Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Whats up once more, and welcome to the Healthcare Success Podcast. At present, I’ve a really particular podcast. We’re going to discuss content material and AI, that includes two of my favourite individuals, who occur to work with me as nicely, Mary Hayes and Melanie Wilson. Welcome, guys.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Thanks. Joyful to be right here.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, I am glad to have each you guys. So I needed to beg them, threaten them, persuade them… You guys aren’t used to being in entrance of the digicam, so right now, you guys are gonna do nice, I simply understand it. So we’ll lead you thru.

Melanie and Mary are each key members of our group, and guys, simply, I need you to take a second to introduce your self and what you do round right here at Healthcare Success, and I will lead you from there.

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Certain, I will begin. Hello, I am Mary Hayes, I am the Senior Content material Strategist right here at Healthcare Success. I have been right here for a couple of 12 months and a half, however I’ve many, a few years of selling and healthcare expertise.

To explain what I do, I might say I spend my days determining methods to get the suitable content material in entrance of the suitable individuals. And, currently, a number of that work has been involving or ensuring that AI helps us try this higher, and never simply sooner.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Glorious. And Melanie, what’s your title, and what do you do?

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Director of Model and Storytelling right here. I have been right here for about 5 years. I do two fundamental issues, primarily managing our group of writers and the manufacturing of the content material. In addition to I assist with our model technique tasks, because it pertains to model messaging toolkits. I assist develop these for our shoppers.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Glorious. So, right now, let’s, once more, we will speak about content material advertising, and that is within the information. Should you’ve been doing something associated to healthcare advertising, or content material of any kind, this has actually been within the information because the very starting, and there is a number of worry on the market.

And I will set this up a little bit bit, guys, and we’ll simply leap straight into the podcast. However initially, there’s the worry that we’re all going to be taken over by robots, which in all probability has some validity. I perceive that, so I do not wish to be naive to that.

However extra to the purpose for right now, there are fears of writers being displaced completely. What is going on to occur to writers? Ought to I not be a author? What are we going to do? What is going on to occur to my job?

And once more, these are all legitimate fears. We will be speaking about a few of these issues right now. There’s additionally the worry of misinformation, or errors, or hallucinations in healthcare. And that is an enormous concern as nicely. There are fears that if I rent somebody to do writing for me, are they actually going to put in writing, or are they simply going to make use of AI?

So there’s rather a lot happening nowadays, and I actually perceive that. So right now, we will inform you what truly occurs at what we like to think about as a state-of-the-art company that also makes use of very skilled human writers, but additionally makes use of AI appropriately.

So we’ll get into all of that. However first, I’ll throw out one thing that’s newsworthy. There are rumors—and there are literally state legal guidelines in varied levels—and we’ll see the place this goes. However something with healthcare is exclusive, as you guys know. We’ll in all probability speak about your cash or your life and E-E-A-T in a little bit bit. Healthcare is especially necessary, and so there’s, for instance, I’ve heard of a regulation in Texas the place something AI-driven goes to require some type of disclaimer that it was written by AI.

And that is an attention-grabbing dilemma. When this primary got here to our consideration internally, when you’re utilizing Grammarly, that is a type of AI, proper? So the place are these traces going to be drawn? Who’s going to be the arbiter of this stuff? How’s this all going to shake out?

However in the meantime, my group jogged my memory that this little tiny group a few of our listeners could have heard of has a coverage on this. That may occur to be Mayo Clinic. So Melanie and Mary, I would love you to speak—let’s begin there. We have got plenty of questions, however let’s simply speak about that function, then we’ll dive into the remainder.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Yeah, I believe the concept that we’ve got to be clear with how we use AI is an effective idea. It is one thing that we needs to be proactive about as a substitute of reactive.

As you talked about, the Mayo Clinic is a very good instance of how they try this. They’ve a web page on their web site referred to as the Well being Info Coverage web page. It is buried in there, however I really like the web page. It basically outlines their course of for writing and producing copy and well being info. They go into element concerning the writing course of, analysis, evaluation—every part is there.

Along with that, they’ve a boilerplate paragraph about how they use AI. It is quite simple, it is clear. From a perspective of LLMs understanding and studying your web site, it’s gold. It truly is what LLMs want to grasp what the well being info is that you’ve, and the way you’re being moral and accountable with the best way that you just produce it.

So that might be an instance of how to do this proper.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Glorious. Mary, every other feedback earlier than we pivot?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): I agree with that, and I believe it is also necessary to have that assertion someplace in your web site in case you are utilizing AI, simply as a manner of being trustworthy and open concerning the know-how.

The reality is that just about all people is utilizing AI now, and so I like the best way Mayo Clinic lays it out. It highlights that it is human-first, however they do use AI, they usually clarify the precise methods they try this.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): So I might identical to so as to add one type of shade commentary. Mayo Clinic is a kind of organizations that simply views themselves as a pacesetter, and I really like that about them.

And for individuals newer to our trade, it’s possible you’ll or could not keep in mind Lee Aase, who was the top of communications at Mayo. I’ve truly interviewed him on this podcast a number of occasions. He was sort of the innovator of social media in healthcare. He helped lay down insurance policies and get Mayo concerned early.

So the primary query I’ve is: why not use AI for every part?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): I’ll go first. I might say the straightforward reply is that AI simply isn’t there but. It could possibly’t deal with the complete cycle of technique, manufacturing, optimization, and iteration.

And to be trustworthy, I’m not mad about that—I’m not able to retire but. However truly, I believe AI is genuinely wonderful at sure issues, resembling analysis, synthesizing giant volumes of knowledge, analyzing information, and writing code.

It handles these issues rather well, however actually good isn’t the identical as performed. It nonetheless wants a human within the loop, as we wish to say, to catch errors and apply judgment. As a result of AI does make errors. It hallucinates, which implies it is going to actually simply make stuff up.

In order that’s why I don’t use it for every part.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Yeah, I agree. Every little thing Mary stated. I believe relating to simply the writing, for that very same purpose, I wouldn’t be snug simply letting it go from starting to finish, particularly with healthcare or medical info.

Primarily as a result of, as Mary stated, it does hallucinate. It additionally has factual inaccuracies—made-up statistics, made-up quotes. There are a number of issues like that. And it finally ends up taking extra time to evaluation and repair these issues than it could be to put in writing a correct first draft.

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Yeah, and I might simply add that publishing an inaccurate declare isn’t simply embarrassing—it could possibly truly hurt your sufferers. Making errors or hallucinating may be annoying in most industries, however in healthcare, it’s an actual downside.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, it could possibly hurt them, it could possibly trigger lawsuits, it could possibly kill manufacturers, it could possibly trigger you to cease exhibiting up. So there’s a number of draw back to this. Clearly, the affected person first is a very powerful factor.

I might say, to take a counterpoint right here, the opposite factor I hear is: why would I take advantage of AI in any respect?

And I’ll reply that. I’ve youngsters which are Gen Z, they’re very apprehensive about this, I don’t blame them. They’re each graduating from faculty quickly, and that is undoubtedly impacting entry-level people. However to say “I’m not going to make use of AI in any respect,” I believe that’s naive.

The metaphor I take advantage of rather a lot is: if I consider that, perhaps I ought to return to pad and paper. Or a typewriter. Or simply stick to a pc. AI is the following iteration.

Should you select to not use AI, that’s high-quality—however you’re opting out of the arms race. You’re operating on foot whereas others are on more and more quick horses. You’re at an enormous aggressive drawback. And I might argue that in lots of instances, your content material gained’t be pretty much as good, as a result of AI means that you can iterate and enhance sooner.

It’s like sharpening a sword—every iteration will get stronger when you’re utilizing the instruments accurately.

So then let’s speak about the way you truly use AI. Mary, do you wish to begin?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Certain. I might say I take advantage of it for nearly every part—however I ought to say up entrance that our web optimization division, led by Brandon Schakola, has actually been the one within the trenches doing AI testing. We’ve been constructing, breaking, and refining workflows as a group for some time now. So by the point one thing lands in my day-to-day, it’s been by its paces.

I don’t wish to fake I do know every part, however I can converse to how I’ve been making use of it and what’s truly working. On any given day, I may be working in Claude or ChatGPT. We additionally use platforms like Weike and AirOps, which assist us produce content material at scale and observe how we’re performing in LLMs.

A concrete instance: once we deliver on a brand new healthcare consumer, they hand us a mountain of supplies—web site content material, persona decks, messaging pointers, gross sales collateral, questionnaires, aggressive intel. It used to take days to soak up all of that.

Now I can feed it into Claude, and it synthesizes it right into a complete overview that informs the technique I construct. For web optimization and AEO technique, I’ll pull studies from Ahrefs or Google Search Console, add these to Claude together with technical audits, and ask Claude to cross-reference every part and run a content material hole evaluation. It helps floor alternatives.

Then I evaluation the findings and apply my web optimization and AEO experience to make closing selections. I map every part to viewers, funnel stage, key phrases, content material kind, URLs, publish dates. That’s how I take advantage of it—only one instance.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Wonderful. And simply to repeat what Mary stated, I’m actually happy with the web optimization group and the way they’re bringing this into the company.

From a writing perspective, I take advantage of it in two fundamental methods. First, I don’t begin with AI for first drafts relating to healthcare info. However I do love utilizing it to shine—bettering readability, shortening sentences and paragraphs, simplifying language.

Second, I take advantage of it to repurpose content material. For instance, I’ll take a human-written weblog put up and switch it right into a paid search touchdown web page. That requires a shift from informative to benefit-driven, direct-response copy. It saves time and does an awesome job as a result of the bottom content material is already correct.

The opposite factor I really like is creating customized GPT instruments. I constructed one for model messaging audits. It’s basically 20 years of my information became a instrument, and it saves me 8–10 hours. For shoppers with out the finances for full model messaging growth, I can provide them a report on what their web site is definitely speaking.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): So I might simply add a pair factors. One concern individuals have is: “I’m going to rent an company, they usually’re simply going to throw every part into AI and go on trip.” That’s not what’s taking place. AI truly permits us to ship extra worth, not much less.

There are such a lot of transferring components in inventive work—will we wish to spend time on busywork, or high-value pondering? AI helps us remove the mind-numbing components—like constructing schema, which is vital however tedious—and concentrate on technique and creativity. So we will ship extra, sooner, and higher.

One other concern is information safety. Folks fear: “Are you feeding my enterprise information into AI?” You want safeguards in place. We’re not utilizing public instruments that prepare on consumer information. That’s vital in healthcare.

So Mary, what are you listening to from shoppers about AI and well being content material?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Yeah, I might say there are two fundamental issues that I’m listening to, and what’s attention-grabbing is that they sort of contradict one another. On one finish, we’ve got shoppers who’re satisfied that we use AI to put in writing all of their content material, such as you stated, they usually’ll flag issues like utilizing em dashes as proof. However I wish to be clear—and Melanie can converse to this as nicely—we’ve got actual, wonderful, skilled human writers who’ve spent a long time in healthcare advertising, and an em sprint shouldn’t be a smoking gun. Individuals who know methods to write use em dashes—that’s simply how it’s.

On the opposite finish, I’ve shoppers who really feel like perhaps we’re not transferring quick sufficient or not producing sufficient quantity. It’s as in the event that they hear the phrase AI and assume it means we will crank out twice the work in half the time without cost. And the reality is, sure, AI does save time—I’ve seen it lower particular workflows considerably—however that effectivity doesn’t remove the human layer, it compresses it. AI is great at digesting and synthesizing info, nevertheless it doesn’t have judgment, it doesn’t perceive tone the best way a human does, and it doesn’t catch nuance the best way somebody with 20+ years of healthcare advertising expertise does.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, for positive. And I can speak about {that a} bit as nicely, however Melanie, I’d love to listen to from you—you are Director of Content material and Storytelling—let’s discuss concerning the inventive facet of healthcare content material.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Yeah, so I believe it’s useful to outline what we imply by the inventive facet of healthcare. I think about something that’s not purely informational to be inventive—so something designed to influence, differentiate, or emotionally join. That features headlines, taglines, advert copy, paid social copy.

And the explanation that issues is as a result of in healthcare, we’ve got the toughest job: we’ve got to be inventive, however we additionally need to be medically correct. We’ve to be persuasive, however we will’t go towards compliance. We’ve to have a powerful model voice, whereas sustaining credibility. I do suppose AI may be good at inventive output, however in healthcare, that stability is vital, and that’s the place human intervention is crucial. If the aim is to transform, we nonetheless have to make sure the content material is reliable and compliant, and that’s the place the human layer actually is available in.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, and I might simply say that individuals who know me know I began as a author earlier in my profession. I nonetheless write on a regular basis, and I can write fairly nicely by most requirements—however I take advantage of AI consistently now. Plenty of occasions it’s utilizing issues I’ve taught it. I’ve educated it on my voice, fed it chapters of my e-book, weblog posts I’ve written, so it understands how I believe. And for instance, if I’m writing a touchdown web page, it is going to remind me to incorporate issues I would in any other case neglect—like a proof part. So used accurately, it could possibly truly improve creativity. There are additionally sensible makes use of—like making ready interview questions for podcasts. As a substitute of ready for visitors to supply them, I can generate a powerful place to begin, refine it, and get higher participation. There are all these little methods to make use of AI that enhance outcomes with out changing the human position.

So Mary, when a consumer says, “Why don’t we simply use AI ourselves?” what do you say?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): That undoubtedly comes up, and I perceive the logic—AI is accessible, it’s quick, it produces textual content, so why pay an company? However the actuality is that a few of our greatest shoppers got here to us after working with companies that relied too closely on AI, and it confirmed. The content material had a generic tone, inaccurate claims, and it didn’t carry out. That’s the real-world model of “we’ll simply do it ourselves,” and it’s not a small mistake.

First, there’s technique—AI doesn’t know your online business targets, your aggressive panorama, or methods to prioritize content material. With out that, you’re simply producing content material with out intent, and in healthcare, that’s a waste of finances.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): I might add that past accuracy, there’s model voice. You possibly can feed model pointers into AI, however that essence will get misplaced shortly over a number of iterations. You must maintain pulling it again. And the opposite difficulty is uniqueness. AI is extremely highly effective for sensible, hardworking individuals—however for lazy individuals, it’s a race to the underside. You possibly can generate a full web site in just a few hours, nevertheless it’s generic content material that exists in all places. That hurts your web optimization and your credibility. In a world the place AI and serps are searching for experience, generic content material tells them you don’t have anything distinctive to supply. That may take years to get well from.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): And to construct on that, I believe an enormous a part of the disconnect is that folks assume AI can simply write, however they might not have the experience to guage the output. Knowledgeable author understands what attractiveness like and methods to information the instrument. Model voice is strategic—it needs to be documented, developed, and intentional. Upon getting that, AI is usually a useful gizmo for checking consistency, however it could possibly’t outline it for you. The identical goes for storytelling—it’s strategic, not one thing that occurs after the very fact. So long as the human effort goes into defining these parts, AI will help assist and refine them.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, and I’ll add that even when you haven’t outlined your model voice, you continue to have one—you simply don’t know what it’s. That may result in inconsistency or weak messaging. Small deviations compound over time. Should you’re even barely off in path, over a protracted distance, you find yourself manner astray. So these foundational steps actually matter.

So Mary, let’s return to expectations—how does the hole between pace and high quality present up?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): The most important manner is quantity. Purchasers hear we use AI and assume we will produce 10x extra content material for a similar value. However every bit nonetheless must be strategically deliberate, briefed, reviewed, fact-checked, edited, and optimized. AI compresses some steps, nevertheless it doesn’t remove them. One other difficulty is turnaround time—shoppers see rivals publishing shortly and assume it’s only one immediate. What they don’t see is the analysis, briefing, enhancing, and SME evaluation behind it. And essentially the most harmful model is when shoppers are keen to sacrifice high quality for quantity. I had a case the place management modified mid-engagement and the content material path shifted. As a result of we had robust model guardrails, we have been capable of adapt—however with out these, we might have printed content material that contradicted the brand new path. These guardrails aren’t overhead—they defend the consumer. In the end, AI is a robust accelerant, not autopilot.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): So what’s the fee from a storytelling perspective when you rely solely on AI?

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Once we take into consideration storytelling, we take into consideration that emotional connection—the piece that offers you goosebumps. That “magic” is definitely the results of deliberate craft developed by skilled writers. AI can doubtlessly be taught that system, however the components nonetheless come from people. With out that human enter, you lose the depth and which means that makes storytelling efficient.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Mary, anything you would like shoppers understood?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Sure—healthcare is a uniquely high-stakes content material surroundings, and AI doesn’t inherently perceive that. In web optimization, we speak about YMYL—your cash or your life—and healthcare sits on the high of that. A fallacious statistic or outdated guideline isn’t simply embarrassing—it could possibly harm credibility, set off regulatory points, or mislead sufferers making necessary selections. We work on subjects like lymphoma, dialysis, infusion therapies—areas the place accuracy is vital. Sufferers depend on this info, and that accountability can’t be automated.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Melanie, you talked about this earlier, however let’s make clear—once we speak about healthcare content material, what all does that embody?

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Yeah, at our company, since we’re full-service, content material actually spans a variety. However for a typical healthcare web site, it’s primarily service pages, situation pages, and remedy pages—that’s the majority of what most healthcare manufacturers have. That’s additionally why we’re so protecting of it. Sure, we would like model and storytelling and all of the inventive parts, however on the finish of the day, it must be correct. It must be proper. Past that, it extends into social media, paid media, and even conventional channels like radio and billboards.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Nice. In order we wrap up right here, I’d love each of you to weigh in. Mary, let’s begin with you—what does good human-AI collaboration truly appear like in your day-to-day workflow?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): The best manner I’d describe it’s that AI handles the heavy lifting, and people deal with the judgment. In observe, which means I’m not manually studying by a whole lot of pages of analysis or key phrase information anymore—I’m utilizing AI to synthesize that info. What used to take days now takes hours, and I’m working with a richer, extra complete image than I might have assembled alone. From there, I apply technique. I take a look at what AI surfaced and ask, does this make sense given the consumer’s targets, their aggressive place, and what we’re seeing in search and AI-driven solutions? I make the choices, I course-correct, I add nuance—that’s one thing AI can’t do. It doesn’t have medical judgment.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, and that’s an awesome level. If I offer you a thousand pages of fabric, do I need you spending weeks simply studying it, or do I need you constructing one thing precious? Most shoppers would relatively see progress. And even past that, having the ability to summarize and validate that info shortly is extremely precious to them. Melanie, something you’d add?

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Yeah, I agree with that. As writers, we’ve got to learn rather a lot to grasp what we’re writing about, so AI helps with that preliminary synthesis. However I at all times apply handbook checks—doing my very own stock of what we’ve got, double-checking what AI produces, and questioning it if one thing appears off. It’s actually about understanding what you possibly can and might’t depend on it for. For our writers, we nonetheless do first drafts in-house, however we use AI for editorial evaluation—issues like readability and checking towards pointers. In the end, it’s about testing persistently, studying what works, and refining from there.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Mary, any closing ideas?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): No, I believe we lined rather a lot.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, I’d simply add another factor. I’ve been writing rather a lot currently—blogs, podcasts, webinars—and what I’ve seen is that within the palms of a powerful author, AI truly improves high quality. It permits for extra iteration. You possibly can sharpen and refine extra shortly. So when you might argue you may write one thing sooner with out it, usually the top result’s higher with it since you’ve had extra alternatives to enhance it. We’re not speaking about producing low-quality content material cheaply—we’re speaking about delivering higher work for a similar funding.

So, group, I knew this could be enjoyable. Was this enjoyable for you?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Sure! That’s one in all my favourite subjects!

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): I advised you it could be. So thanks for listening. I don’t normally plug the company on these, however when you’re keen on working with skilled writers who use AI the suitable manner—constructing your model voice, successful in AI and web optimization—that’s what we do. At present was only a peek behind the scenes.

Thanks for being on the podcast, and due to everybody for listening.

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Thanks.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Thanks a lot.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Whats up once more, and welcome to the Healthcare Success Podcast. At present, I’ve a really particular podcast. We’re going to discuss content material and AI, that includes two of my favourite individuals, who occur to work with me as nicely, Mary Hayes and Melanie Wilson. Welcome, guys.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Thanks. Joyful to be right here.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, I am glad to have each you guys. So I needed to beg them, threaten them, persuade them… You guys aren’t used to being in entrance of the digicam, so right now, you guys are gonna do nice, I simply understand it. So we’ll lead you thru.

Melanie and Mary are each key members of our group, and guys, simply, I need you to take a second to introduce your self and what you do round right here at Healthcare Success, and I will lead you from there.

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Certain, I will begin. Hello, I am Mary Hayes, I am the Senior Content material Strategist right here at Healthcare Success. I have been right here for a couple of 12 months and a half, however I’ve many, a few years of selling and healthcare expertise.

To explain what I do, I might say I spend my days determining methods to get the suitable content material in entrance of the suitable individuals. And, currently, a number of that work has been involving or ensuring that AI helps us try this higher, and never simply sooner.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Glorious. And Melanie, what’s your title, and what do you do?

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Director of Model and Storytelling right here. I have been right here for about 5 years. I do two fundamental issues, primarily managing our group of writers and the manufacturing of the content material. In addition to I assist with our model technique tasks, because it pertains to model messaging toolkits. I assist develop these for our shoppers.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Glorious. So, right now, let’s, once more, we will speak about content material advertising, and that is within the information. Should you’ve been doing something associated to healthcare advertising, or content material of any kind, this has actually been within the information because the very starting, and there is a number of worry on the market.

And I will set this up a little bit bit, guys, and we’ll simply leap straight into the podcast. However initially, there’s the worry that we’re all going to be taken over by robots, which in all probability has some validity. I perceive that, so I do not wish to be naive to that.

However extra to the purpose for right now, there are fears of writers being displaced completely. What is going on to occur to writers? Ought to I not be a author? What are we going to do? What is going on to occur to my job?

And once more, these are all legitimate fears. We will be speaking about a few of these issues right now. There’s additionally the worry of misinformation, or errors, or hallucinations in healthcare. And that is an enormous concern as nicely. There are fears that if I rent somebody to do writing for me, are they actually going to put in writing, or are they simply going to make use of AI?

So there’s rather a lot happening nowadays, and I actually perceive that. So right now, we will inform you what truly occurs at what we like to think about as a state-of-the-art company that also makes use of very skilled human writers, but additionally makes use of AI appropriately.

So we’ll get into all of that. However first, I’ll throw out one thing that’s newsworthy. There are rumors—and there are literally state legal guidelines in varied levels—and we’ll see the place this goes. However something with healthcare is exclusive, as you guys know. We’ll in all probability speak about your cash or your life and E-E-A-T in a little bit bit. Healthcare is especially necessary, and so there’s, for instance, I’ve heard of a regulation in Texas the place something AI-driven goes to require some type of disclaimer that it was written by AI.

And that is an attention-grabbing dilemma. When this primary got here to our consideration internally, when you’re utilizing Grammarly, that is a type of AI, proper? So the place are these traces going to be drawn? Who’s going to be the arbiter of this stuff? How’s this all going to shake out?

However in the meantime, my group jogged my memory that this little tiny group a few of our listeners could have heard of has a coverage on this. That may occur to be Mayo Clinic. So Melanie and Mary, I would love you to speak—let’s begin there. We have got plenty of questions, however let’s simply speak about that function, then we’ll dive into the remainder.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Yeah, I believe the concept that we’ve got to be clear with how we use AI is an effective idea. It is one thing that we needs to be proactive about as a substitute of reactive.

As you talked about, the Mayo Clinic is a very good instance of how they try this. They’ve a web page on their web site referred to as the Well being Info Coverage web page. It is buried in there, however I really like the web page. It basically outlines their course of for writing and producing copy and well being info. They go into element concerning the writing course of, analysis, evaluation—every part is there.

Along with that, they’ve a boilerplate paragraph about how they use AI. It is quite simple, it is clear. From a perspective of LLMs understanding and studying your web site, it’s gold. It truly is what LLMs want to grasp what the well being info is that you’ve, and the way you’re being moral and accountable with the best way that you just produce it.

So that might be an instance of how to do this proper.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Glorious. Mary, every other feedback earlier than we pivot?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): I agree with that, and I believe it is also necessary to have that assertion someplace in your web site in case you are utilizing AI, simply as a manner of being trustworthy and open concerning the know-how.

The reality is that just about all people is utilizing AI now, and so I like the best way Mayo Clinic lays it out. It highlights that it is human-first, however they do use AI, they usually clarify the precise methods they try this.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): So I might identical to so as to add one type of shade commentary. Mayo Clinic is a kind of organizations that simply views themselves as a pacesetter, and I really like that about them.

And for individuals newer to our trade, it’s possible you’ll or could not keep in mind Lee Aase, who was the top of communications at Mayo. I’ve truly interviewed him on this podcast a number of occasions. He was sort of the innovator of social media in healthcare. He helped lay down insurance policies and get Mayo concerned early.

So the primary query I’ve is: why not use AI for every part?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): I’ll go first. I might say the straightforward reply is that AI simply isn’t there but. It could possibly’t deal with the complete cycle of technique, manufacturing, optimization, and iteration.

And to be trustworthy, I’m not mad about that—I’m not able to retire but. However truly, I believe AI is genuinely wonderful at sure issues, resembling analysis, synthesizing giant volumes of knowledge, analyzing information, and writing code.

It handles these issues rather well, however actually good isn’t the identical as performed. It nonetheless wants a human within the loop, as we wish to say, to catch errors and apply judgment. As a result of AI does make errors. It hallucinates, which implies it is going to actually simply make stuff up.

In order that’s why I don’t use it for every part.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Yeah, I agree. Every little thing Mary stated. I believe relating to simply the writing, for that very same purpose, I wouldn’t be snug simply letting it go from starting to finish, particularly with healthcare or medical info.

Primarily as a result of, as Mary stated, it does hallucinate. It additionally has factual inaccuracies—made-up statistics, made-up quotes. There are a number of issues like that. And it finally ends up taking extra time to evaluation and repair these issues than it could be to put in writing a correct first draft.

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Yeah, and I might simply add that publishing an inaccurate declare isn’t simply embarrassing—it could possibly truly hurt your sufferers. Making errors or hallucinating may be annoying in most industries, however in healthcare, it’s an actual downside.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, it could possibly hurt them, it could possibly trigger lawsuits, it could possibly kill manufacturers, it could possibly trigger you to cease exhibiting up. So there’s a number of draw back to this. Clearly, the affected person first is a very powerful factor.

I might say, to take a counterpoint right here, the opposite factor I hear is: why would I take advantage of AI in any respect?

And I’ll reply that. I’ve youngsters which are Gen Z, they’re very apprehensive about this, I don’t blame them. They’re each graduating from faculty quickly, and that is undoubtedly impacting entry-level people. However to say “I’m not going to make use of AI in any respect,” I believe that’s naive.

The metaphor I take advantage of rather a lot is: if I consider that, perhaps I ought to return to pad and paper. Or a typewriter. Or simply stick to a pc. AI is the following iteration.

Should you select to not use AI, that’s high-quality—however you’re opting out of the arms race. You’re operating on foot whereas others are on more and more quick horses. You’re at an enormous aggressive drawback. And I might argue that in lots of instances, your content material gained’t be pretty much as good, as a result of AI means that you can iterate and enhance sooner.

It’s like sharpening a sword—every iteration will get stronger when you’re utilizing the instruments accurately.

So then let’s speak about the way you truly use AI. Mary, do you wish to begin?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Certain. I might say I take advantage of it for nearly every part—however I ought to say up entrance that our web optimization division, led by Brandon Schakola, has actually been the one within the trenches doing AI testing. We’ve been constructing, breaking, and refining workflows as a group for some time now. So by the point one thing lands in my day-to-day, it’s been by its paces.

I don’t wish to fake I do know every part, however I can converse to how I’ve been making use of it and what’s truly working. On any given day, I may be working in Claude or ChatGPT. We additionally use platforms like Weike and AirOps, which assist us produce content material at scale and observe how we’re performing in LLMs.

A concrete instance: once we deliver on a brand new healthcare consumer, they hand us a mountain of supplies—web site content material, persona decks, messaging pointers, gross sales collateral, questionnaires, aggressive intel. It used to take days to soak up all of that.

Now I can feed it into Claude, and it synthesizes it right into a complete overview that informs the technique I construct. For web optimization and AEO technique, I’ll pull studies from Ahrefs or Google Search Console, add these to Claude together with technical audits, and ask Claude to cross-reference every part and run a content material hole evaluation. It helps floor alternatives.

Then I evaluation the findings and apply my web optimization and AEO experience to make closing selections. I map every part to viewers, funnel stage, key phrases, content material kind, URLs, publish dates. That’s how I take advantage of it—only one instance.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Wonderful. And simply to repeat what Mary stated, I’m actually happy with the web optimization group and the way they’re bringing this into the company.

From a writing perspective, I take advantage of it in two fundamental methods. First, I don’t begin with AI for first drafts relating to healthcare info. However I do love utilizing it to shine—bettering readability, shortening sentences and paragraphs, simplifying language.

Second, I take advantage of it to repurpose content material. For instance, I’ll take a human-written weblog put up and switch it right into a paid search touchdown web page. That requires a shift from informative to benefit-driven, direct-response copy. It saves time and does an awesome job as a result of the bottom content material is already correct.

The opposite factor I really like is creating customized GPT instruments. I constructed one for model messaging audits. It’s basically 20 years of my information became a instrument, and it saves me 8–10 hours. For shoppers with out the finances for full model messaging growth, I can provide them a report on what their web site is definitely speaking.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): So I might simply add a pair factors. One concern individuals have is: “I’m going to rent an company, they usually’re simply going to throw every part into AI and go on trip.” That’s not what’s taking place. AI truly permits us to ship extra worth, not much less.

There are such a lot of transferring components in inventive work—will we wish to spend time on busywork, or high-value pondering? AI helps us remove the mind-numbing components—like constructing schema, which is vital however tedious—and concentrate on technique and creativity. So we will ship extra, sooner, and higher.

One other concern is information safety. Folks fear: “Are you feeding my enterprise information into AI?” You want safeguards in place. We’re not utilizing public instruments that prepare on consumer information. That’s vital in healthcare.

So Mary, what are you listening to from shoppers about AI and well being content material?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Yeah, I might say there are two fundamental issues that I’m listening to, and what’s attention-grabbing is that they sort of contradict one another. On one finish, we’ve got shoppers who’re satisfied that we use AI to put in writing all of their content material, such as you stated, they usually’ll flag issues like utilizing em dashes as proof. However I wish to be clear—and Melanie can converse to this as nicely—we’ve got actual, wonderful, skilled human writers who’ve spent a long time in healthcare advertising, and an em sprint shouldn’t be a smoking gun. Individuals who know methods to write use em dashes—that’s simply how it’s.

On the opposite finish, I’ve shoppers who really feel like perhaps we’re not transferring quick sufficient or not producing sufficient quantity. It’s as in the event that they hear the phrase AI and assume it means we will crank out twice the work in half the time without cost. And the reality is, sure, AI does save time—I’ve seen it lower particular workflows considerably—however that effectivity doesn’t remove the human layer, it compresses it. AI is great at digesting and synthesizing info, nevertheless it doesn’t have judgment, it doesn’t perceive tone the best way a human does, and it doesn’t catch nuance the best way somebody with 20+ years of healthcare advertising expertise does.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, for positive. And I can speak about {that a} bit as nicely, however Melanie, I’d love to listen to from you—you are Director of Content material and Storytelling—let’s discuss concerning the inventive facet of healthcare content material.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Yeah, so I believe it’s useful to outline what we imply by the inventive facet of healthcare. I think about something that’s not purely informational to be inventive—so something designed to influence, differentiate, or emotionally join. That features headlines, taglines, advert copy, paid social copy.

And the explanation that issues is as a result of in healthcare, we’ve got the toughest job: we’ve got to be inventive, however we additionally need to be medically correct. We’ve to be persuasive, however we will’t go towards compliance. We’ve to have a powerful model voice, whereas sustaining credibility. I do suppose AI may be good at inventive output, however in healthcare, that stability is vital, and that’s the place human intervention is crucial. If the aim is to transform, we nonetheless have to make sure the content material is reliable and compliant, and that’s the place the human layer actually is available in.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, and I might simply say that individuals who know me know I began as a author earlier in my profession. I nonetheless write on a regular basis, and I can write fairly nicely by most requirements—however I take advantage of AI consistently now. Plenty of occasions it’s utilizing issues I’ve taught it. I’ve educated it on my voice, fed it chapters of my e-book, weblog posts I’ve written, so it understands how I believe. And for instance, if I’m writing a touchdown web page, it is going to remind me to incorporate issues I would in any other case neglect—like a proof part. So used accurately, it could possibly truly improve creativity. There are additionally sensible makes use of—like making ready interview questions for podcasts. As a substitute of ready for visitors to supply them, I can generate a powerful place to begin, refine it, and get higher participation. There are all these little methods to make use of AI that enhance outcomes with out changing the human position.

So Mary, when a consumer says, “Why don’t we simply use AI ourselves?” what do you say?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): That undoubtedly comes up, and I perceive the logic—AI is accessible, it’s quick, it produces textual content, so why pay an company? However the actuality is that a few of our greatest shoppers got here to us after working with companies that relied too closely on AI, and it confirmed. The content material had a generic tone, inaccurate claims, and it didn’t carry out. That’s the real-world model of “we’ll simply do it ourselves,” and it’s not a small mistake.

First, there’s technique—AI doesn’t know your online business targets, your aggressive panorama, or methods to prioritize content material. With out that, you’re simply producing content material with out intent, and in healthcare, that’s a waste of finances.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): I might add that past accuracy, there’s model voice. You possibly can feed model pointers into AI, however that essence will get misplaced shortly over a number of iterations. You must maintain pulling it again. And the opposite difficulty is uniqueness. AI is extremely highly effective for sensible, hardworking individuals—however for lazy individuals, it’s a race to the underside. You possibly can generate a full web site in just a few hours, nevertheless it’s generic content material that exists in all places. That hurts your web optimization and your credibility. In a world the place AI and serps are searching for experience, generic content material tells them you don’t have anything distinctive to supply. That may take years to get well from.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): And to construct on that, I believe an enormous a part of the disconnect is that folks assume AI can simply write, however they might not have the experience to guage the output. Knowledgeable author understands what attractiveness like and methods to information the instrument. Model voice is strategic—it needs to be documented, developed, and intentional. Upon getting that, AI is usually a useful gizmo for checking consistency, however it could possibly’t outline it for you. The identical goes for storytelling—it’s strategic, not one thing that occurs after the very fact. So long as the human effort goes into defining these parts, AI will help assist and refine them.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, and I’ll add that even when you haven’t outlined your model voice, you continue to have one—you simply don’t know what it’s. That may result in inconsistency or weak messaging. Small deviations compound over time. Should you’re even barely off in path, over a protracted distance, you find yourself manner astray. So these foundational steps actually matter.

So Mary, let’s return to expectations—how does the hole between pace and high quality present up?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): The most important manner is quantity. Purchasers hear we use AI and assume we will produce 10x extra content material for a similar value. However every bit nonetheless must be strategically deliberate, briefed, reviewed, fact-checked, edited, and optimized. AI compresses some steps, nevertheless it doesn’t remove them. One other difficulty is turnaround time—shoppers see rivals publishing shortly and assume it’s only one immediate. What they don’t see is the analysis, briefing, enhancing, and SME evaluation behind it. And essentially the most harmful model is when shoppers are keen to sacrifice high quality for quantity. I had a case the place management modified mid-engagement and the content material path shifted. As a result of we had robust model guardrails, we have been capable of adapt—however with out these, we might have printed content material that contradicted the brand new path. These guardrails aren’t overhead—they defend the consumer. In the end, AI is a robust accelerant, not autopilot.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): So what’s the fee from a storytelling perspective when you rely solely on AI?

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Once we take into consideration storytelling, we take into consideration that emotional connection—the piece that offers you goosebumps. That “magic” is definitely the results of deliberate craft developed by skilled writers. AI can doubtlessly be taught that system, however the components nonetheless come from people. With out that human enter, you lose the depth and which means that makes storytelling efficient.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Mary, anything you would like shoppers understood?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Sure—healthcare is a uniquely high-stakes content material surroundings, and AI doesn’t inherently perceive that. In web optimization, we speak about YMYL—your cash or your life—and healthcare sits on the high of that. A fallacious statistic or outdated guideline isn’t simply embarrassing—it could possibly harm credibility, set off regulatory points, or mislead sufferers making necessary selections. We work on subjects like lymphoma, dialysis, infusion therapies—areas the place accuracy is vital. Sufferers depend on this info, and that accountability can’t be automated.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Melanie, you talked about this earlier, however let’s make clear—once we speak about healthcare content material, what all does that embody?

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Yeah, at our company, since we’re full-service, content material actually spans a variety. However for a typical healthcare web site, it’s primarily service pages, situation pages, and remedy pages—that’s the majority of what most healthcare manufacturers have. That’s additionally why we’re so protecting of it. Sure, we would like model and storytelling and all of the inventive parts, however on the finish of the day, it must be correct. It must be proper. Past that, it extends into social media, paid media, and even conventional channels like radio and billboards.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Nice. In order we wrap up right here, I’d love each of you to weigh in. Mary, let’s begin with you—what does good human-AI collaboration truly appear like in your day-to-day workflow?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): The best manner I’d describe it’s that AI handles the heavy lifting, and people deal with the judgment. In observe, which means I’m not manually studying by a whole lot of pages of analysis or key phrase information anymore—I’m utilizing AI to synthesize that info. What used to take days now takes hours, and I’m working with a richer, extra complete image than I might have assembled alone. From there, I apply technique. I take a look at what AI surfaced and ask, does this make sense given the consumer’s targets, their aggressive place, and what we’re seeing in search and AI-driven solutions? I make the choices, I course-correct, I add nuance—that’s one thing AI can’t do. It doesn’t have medical judgment.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, and that’s an awesome level. If I offer you a thousand pages of fabric, do I need you spending weeks simply studying it, or do I need you constructing one thing precious? Most shoppers would relatively see progress. And even past that, having the ability to summarize and validate that info shortly is extremely precious to them. Melanie, something you’d add?

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Yeah, I agree with that. As writers, we’ve got to learn rather a lot to grasp what we’re writing about, so AI helps with that preliminary synthesis. However I at all times apply handbook checks—doing my very own stock of what we’ve got, double-checking what AI produces, and questioning it if one thing appears off. It’s actually about understanding what you possibly can and might’t depend on it for. For our writers, we nonetheless do first drafts in-house, however we use AI for editorial evaluation—issues like readability and checking towards pointers. In the end, it’s about testing persistently, studying what works, and refining from there.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Mary, any closing ideas?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): No, I believe we lined rather a lot.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, I’d simply add another factor. I’ve been writing rather a lot currently—blogs, podcasts, webinars—and what I’ve seen is that within the palms of a powerful author, AI truly improves high quality. It permits for extra iteration. You possibly can sharpen and refine extra shortly. So when you might argue you may write one thing sooner with out it, usually the top result’s higher with it since you’ve had extra alternatives to enhance it. We’re not speaking about producing low-quality content material cheaply—we’re speaking about delivering higher work for a similar funding.

So, group, I knew this could be enjoyable. Was this enjoyable for you?

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Sure! That’s one in all my favourite subjects!

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): I advised you it could be. So thanks for listening. I don’t normally plug the company on these, however when you’re keen on working with skilled writers who use AI the suitable manner—constructing your model voice, successful in AI and web optimization—that’s what we do. At present was only a peek behind the scenes.

Thanks for being on the podcast, and due to everybody for listening.

Mary Hayes (Healthcare Success): Thanks.

Melanie Wilson (Healthcare Success): Thanks a lot.