Content in the AI Era: Still King, or Has AI Stolen the Crown?

In the rapidly evolving world of digital marketing and affiliate programs, a critical question persists: Is content still king in the age of AI, or has artificial intelligence dethroned our long-reigning monarch?

Having personally created 60 articles a day (pre-AI) across 1,200 affiliate websites, I’ve deeply considered this question. Today, as the founder of BoostBox, I collaborate with affiliate tracking platforms, program managers, and affiliates, all navigating this new landscape. Here’s my perspective on where we stand in 2025.

The Content Kingdom: A Brief History

Before diving into the present and future, let’s quickly revisit why content became “king” in the first place.

When I was a super affiliate, content served multiple crucial purposes:

• SEO value: High-quality, relevant content helped our sites rank well in search engines.
• Visitor engagement: Compelling content kept visitors on our sites longer.
• Conversion optimisation: Informative, persuasive content drove visitors to make purchases.
• Brand authority: Well-researched content established our sites as trustworthy resources.

These fundamentals drove our strategy of producing dozens of articles daily. Each piece of content was an investment in our affiliate marketing ecosystem, designed to attract, engage, and convert visitors.

Enter the AI Revolution

Fast forward to today. AI tools like ChatGPT have transformed how content is created, consumed, and distributed. These developments have left many affiliate marketers wondering if their content strategy needs a complete overhaul—or if content itself has been dethroned.

It’s a reasonable concern. After all, if AI can generate content instantly, why would anyone invest time and resources in creating original articles? And if users can get answers directly from AI without visiting websites, does website content even matter anymore?

These questions are valid, but they miss a critical insight about how AI actually works.

Why AI Makes Content More Important, Not Less

Here’s the reality that many haven’t fully grasped yet: AI tools like ChatGPT don’t operate in a vacuum. They’re trained on and continue to reference existing web content.

When someone asks ChatGPT a question, it often does two things:

• It provides a summary based on information it has processed from websites.
• It may reference or link to the original sources for more detailed information.

In other words, AI is becoming a new gateway to your content. But there’s a catch: AI systems are only as good as the content they reference. If your content is thin, outdated, inaccurate, or poorly structured, that affects how (and if) AI will reference it.

This leads us to a significant issue with current AI systems: hallucinations.

The Hallucination Problem

If you’ve used ChatGPT or similar AI tools, you’ve likely encountered “hallucinations”—instances where the AI confidently presents incorrect information as fact. These hallucinations happen for several reasons:

• The AI doesn’t have access to up-to-date information.
• The AI misinterprets or misrepresents information in its training data.
• The AI tries to fill gaps in its knowledge with plausible-sounding but incorrect information.

This is precisely why we’ve been working on retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems at BoostBox. RAG combines the generative capabilities of AI with the ability to retrieve and reference specific, accurate information from trusted sources. In essence, it helps ground AI outputs in reality, reducing hallucinations significantly.

For affiliate marketers, this development underscores the continuing importance of creating accurate, well-structured content that AI systems can reliably reference.

The Dual Audience: Humans and Machines

This brings us to a critical insight: your content now serves two audiences simultaneously.

• Human visitors who come to your site directly
• AI systems that scan, interpret, and potentially reference your content

The content that succeeds in 2025 and beyond will need to satisfy both audiences. This means:

• For humans: Content should remain engaging, informative, and valuable.
• For AI: Content should be well-structured, factually accurate, and easily “parseable.”

AI Optimisation: The New SEO

Just as search engine optimisation (SEO) became a critical discipline for ensuring content visibility in search engines, we’re now seeing the emergence of what might be called “AI optimisation”—strategies for ensuring your content gets correctly interpreted and frequently referenced by AI systems.

Key elements of AI optimisation include:

1. Structured DataAI systems benefit tremendously from clearly structured data. This includes:
   • Proper HTML markup
   • Schema.org annotations
   • Clear headings and subheadings
   • Well-organised information architecture
2. Factual AccuracyAI systems are increasingly being designed to prioritise factually accurate information from reliable sources. This means:
   • Cite reputable sources
   • Update content regularly
   • Avoid exaggerations or unsupported claims
   • Provide detailed, specific information rather than vague generalities
3. Comprehensive CoverageAI systems often look for content that thoroughly covers a topic. This means:
   • Address common questions related to your topic
   • Provide complete information rather than superficial overviews
   • Include relevant details that differentiate your content from generic AI outputs
4. Clear Entity RelationshipsAI systems work by understanding entities (people, places, products, concepts) and their relationships. Content that clearly defines these relationships tends to be more AI-friendly:
   • Clearly identify key entities in your content
   • Explicitly state relationships between entities
   • Use consistent terminology when referring to the same entities

Implications for Affiliate Managers

If you’re managing an affiliate program, these developments have several important implications:

1. Content Quality Matters More Than EverThe bar for content quality is rising. Generic, thin content won’t just fail to rank in search engines—it will also be ignored by AI systems. Encourage your affiliates to:
   • Invest in original, high-quality content
   • Provide unique insights and perspectives
   • Create comprehensive resources rather than shallow articles
2. Data Structure Is CriticalHelp your affiliates understand the importance of structured data and proper markup:
   • Provide guidelines for properly structuring content
   • Share resources on implementing schema.org markup
   • Consider tools or templates that enforce good structure
3. Reconsider Content StrategiesSome content strategies that worked in the past may be less effective in an AI-driven world:
   • Keyword stuffing is even less effective than before
   • “Thin” affiliate content with minimal value-add will struggle
   • Content farms producing mass quantities of low-quality content will face challenges
4. Focus on Unique ValueAI can generate generic content easily. What it can’t do (yet) is provide truly unique insights, perspectives, and expertise. Encourage affiliates to:
   • Share personal experiences and case studies
   • Provide expert analysis and interpretation
   • Offer unique data or research findings

The Future of Content in Affiliate Marketing

So, is content still king? Yes, but the nature of the kingdom has changed.

Content isn’t just competing for attention in search results anymore—it’s also competing to be the trusted source that AI references. This means higher quality standards, better structure, and more unique value are all essential.

At BoostBox, we’re focused on helping affiliate tracking platforms, program managers, and affiliates navigate this new landscape. Our AI-driven tools are designed to strengthen affiliate engagement, provide accurate information, and optimise content strategies for this new dual audience of humans and AI. You can learn more about our benefits on our benefits page.

The content throne hasn’t been usurped—it’s been upgraded. And the affiliates who recognise this first will have a significant competitive advantage.

What This Means for Your Strategy

If you’re managing an affiliate program, here are three immediate steps you can take:

• Audit your current content: Evaluate how well your content is structured for both human readers and AI interpretation.
• Update your affiliate guidelines: Provide clear guidance on creating content that works in this new paradigm.
• Invest in tools and training: Help your affiliates understand and adapt to these changes with appropriate resources.

The evolution of content in the age of AI isn’t a threat—it’s an opportunity for those who adapt quickly and thoughtfully. The affiliates who embrace these changes will find themselves not just surviving but thriving in the new content kingdom. To see how BoostBox can help, book a demo today.