More AI use did not make content perform better
The things that did predict strong results are the ones marketers are quietly dropping.
Almost every content marketer now uses AI, and it does not appear to be helping their results. That is the headline finding from a new study by Andy @crestodina, flagged on X by Cyrus SEO.
According to Cyrus SEO, more than 92% of marketers now use AI, but AI usage has "basically zero correlation with better results". In other words, the people leaning hardest on AI are not the ones reporting that their content works.
What did predict good results
Four older, slower habits lined up with strong results. Guest blogging (writing an article for someone else's site), influencer or expert collaboration, original research, and plain keyword research (finding the words people actually type into Google).
Expert and influencer collaboration was the strongest predictor of success. Original research raised the likelihood of strong results by about 50%. And the habits stack. Marketers using six or more of these strategies were nearly three times more likely to report strong results.
The catch is that fewer marketers are doing them. Cyrus SEO points out that people are abandoning the exact practices that correlate with success, including basic keyword research.
Nobody knows if their blog is working
The other finding is about measurement. The number of people saying they do not know if the blog delivers results hit an all-time high. Cyrus SEO says his team hears this constantly from marketing teams asking what the return on their content is in an AI world, and that there is typically no easy answer.
That matters for a small business because it is easy to assume silence means failure, or that publishing more and faster will fix it. This study suggests speed is not the lever.
What to do
This is not a reason to stop using AI, and the study does not say AI hurts. It says AI on its own does not separate the winners from everyone else, because everyone has it now.
Pick one of the four habits and add it to your next article. The cheapest one for most small businesses is original research. Pull a number only you have, like the average job size you quoted last year, what customers ask you most often, or what a repair actually costs in your area, and build a post around it. Nobody else can copy that from a prompt.
The second cheapest is asking someone. Get a quote from a supplier, a tradesperson you trust or a long-time customer, and put their name in the article.
If you do neither, at least do the keyword research. Write down the exact phrases a customer would type before they call you, and make sure one page answers each of them properly.
92%+ of marketers now use AI, but AI usage has basically zero correlation with better results
Original research increased the likelihood of strong results by ~50%. Yet fewer marketers are doing it
Everybody is doing LESS of the *things that actually work*!!!