Use AI for Ideas, Not Content (Here’s How)

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: "Use AI for Ideas, Not Content (Here’s How)"

Podcast: Marketing Against The Grain
Host: HubSpot Media
Guests: Kipp Bodnar (HubSpot CMO), Kieran Flanagan (HubSpot SVP of Marketing)
Date: May 5, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode challenges the prevailing mainstream approach to using AI in content marketing. Rather than leveraging AI to generate finished content—resulting in monotonous, indistinguishable material—Kipp and Kieran advocate for using AI as an ideation engine. The focus: how to produce unique, standout content by beginning in the “blue ocean” of creative ideas, not the saturated “red ocean” of mainstream, AI-generated narratives. Kieran also debuts a bespoke Claude code skill designed for this exact purpose, demonstrating its real-world application with a live example.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The AI Content Avalanche (00:00–02:07)

• Opening Challenge: Kieran sets up the tension: "We are all drowning in the AI tsunami of content. Everyone is creating content with AI. We're going to show you... how you can differentiate your content from everyone else." (00:01, Kieran)
• Current Flaw: Marketers are starting at the wrong place—using AI to write, not to ideate. This leads to “content sameness.”

2. Why AI Content Lacks Differentiation (02:07–03:56)

• Experiment Insight: Kieran explains how, no matter how people prompt AI, the end result is strikingly similar.

  "What was like, really interesting is the idea, like the angle, the thing they chose to create content about was very similar because AI is actually proposing the same things to the same people." (02:45, Kieran)

• Red Ocean Trap: When everyone approaches content the same way, it becomes harder to stand out.

• The Rory Sutherland Principle:

  "There's a great quote... 'The opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea.'" (02:58, Kieran)

3. Creating Distance from the Crowd (03:26–05:24)

• Strategic Shift: Kip reinforces, "Most people lose because they're in the middle ... it's often easier to go to the opposite end ... you don’t have to be as good at it to get the same results." (03:26, Kip)
• Blue Ocean Concept: Real value and “leverage” come from moving where others aren’t.

4. Introducing “Opposite Start” Claude Skill (05:24–06:47)

• Skill Overview: Kieran's Claude code skill analyzes LinkedIn, Reddit, X, and the web to catalog popular takes, then systematically inverts them to generate novel angles.

  "...It's going to take those and it's going to say, oh, I'm going to invert them all ..." (04:19, Kieran)

• Six Inversion Categories: The tool reframes narratives by:
  • Flipping the core mechanism
  • Highlighting hidden tensions and debates
  • Considering costs and categories
  • Shifting the story’s hero

5. The Power of “Salacious Blue Ocean” Takes (05:24–06:07)

• Hot Take Philosophy: Kip recommends not just being different, but dramatically different—with “the hottest possible take that still has a plausible line to true.” (05:24, Kip; 06:02, Kip)

6. Live Demo: Claude Skill in Action (06:47–09:54)

• Topic Example: "GPT5.5 for marketers"
• AI Process: The Claude code skill scours recent web content, finding consensus angles like “productivity gains” and “autonomous workflows.”
• Innovative Angle Generated:

  "If you don't make your marketing team AI native, your CEO will take AI out of your hands. And GPT 5.5 is the release that starts that clock." (08:53, Kieran)

• Supporting Data: Points like “only 15% of CEOs think their CMO is AI savvy” (08:54, Kieran), and the decreasing CMO involvement in AI budgets are highlighted.

7. Output: Detailed Brief, Not Finished Content (09:54–11:23)

• Content Production Aid: The skill creates a research-backed brief—hooks, arguments, stats, and even story prompts—so marketers still write, but they start with fresh ideas.

  “It's not writing the content for you. It's ideation ... Look at how rich of a brief this is. And it's things that people are not writing about—the hidden gems.” (09:54, Kieran)

• AI as Super Researcher:

  “AI has all of our experiences together. So it's going to find things that we don't yet know about and bring those to the table.” (10:37, Kip)

8. AI’s Real Marketing Value: Ideation, Not Creation (11:23–12:22)

• Narrative Detection & Inversion:

  “It doesn't just go and start to do research. It will ... build here's the current narrative ... here's all of the things that current narrative misses.” (11:23, Kieran)

• Future-Proof Edge: "All the magic is going to be in these blue ocean ideas that are fundamentally different and are getting covered less. And you can actually, like, stand out in a remarkable way." (11:52, Kip)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We are all drowning in the AI tsunami of content. Everyone is creating content with AI.”
  — Kieran (00:01)

• “The opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea.”
  — Quoting Rory Sutherland, Kieran (02:58)

• “Most people lose because they're in the middle ... it's often easier to go to the opposite end.”
  — Kip (03:26)

• “I'm going to invert them all ... it's an ideation tool for me to say, okay, what's a more interesting angle that has not been covered?”
  — Kieran (04:19)

• “The hottest possible take is a great place to live in the blue ocean ... with still some thread that it could possibly be like a viable argument.”
  — Kip (05:24, 06:02)

• “If you don't make your marketing team AI native, your CEO will take AI out of your hands. And GPT 5.5 is the release that starts that clock.”
  — Kieran (08:53)

• “Only 15% of CEOs think their CMO is AI savvy.”
  — Kieran (08:54)

• “It's not writing the content for you. It's ideation ... Look at how rich of a brief this is ... hidden gems.”
  — Kieran (09:54)

• “AI has all of our experiences together ... it's going to bring those to the table so that we can actually one learn and think about that idea in a different way.”
  — Kip (10:37)

---

Important Timestamps

• 00:01–01:16 — Problem setup: AI and content sameness
• 02:07–03:56 — Experiment findings and “red ocean” concept
• 05:24–06:07 — Explaining inverse ideation and blue ocean strategy
• 06:47–09:54 — Live demo: Claude code skill applied to GPT5.5 for marketers
• 09:54–11:23 — Skill output: ideation brief vs. finished content
• 11:52–12:22 — Future of content: blue ocean ideas as differentiator

---

Takeaways for Listeners

• Don’t use AI to write your content—use it to find angles nobody else is covering.
• Kieran’s “opposite start” Claude skill reframes topics in six systematic ways, focusing on inversion and tension.
• AI should be your super-researcher, not your ghostwriter.
• The marketers who stand out will be those who start from a unique, data-driven angle—the “blue ocean”—not those who chase the exhausted consensus.

---

To access Kieran’s Claude skill for idea generation, scan the QR code or use the link in the episode’s description.

---

Transcript

[Kieran]

We are all drowning in the AI tsunami of content. Everyone is creating content with AI. We're going to show you in one simple, one very simple cloud code skill how you can differentiate your content from everyone else and separate yourself from the pack. This is going to be the most valuable episode you've seen on content and AI. And if you watch the entire show, we're going to give you the entire Claude skill at the end of this episode. So make sure you stay tuned. All of that and more in this episode of Marketing against the Grain. All right, I want to kind of propose you, Kip, that everyone is using AI tools. Cloud code, cloud desktop, all of these different tools to create content in the wrong way, or at least they are starting at the wrong place. And actually, the power of these tools for creating content is not in the actual craft of creating the content. It's in the ideation and in this short video. I want to give you one way and give our audience one skill that will actually give to you that will completely change how you use AI to create content and you will differentiate yourself from everyone else. And so that's my pitch. I want to see if you're buying, that you're excited to go through.

[Kip]

I'm pumped because this is a true, like, against the grain marketing idea that you're basically saying everybody's in one place and that you can win by being in the opposite place of everybody else. But sometimes, like, figuring out how to be in the opposite place is tough. So, like, maybe kick us off as to next level detail. What do you mean? How can we actually get out of the red ocean of creating the same stuff as everybody else is doing? When a buyer asks AI for a solution like yours, does your business come up? Most companies have no idea. And by the time they find out, they've already lost the deal to someone who did. HubSpot AEO helps you show up in those moments with the right answers buyers are looking for before the first click, before the first form fill. That's the moment HubSpot AO is built for. Head to HubSpot.com aeo to try that tool for free today.

[Kieran]

So this is like my very simplistic way of how things work. Today we use AI and we say, hey, can you create a piece of content on, let's say, one of the popular AI narratives right now? And so everyone starts in the same place because AI is going to converge on the same kind of couple of ideas. And so one of the tests I did is I, I give like four people a topic to create content on Now I said, you can prompt in any way you want and then come back to me with the finished post. And so they had the ability to prompt any way they want around this topic. They have the ability to craft content with AI in any way they wanted. And what was like, really interesting is the idea, like the angle, the thing they chose to create content about was very similar because AI is actually proposing the same things to the same people. And that's this red ocean, right? I think we know a good marketing growth principle is everyone is over here and doing this thing. You should actually be over on a different angle. There's a great quote from this actually. Rory Sutherland said the opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea. And he was talking about low cost airlines and Ryanair. Everyone was at the time pitching real comfort of an airplane, like, oh, great customer service and Ryanair were like that cheap. And so they were the opposite end of the spectrum.

[Kip]

This is the right point, Kieran, which is like most people lose because they're in the middle. Like you can actually even win in the red ocean. And the game of like everybody's creating these types of ideas, you just have to do it way better than everybody else. Right. And there are some people who are remarkable at that and do that. I think what you're arguing is that it's often easier to go to the opposite end of where everybody is because you don't have to be as good at it to get the same results. Moving yourself to the other end of the spectrum is actually where all the leverage comes from.

[Kieran]

And so this is actually a more interesting way to use AI for content. A lot of people think about it as crafting the content, but here's an interesting way in how you can kind of help it to differentiate you. So there's a cloth scale that I'm going to go through in cloth scale. What it's going to do is going to look in X, it's going to look in Reddit, it's going to look on the web, it's going to look on LinkedIn and then it's going to take a topic that we're going to give it. It's going to cluster all of the things people are writing content about. And because we know a lot of that is being created by AI, it's kind of all convergent, probably on the same topic. So you open your LinkedIn feed, your X feed, pretty similar takes, everyone is kind of doing similar narrative on these topics and it's going to look at Those. And it's going to take those and it's going to say, oh, I'm going to invert them all right. I'm going to actually start at the inversion of these, the opposite of these. And so it's an ideation tool for me to say, okay, what's a more interesting angle that has not been covered? What's the opposite of all these angles that have not been covered? And that's why I call it opposite start. So I don't start in the red ocean of ideas. I go all the way over to the blue ocean of ideas with my new cloud skill. And so here's what's in it. It's like this reframe lens. So, so it kind of flips the core mechanism, talks about tension, trying to figure out like what is the real debate to be had here. There's a cost lens. It talks about category and then counter lens. And so like the who changed the hero of the story? So basically what it's trying to do is invert it in six ways and then give you an ideation tool to start at a different place.

[Kip]

The one idea I do have here, Kieran, is I would add one notion which is the hottest possible take is like a great place to live in the blue ocean. We're like, oh, this kind of consensus of how somebody feels about this thing. What if I could be as salacious or opposite of that as possible with still some thread that it could possibly be like a viable argument or true. And in that world that's a blue ocean idea. Because people be like, whoa, are you serious? That's not possible. And then they'll be like, oh, no, actually, now I see what you're saying. You kind of got me on this one.

[Kieran]

What's the most kind of extreme take

[Kip]

you can take with having, with still having like a plausible line to true.

[Kieran]

Okay, so. So what it's going to do is give you six inversion categories. So what do we mean by that? We mean it's going to look at the most popular stories and narratives and gives you six ways that you can flip them on your head. Now that's going to make a lot more sense when we get into the example. I'm going to actually run an example and show you the kind of six different stories it came up with that are counter opposite to what everyone else is creating content on. And we'll run the example and you can look to see which ones you think are cool. And it will actually provide a recommended one. It will say this is the most recommended different take on this topic.

[Kip]

So if you want what Kieran has built, scan that QR code, click the link in the description below.

[Kieran]

All right, we're going to go into Claude code and we will launch our terminal. And then when you do slash, you can see all of your different skills. And so I have a skill here called single angle. And so what, what do we think is a. Let's do GPT5.5 was just launched. Let's do GPT5.5 for marketers.

[Kip]

It's going to walk through the framework that you just told everybody and then it's gonna apply it to this topic. Right.

[Kieran]

I'm gonna just say two CMOs who want to make their marketing teams more native. So it's off doing the work. And so sometimes it will ask you to clarify the topic and say that this isn't a good topic and give it some.

[Kip]

Like the topic, that's great.

[Kieran]

And then it just goes off and does stuff. Now, you know the funny thing about AI, like, I'm like, oh, I should start another agent, do something.

[Kip]

Oh, I don't. That's what I do all the time. That's why I have all these different cloud code Perplexity computer man. It's like I have different things doing different, different things.

[Kieran]

It's like, oh, my God, I've only got one agent doing something. I should actually spin up a whole team here. So it's starting to pull back some stuff. So it's pulled back a summary. And so what it's done is it's gone and found all of the kind of GPT5.5 posts around, like, is this good for marketeers? And so here's what we've done. We've scoured the web, X, Reddit, the open web, for all of the content that's been created over the last 24 to 48 hours on GPT5.5. We found all of the things that people are creating content on. So in this case, they're creating a lot of content on the productivity savings. So GPT5.5 can run autonomously for up to 20 hours. There's a huge increase in benchmarks of GPT 5.5 ability to automate work to run autonomously. And that has been a big talking point. And so the productivity is like what people are focused on, the benchmarks or what upgrades or people are focused on. And what our agent is doing is it's coming back and saying, okay, here's a bunch of different ways that you could think about this topic that no one else is. And it's categorized into these six categories. And then it's basically saying the one that's like, most interesting is if you don't make your marketing team AI native, your CEO will take AI out of your hands.

[Kip]

And.

[Kieran]

And GPT 5.5 is the release that starts that clock. And so the reason it's saying that is because the hidden cost here is you will lose C suite authority over AI itself. So the budget moves to it and you become the person who uses AI, not the person who decides about it. And then the proof, it's saying, is only 15% of CEOs think their CMO is AI savvy.

[Kip]

Oh, that is painful.

[Kieran]

Pretty painful. CMO involvement in all decisions has fallen. See how good this supposed to be?

[Kip]

Really good, dude.

[Kieran]

70% to 55%.

[Kip]

We should just do this episode. Like, right now.

[Kieran]

This is an episode.

[Kip]

Let's do this.

[Kieran]

I think more than half of Marktin's AI budgets are now owned by it. And it's saying that GPT 5.5 is now going to be an infrastructural layer to the company. And so all of that is going to move to a different department. And it thinks that that is the angle to use. And I'll just show you one more thing and then I'll kick off the screen. It builds me an entire brief for that episode.

[Kip]

Right.

[Kieran]

It gives me different hooks, it gives me the pro arguments, counter arguments, and then it gives me all of these cool stats. And so it gives me a brief. Then it gives me a story. Because you integrate stories into your content, it works really well. And so it gives me a story that can actually speak to why this may happen. And then it gives me a bunch of closing lines. And so why is this valuable? It's not writing the content for you. It's ideation. Yeah, that's what you're missing. That's where the power is. It's the ideation. You should write the content, right? Like you write the content, but the ideation, look how good this is. Look at how rich of a brief this is. And it's things that people are not writing about the hidden gems.

[Kip]

Well, first of all, it's the hidden gems. And one of the things I love about it, Kieran, is that, like, all of our ideas come from, like, our own experiences, and AI has all of our experiences together. So it's going to find things that we don't yet know about, and it's going to bring those to the table so that we can actually one learn and think about that idea. In a different way. And then I get to tell different stories, which is like kind of anti the AI narrative that just going to like produce slop and do all this. I think you're making the key point that it's about the ideation versus the creation. And AI is actually better at ideation than even it is at creation.

[Kieran]

Yeah. And it's an incredible. I think one of the core strengths of this skill is that it basically builds a cluster of what is the common narrative first and then it will do the inverse of that.

[Kip]

Right.

[Kieran]

So that's the thing to really take away from the skill. It doesn't just go and start to do research. It will first of all do research and build. Like, here's the current narrative, actually, here's all of the things that current narrative misses for your audience. And then it clusters them into those categories and then says, this is actually the best one. Here's an entire brief. And then you create content. Right. And so that way you have a team of researchers really trying to figure out how you can differentiate things you actually talk about.

[Kip]

Here's my hot take, Karen, is the AI is going to make creation and slop way easier. And so what you're going to have is that red ocean is going to get busier and fuller. There's going to be more people playing and creating more stuff around the obvious ideas. And all the magic is going to be in these blue ocean ideas that are fundamentally different and are getting covered less. And you can actually, like, stand out in a remarkable way. And you've built a pretty awesome system. I'm excited to do the episode you just showed. I'm excited to use this tool for a couple other episodes. It's gonna be awesome.

[Kieran]

I'm gonna send this to you and we'll do the GPT 55 next week.

[Kip]

Yeah.

[Kieran]

You can follow along and look at that episode and then know that we got all the ideation for that episode from this skill. And then see if you think it's a good topic. I think it will be a good topic. I think so too.

[Kip]

That'll be fun. This has been great, Kieran. Your Claude coding never ceases to amaze me. So if you want what Kieran has built, scan that QR code, click the link in the description below and thanks, everybody. Thanks for watching another episode. We'll see you real soon on marketing. It's great. I want to tell you about a podcast I love. It's called Nudge. It's hosted by Phil Agnew. It's brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals and it's the UK's fastest growing business podcast. What I love about it is that the Nudge listeners love no fluff, no BS evidence based marketing tactics they get in each episode. You're going to want to listen because this is like an MBA's worth of insight in every single podcast and entrepreneurs. You're going to love the show because it's filled with repeatable proven studies, not hearsay, not one off success stories marketers. You're going to love it because it discusses the psychology behind great marketing and what marketers are getting wrong. Listen to the Nudge wherever you get your podcasts. This data is wrong every freaking time. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.

[Kieran]

Whoa. I can see the client's whole history. Calls, support tickets, emails and here's a task from 3 days ago I totally missed HubSpot grow better.