieval. The good news? If your content is well-structured for people, it’s also optimized for AI.
Sebastianna explains how clear headings, concise language, and logical structure help AI retrieve and generate better responses — just as they improve search rankings and user experience.
On the flip side, poorly organized content leads to poor AI performance. If a policy page contains multiple outdated versions with no clear hierarchy, AI might pull the wrong information. If a benefits guide is written in dense paragraphs with no subheadings, AI will struggle to extract key details.
The takeaway? Clean, structured content leads to better AI interactions — and better human interactions, too.
Token budgets: The hidden cost of AI
Another key insight from our conversation is the impact of token budgets: the computational cost behind every AI-generated response.
Every character, space, and punctuation mark adds to the “cost” of an AI interaction, which means organizations need to be strategic about content and prompt efficiency.
Sebastianna breaks down how poorly structured content inflates token usage, making AI-powered tools more expensive to operate. But by refining content — removing redundancy, improving clarity, and structuring it well — businesses can reduce costs while improving AI accuracy and responsiveness.
Why AI is forcing organizations to rethink content
AI is surfacing content problems that organizations can no longer ignore. It’s shining a light on outdated, unnecessary, and conflicting information, forcing organizations to confront their content debt.
Sebastianna explains how AI’s disruption could be the push organizations need to clean up their digital clutter. By conducting audits, removing outdated content, and prioritizing clarity, businesses improve not only AI interactions but the overall digital experience for users.
Want to get the most out of AI? Start with better content.
If you’re using AI-powered tools — or thinking about implementing them — this episode of The Future of Content is a must-listen. AI is only as good as the content it pulls from, and structured, well-maintained content is the key to getting the best results.
Relevant links
Making the web a better place to teach, learn, and advocate starts here...
When you subscribe to our newsletter!