Here’s what AI can’t do for your content strategy

Happy summer to my friends in the Northern Hemisphere! I hope you’re getting to have some quality down time. I spent a little time reflecting on how I use AI. While it’s helped me build my consulting business in a way that would’ve otherwise been impossible, I have become more and more aware of its limitations; both in how I use it on client work (which I always disclose) and in how much sameness I feel is out there these days. So I put together some thoughts on how to treat this incredible yet immature tool in your toolbox…. 

There’s been a quiet hope inside a lot of venture firms lately: that AI might finally solve the content problem.

You know the problem: the backlog of blog ideas that never make it past a rough draft. The newsletters that only go out when someone finds an extra weekend. The podcast episode that got recorded three months ago but still hasn’t been edited.

AI seems like the obvious fix. No more blank screens. No more waiting for partners to weigh in. Just feed the machine a few prompts, and watch as it produces beautifully written, publishable copy at scale.

But if you’ve tried it, you’ve probably seen the same thing everyone else has. The output is polished. It’s often coherent. It even sounds confident. And yet… it doesn’t land. It doesn’t resonate with the people you’re trying to reach. It doesn’t feel like you.

Why? Because the heart of a good VC firm content strategy is not the mechanics of writing—it’s the point of view behind it. And AI can’t create that for you.

Here’s what it misses.

1. AI can’t create perspective

When you think about the VC firms whose content you actually pay attention to, it’s rarely because of formatting or clever headlines. It’s because they have a distinctive way of looking at the world.

That perspective might come from years of working with founders in a specific sector. It might come from unique access to market data or relationships across an industry. It might even come from hard lessons learned after a big miss.

Whatever the source, that perspective can’t be automated. AI can summarize what’s already out there, but it can’t decide what you believe. It can’t weigh a signal you’re seeing in your portfolio against three decades of experience. It can’t take a contrarian bet and live with the consequences.

If you hand the work entirely to the machine, you’ll end up with content that’s technically sound but indistinguishable from everyone else’s. I’ve just seen this in a rather wooden blogpost from a VC I used to work closely with. It sounds nothing like them!

And in venture, sameness is the quickest way to be ignored.

2. AI can’t build relationships

The real purpose of a content strategy isn’t to fill a blog. It’s to stay connected with the people who matter to your firm: LPs, founders, potential hires, journalists, other investors.

AI can write words, but it doesn’t know those people. It doesn’t know that a certain LP cares about climate impact because they built their family wealth in oil and gas. It doesn’t know that a founder you backed early is now quietly struggling through a down round and might read your latest post as a commentary on their company.

It doesn’t know when to reach out privately instead of posting publicly. It doesn’t understand the undercurrent of history in your relationships. And it certainly can’t pick up the phone after someone reads a post and say, “Hey, I was thinking about you when I wrote that.”

This isn’t to say AI will never be able to know or handle such things — but for the most part, right now, it doesn’t. (In fact all it’s done is besmirch the reputation of the emdash, a wonderful piece of punctuation in business writing if I’ve ever seen one.)

A firm’s content is an extension of its reputation. People notice when you’re actually showing up. They also notice when you’re just one-way broadcasting.

3. AI can’t make the hard calls

One of the most underrated parts of a strong content strategy is the editorial judgment behind it: knowing what to write about, when to write about it, and why.

Do you publish your thesis on AI-in-healthcare now, or wait until you’ve invested in a few more companies in the space? Do you highlight a new fund close, or do you double down on founder stories that reflect your firm’s values? Do you address a controversial market shift head-on, or let the conversation pass?

These are judgment calls. They require context: where you are in a fund cycle, what other firms are saying, how your founders might interpret your words, even what’s happening in the broader economy.

AI can tell you what’s trending. It can surface a hundred topic ideas in seconds. But it can’t weigh the strategic implications of those choices for your firm. And it won’t push you to double down on the stories that actually differentiate you.

4. AI can’t replicate voice

If you think about the firms that have nailed their voice—whether it’s Sequoia’s glossy, founder-first feature articles, the sleek thoughtfulness of Contrary’s Foundations & Frontiers essay series, or a smaller firm’s more offbeat tone—that voice is inseparable from their identity.

It’s not just about word choice. It’s about cadence. It’s about the willingness to say something unpopular when it matters. It’s about the sense that the person behind the words is someone you’d want on your board.

AI tends to round off those edges. It makes everything sound smoother, safer, more neutral. That can work fine for a product description or a legal memo. But when it comes to thought leadership, it’s the quickest way to become forgettable.

Your quirks, your stories, even the occasional tangent—those are the things that make you feel real. And those are the first things AI is likely to strip away.

5. AI can’t decide what you stand for

This is the core issue. A good content strategy is not just a collection of posts. It’s a long-term effort to articulate what your firm believes and how you operate.

Do you think founders should optimize for profitability early, or pursue growth at all costs? Do you believe the real opportunities in AI are in infrastructure or in applications? Do you believe secondary markets are a healthy release valve or a dangerous distraction?

Those positions matter. They shape how people perceive your firm. And AI can’t take them for you.

If you don’t define what you stand for, the market will define it for you. And that’s a position no firm wants to be in.

Where AI can help

None of this means AI isn’t useful. It is. In fact, it can be invaluable—if you use it in the right ways.

• Organizing research: It’s great at summarizing long reports, transcripts, or news coverage so you can find the relevant threads faster.

• Tightening drafts: If you have a meandering internal memo, AI can help cut it down without losing the meaning.

• Brainstorming: When you’re stuck, it can suggest angles you might not have considered.

But those are support roles. The substance—the perspective, the voice, the relationships—that has to come from you, the humans in the loop.

The bottom line

If you take nothing else away from this, it’s this: AI is excellent at speed and scale, but those aren’t the things that make your content resonate.

Your edge is in substance. It’s in the way you see the world, the relationships you’ve built, and the trust you’ve earned over time.

Use AI to clear the clutter and make more space for the work only you can do. But don’t let it take over the parts that actually matter.

I’ll end with a story: A founder I know once told me they’d read a short, thoughtful note one of their investors posted about the challenges of hiring a first VP of Sales. It wasn’t flashy, and it wasn’t optimized for virality. But it reflected the investor’s own hard-earned lessons, and it felt honest. Months later, that founder still remembered it.

That’s what you’re aiming for.

Because when every firm can press a button and publish a dozen posts a week, the only ones people will remember are the ones that sound like they came from a human being.

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