Building the Business Case for Thought Leadership in the AI Era - Key Takeaways
As the AI-driven marketing landscape grows more crowded, thought leadership has emerged as a critical lever for brand differentiation. Yet many marketing and content leaders struggle to articulate its business value—especially when compared with product marketing efforts that have direct ties to revenue.
Knotch’s recent workshop, featuring Stephanie Losee, Director of Industry & Portfolio Marketing Content at Autodesk, Melissa Cavanaugh, Head of Content Strategy at Morgan Stanley, and Ellie Ahmadi, Principal at Rivia Marketing Transformation offered compelling insights on how to make the business case for thought leadership, how to ensure it's distinctive, and how to drive impact both internally and externally.
Key Takeaways
- Thought Leadership Requires Commercial Purpose
- Distinctiveness Is a Strategic Imperative
- Measurement and Attribution Must Be Strategic
- AI Can Accelerate, But Not Originate, Thought Leadership
- LLM Visibility Is a New Metric of Success
- Internal Buy-In Is as Important as External Distribution
Each of these points was illuminated by first-hand experiences from panelists and offers guidance for marketers looking to strengthen their own thought leadership programs.
1. Thought Leadership Requires Commercial Purpose
Thought leadership without a commercial goal is simply academic or editorial.
Melissa Cavanaugh, Head of Content Strategy at Morgan Stanley, emphasized that good thought leadership:
"shouldn't be talking about your products, but it should be leading someone down a path to your product." The content must engage, inform, and ultimately support the business’s marketing funnel—even if indirectly.
This blend of insight and intent is what separates effective B2B content from general publishing.
2. Distinctiveness Is a Strategic Imperative
With so much content saturation, standing out from the sea of sameness is non-negotiable.
Ellie Ahmadi, Principal of Rivia Marketing, stressed specificity and focus as key:
“It’s not about scale and volume. It’s about the specificity of that content. How narrow can you get with the differentiation that you’re communicating?”
Ahmadi also advised the use of competitive audits (even via AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude) to identify white space and opportunities to reframe the conversation. Cavanaugh echoed this:
“Partner with your sales teams to understand what they are hearing from customers to uncover overlooked insights.”
3. Measurement and Attribution Must Be Strategic
Proving ROI for thought leadership can be challenging—but not impossible.
Stephanie Losee, Director at Autodesk, shared how she built an award-winning, company-wide thought leadership program by repurposing siloed research budgets and consolidating them into a single, focused initiative.
Her team created “The State of Design and Make,” a research-backed content platform that generated 97 pieces of earned media in its second year.
“One of our KPIs was earned media. We promised to include their KPIs… and give them all the enablement they could possibly need. And that’s how we got the permission to spend quite a bit of money.”
Attribution doesn’t always need to be direct to revenue, but showing impact—on media, brand perception, or customer engagement—is essential.
4. LLM Visibility Is a New Metric of Success
In the age of generative AI, getting picked up by LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini has become an emerging priority.
“Branded links in earned media are one of the top three ways of getting recognized by LLMs,”
…noted David Brown, citing recent research. This makes high-quality, original, and cited thought leadership more essential than ever.
Melissa Cavanaugh reinforced this by working with communications partners to ensure:
“not just citations, but actual links to the research”
in media coverage, wherever possible. Stephanie Losee added that Autodesk’s earned media volume directly contributed to greater LLM discoverability and brand authority.
Thought leadership is no longer just about reaching human readers—it's also about influencing machine-curated knowledge.
5. AI Can Accelerate, But Not Originate, Thought Leadership
The rise of generative AI offers powerful efficiencies, but panelists warned against using AI to generate net-new thought leadership. Melissa Cavanaugh outlined a useful role for AI:
“There are many ways I want AI to help me… none of them involve creating thought leadership. They are all taking the things off my plate that are not creating thought leadership.”
Instead, AI was positioned as a valuable assistant for digesting research, atomizing long-form content, and even performing competitive mapping. Ahmadi noted
“AI has become my “thought partner,” helping to brainstorm, audit, and adapt content efficiently.”
6. Internal Buy-In Is as Important as External Distribution
The most successful programs—like Autodesk’s—succeed not just because of what’s published but because of how they are embraced internally. Losee emphasized the importance of a cross-functional roadshow to get sales, customer success, and regional teams invested.
“Internal advocacy is at least as important as your external plan,” she stated. “In year one, it’s a pitch. In year two and beyond, it’s a story of success you can share with others.”
Making content “turnkey” for internal teams—email scripts, talking points, and modular assets—was also cited as a major success factor.
Call to Action: Three Ways Marketers Can Move Thought Leadership Forward
- Start with Alignment and Strategy: Before creating any content, align with stakeholders on goals, key messages, and audience pain points. This foundation ensures your thought leadership supports both brand and commercial outcomes.
- Invest in Format and Fragmentation: Don’t stop at one report or article. Use the “chunking theory” —carve up your big rock content into listicles, infographics, podcasts, and short-form videos to reach audiences wherever they are.
- Create a Distribution Flywheel: Activate internal teams, leverage sales enablement tools, and consider syndication and physical channels like events and executive briefings. Thought leadership can only lead if it reaches the right audience.
Thought leadership isn’t just about being smart—it’s about being seen, being trusted, and being strategically aligned. In a world where AI threatens to homogenize content, distinctive, purposeful thought leadership is more vital than ever.
Published June 24, 2025
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