Every day, audiences scroll, click and swipe through an avalanche of content across multiple channels. Such channel diversity amplifies noise exponentially to the point that, now, there’s a constant hum of marketing chatter that is endlessly competing for the same slices of attention.
That chatter has only grown louder since generative tools exploded onto the scene. Sure, AI may streamline production in various capacities, but it’s also cranked up content volume, which means your audience has to work harder to filter out the noise.
Today, a winning strategy isn’t about creating more content (even though AI makes that pretty easy); it’s about building strategies (which AI can facilitate) that emphasize quality over quantity and ultimately ease the mental workload that the current content landscape imposes on audiences.
Why Content Value Is More Important Than Volume
Let’s talk about cognitive load theory (CLT), without getting too into the scientific weeds. At its core, CLT is a simple idea: our brains can only juggle so much at once. Most people can hold roughly seven ‘units’ of information in their working memory at any given time, give or take. When too much comes at us at once, it becomes overwhelming.
Subscribe to the ai marketer
Weekly updates on all things ai in marketing.
That limit matters for marketers because every headline, pop-up, social post, push notification or banner ad is fighting for a piece of that limited attention. And lately, it feels like AI-generated messages, images and videos are everywhere, increasing the volume of available content and ultimately overwhelming audiences.
Based on my own browsing habits, it’s hard to go more than a few clicks without running into something I feel confident in labeling as AI-generated (low-quality with no evidence of human intervention), and it’s happening despite growing evidence that people don’t really care for it. 41% of consumers say they view brands more negatively when they use AI in their advertising, and 36% say it actually makes them less likely to buy.
And it’s not just about how much information we see. Research on task switching shows that even short interruptions can leave a mental footprint behind. Organizational psychologist Sophie Leroy calls this “attention residue” — that slightly frazzled feeling when part of your brain is still stuck on what you just saw, making it harder to fully focus on whatever comes next.
While Leroy’s research centers around the workplace, I think it can be reasonably applied to our personal lives as well, since many of us engage in rapid task switching across mobile devices and social media platforms. In a marketing context, that could mean that sifting through more low-effort AI-generated content doesn’t just fail to persuade but subtly diminishes audiences’ remaining attention capacity to engage with the next message, even if it’s a good message.
Direct consequences of that phenomenon might be:
- Lower engagement rates as audiences skim or abandon pages.
- Increased decision fatigue, delaying or derailing purchase choices altogether.
- Heightened stress that negatively colors brand perception.
- Reduced message retention, thinning the long-term payoff of content investments.
- Disengagement from future communications as consumers proactively filter messages.
Why Content Volume Can Erode Confidence
AI has enabled exponential content production. Processes that once took days or weeks (writing blog posts, storyboarding videos, designing ad sets) can now happen more quickly than ever. And on top of that, everyone is using the same tools to chase the same results, making genuine differentiation trickier for customers to discern.
Using AI imagery as an example, Getty Images reports, “almost 90% of consumers globally want to know whether an image has been created using AI.” Brands hoping to earn attention must also confront that broader crisis of media confidence.
This applies to written copy, too. Trust in AI-generated content has fallen from 72% in 2022 to 58% in 2025, according to a study from the Capgemini Research Institute. This increasing discomfort can widen the gap between your intended message and what consumers take it to mean.
To rebuild and maintain confidence, marketers must understand that a volume-based content approach isn’t a foolproof plan, and pivot to crafting copy and experiences that feel human and transparent.
Earning Genuine Attention in the AI Era
Increased content volume via generative AI has diminishing returns, but that shouldn’t be mistaken for an argument against AI itself. The real issue isn’t whether marketers use AI, it’s how they use it.
Remember Google’s 2011 Panda updates that addressed low-quality content? AI doesn’t change the fundamentals of what works; it just makes it easier to forget them. Content success has nearly always hinged on clarity, quality, relevance and value, and those principles still win regardless of how efficiently content is produced. AI can accelerate good strategy, but it also accelerates bad habits.
Translating that into practice means using AI to support thoughtful storytelling — not to maximize sheer output. To help you cut through the clamor, consider the following principles:
- Anchor every asset to a single, memorable idea that solves a real audience problem rather than letting AI spin out multiple variations of the same vague message.
- Prioritize depth over breadth by publishing fewer but richer pieces, using AI to research, structure or iterate instead of flooding channels.
- Design content and strategies with cognitive ease in mind, stripping away unnecessary elements that add noise but no value.
- Build intentional content hierarchies so readers can scan first, then go deeper at their own pace.
- Pair AI efficiency with human refinement to inject voice, judgment, nuance and brand personality where it matters most.
In today’s environment, trust is a differentiator, and it’s earned through transparency and restraint, not volume:
- Clearly labeling machine-generated imagery, copy or synthetic voices.
- Using real customer stories and user-generated content to validate claims.
- Establishing internal review processes to catch factual errors or unintentional bias.
Embracing Creativity, Authenticity and Strategic Focus
Content has outpaced human attention for a while now. To thrive in such a noisy environment means to be the brand that communicates what truly matters with clarity and sincerity. Every automated draft, generated image or data-driven email still needs creative vision. Our job as marketers is to convert these tech-enabled content capabilities into narratives that feel personal and purposeful.
Lead with ideas that only your team can articulate and package them in experiences that respect audiences’ time and attention. In doing so, you transform AI from a volume machine into a tool for gathering sharper insights, iterating faster and telling richer stories without sacrificing trust.
We used contentmarketing.ai to help draft this blog. It’s been carefully proofed and polished by Chad Hetherington and other members of the Brafton team.
