How to create great thought leadership articles that earn trust and make you part of the answer
Thought leadership articles are strong content pieces written with authentic knowledge and meaningful insights on a topic – and they are designed to help readers, not search engines. What makes them different from a standard blog or article lies in the value they bring to those readers – whether that is a new learning, extra insight, deeper understanding, fresh recognition of a problem or an inspired determination to act.
“Thought leadership is hot – and with the advent of AI, it’s likely to get even hotter” stated McKinsey in June 2025. There is ample evidence of the ROI of thought leadership, with 88% of executives consuming it in one form or another. Motivations range widely, from gaining competitive advantage to filling knowledge gaps.
How will this change in the age of AI search? It has barely begun, but already giving us valuable insight into how our thought leadership writing must adapt in the future.
In this article we will explore the attributes of a great thought leadership article, capable of serving both your brand and the needs of a changing search world.
Strive for content quality
The quality of content you publish has never mattered more than it does today. We have talked of information overload for a decade or more – and the fact that good content is the only way to stand out from the crowd.
Companies have too often approached content creation simply as calendar fillers for their social feed or focused too much on search. Striving for page 1 visibility on traditional search engines sets off an avalanche of low quality, SEO focused blogs. Now that traditional SEO will (no matter what you hear) give way to AI-based search, this simply won’t cut it any more.
When speaking of Google’s SGE, Perplexity or ChatGPT-powered search, the pundits agree on just ONE thing: the quality of content matters. Going forward, you will need more content volume and better content quality, that answers the real and specific questions of your audiences. The answers to those questions are likely to be highly subjective, contextual and personalised by AI.
We are entering the age of intent-drive, AI-optimised content. It is a world in which the answers to queries are served up only after AI has worked to understand the intent, context and meaning of your writing. It requires content that actually has real meaning.
The value of thought leadership articles is coming to the fore. Because you must be part of the answer to the most important questions your customers are asking.
Thought leadership starts with a point of view
Many companies are most comfortable playing it safe. Yet great thought leadership requires a position and the courage to back it. A great thought leadership article takes a position too. Regurgitating industry trends or saying what any one of your competitors and peers might say is not thought leadership. Building an array of bland, safe articles written for search was never thought leadership to start with.
Bringing your unique perspective, beliefs and wisdom to a theme or analysing the status quo to find a basis for change is thought leadership. It is more likely to earn you a position in the AI answers to a strategic question from your customers and prospects in the future than any other type of article.
Your aim should be to create content so unique and strong that others link to it. As SEO expert Neil Patel states: “Unless it is amazing and people link to it and share it, you just won’t rank well.”
Prioritise insight over information
Clumsy blog articles often stuff statistics and quotes and information in a bid to look authoritative. Yet authority does not come from information – anyone can gather that, with a bit of effort.
Authority of the kind that you want your articles to create comes from insight. Insight means valuable, experience-based and even counterintuitive perspective and understanding that shows readers something new that adds to their own perspective on a topic.
88% executives consume thought leadership and 80% make business decisions based on it, according to a new book by Cindy Anderson and Anthony Marshall from IBM’s Institute for Business Value.
Insight adds excitement and can inspire people to act. Information… just doesn’t. Real insight comes from things such as observed behaviours, experienced failures and informed predictions.
Don’t neglect information and evidence
Does this seem to contradict the above? It shouldn’t. Because the most valuable insights blend your experience with real, evidence-based knowledge and no thought leadership article is complete without it.
You should definitely bring your unique richness to back up your stated viewpoint. Use case studies, examples, data points and first-hand experiences. However, using third party data and reference can add even more depth when used properly.
Indicators are also emerging that information inclusions are important to AI-search in a greater way than traditional search. It suggests that it is smart to use many more legitimate links from well-described anchor texts in articles. Clear citations of authoritative information sources lend further legitimacy to your article.
In its annual thought leadership report last year, Edelman discovered that 80 % of audiences prefer thought leadership that includes third‑party data and trusted external insights.
Article structure and readability
Good thought leadership is comprehensible for readers – so it cannot be convoluted, with overlong sentences. You may be addressing quite complex ideas and so need to make them easy to follow.
A good thought leadership article explains and guides readers through your point of view – so they can see the steps and stages of thinking. Understand the key points, because they are flagged. And take in information in structured bites, such as in short bulletpoint lists.
These are what search engines have always needed. Not only because some of their algorithmic analysis is based on how readable your page is for real people. Also because it can then understand what you are writing about.
To index your article and show it for relevant searches, any search engine needs clues. The content of your page, a clear hierarchy using titles and the signals you give search engines in the form of metadata such as your title and description, are all key.
AI is showing no sign of needing less – in fact, it may need even more, including greater use of schema markups that explain whether content is a question, an article, a how-to, a Q&A and other things.
Let your voice and tone show your individuality
Companies or even individuals, that are striving to be thought leaders need to be distinctive and authentic in their approach. Authenticity has been over-hyped and over-used as a word to describe businesses and communications. Yet it is a vital factor in thought leadership.
The ease of generative AI for writing is a risk for any thought leadership focused business. In covering the book “The ROI of Thought Leadership” the FT wrote:
“AI is enabling a surge of average, auto‑generated ‘thought leadership’ risking authenticity. Genuine thought leaders must rely on distinctive, evidence‑based insight—not automation.”
The best thought leadership articles are written with confidence, but not arrogance – they aren’t teachy and preachy. Instead, they aim to add value, as they guide, inform, educate, assist, inspire, persuade.
Robotic, perfect writing is not what is called for in thought leadership. Good writing obviously is – but more conversational tones can often be more effective.
To lend more weight on this point, the conversational tone of large language models like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini are showing through in how they present search results too. It suggests that more conversational and human writing may be more effective in showing up on AI searches – however ironic that may seem.
A call to think, not a call to action
Unlike standard blog articles, a thought leadership article often wants the reader to re-think or re-evaluate their position. While the ultimate aim of business thought leadership may be to engage buyers, the articles themselves shouldn’t be a call to buy.
Creating an effective call to action for your thought leadership article means having clear strategic aims for your thought leadership campaign as a whole – whether that is engaging higher level executives or becoming a ‘must have’ on an invitation to tender list. Your articles should be written with purpose, in alignment with your goals.
Effective calls to action for thought leadership articles might include invitations to share or to subscribe or simply to remember a particular perspective next time they are doing something.
Conclusion
Predicting how AI search will evolve is already a hot topic, but the reality at the time of writing is that best practices are still only being explored, guessed at and written.
Don’t wait for stability to write your next thought leadership article or content item – but do write with consciousness of the change.
A clear point of view, well-evidenced and information rich articles can only help you. Ensuring more rigour in structuring and signalling are smart moves. Maintaining your unique, authoritative standpoint and keeping clear aims in mind are smarter still.
Organisations thinking of creating thought leadership content strategy can be confident in the wisdom of doing so – but I urge you to treat your thought leadership content as strategic assets, not content calendar fillers.
Be part of the answer for customers.
