Everyone can generate content now.
That’s the story we keep hearing. AI writes blog posts, drafts emails, churns out social media captions. The barrier to production is gone. So the logic goes: if everyone can write, no one has an edge.
But that’s not what’s happening.
If anything, the opposite is true. The people who write publicly—not to market, but to think—are becoming more valuable, not less.
Eleanor Warnock calls them “writing-first practitioners” in a recent piece for Every. Fred Wilson, the legendary VC who’s been blogging since 2003. Julie Zhuo, who turned her thinking on management into a bestselling book. Warren Buffett, who’s been sharpening his investment philosophy in public for decades.
These aren’t content marketers. Not exactly. They’re professionals who use writing to clarify their own thinking. The audience is secondary. The clarity is the point.
And here’s why that matters more now than ever.
Content vs. Thinking
AI can generate words. It can summarize what’s already known. It can mimic style, structure, and tone.
But it can’t demonstrate judgment. It can’t take a stance on something that hasn’t been figured out yet. It can’t build the kind of trust that makes someone open your cold email or take your call.
Content is words on a page. Writing is public thinking.
And when everyone has access to the former, the latter becomes the moat.
Where This Edge Shows Up
Warnock’s piece identifies where writing creates disproportionate leverage:
1. When results lag or stay hidden
Venture capitalists take a decade to prove their returns. Executive coaches never share client outcomes publicly. In fields where track record is invisible or delayed, writing becomes the interim signal of competence.
2. When networks drive opportunity
Access to deals, talent, collaborators—these flow through relationships. Writing makes you visible to the right people before you need them. AI-generated content might fill a feed, but it doesn’t build trust.
3. In fast-moving industries
Tech. AI. Climate. Categories where the playbook is still being written. Writing forces real-time synthesis. You process what’s happening, form a view, and spot openings while others are still waiting for clarity.
4. When output is subjective and clients aren’t experts
Design, consulting, branding. Clients can’t directly judge quality, so they rely on proxies: reputation, referrals, voice. Writing positions you as someone worth trusting.
Why AI Sharpens the Advantage
Here’s the part most people miss:
AI makes it trivially easy to produce content. But that doesn’t weaken the writing-first edge. It strengthens it.
Because now the question isn’t “Can you write?” It’s “Can you think in public?”
Can you synthesize what’s happening in real time?
Can you take a stance on something uncertain?
Can you demonstrate judgment that’s been earned, not generated?
AI can draft the outline. It can clean up your prose. It can turn your rough notes into polished paragraphs.
But it can’t replace the thinking. And it can’t build the trust.
That’s the moat.
And in 2025, as AI-generated content floods every channel, the people who use writing to actually think—clearly, consistently, publicly—will become easier to spot.
And harder to replace.
The Shift
Writing isn’t about content marketing anymore. It’s about clarity.
Not “How do I get more followers?” but “How do I think better?”
Not “What will perform well?” but “What’s true?”
The professionals who write publicly aren’t optimizing for engagement. They’re optimizing for judgment. And that judgment, compounded over years, becomes their reputation.
AI didn’t kill that advantage.
It just made it obvious who has it and who doesn’t.
The Bottom Line
Everyone can generate words now.
But not everyone can generate thinking.
The people who write to clarify, to stake a claim, to build trust in public—they’re not competing with AI.
They’re using it.
And the gap between them and everyone else just got wider.
Read Eleanor Warnock’s full piece on writing-first practitioners here: Every: The Heyday of the Writing-First Practitioner