Inside Rival: How We Use What We Build
This blog is part of Inside Rival, a series where our team shares how we use Rival in our everyday work. From favorite tools to AI agents and automations, we're showing you what we're building, how we're using it and what we've learned along the way.
An unofficial marketer's guide to getting the most out of Content IQ.
We've all done it. Opened an AI tool, typed something vague like “write better content” or "create a content strategy," and then wondered why the result sounds like it was written for every company on the planet. The strategy is to "drive engagement." The audience is "digitally savvy consumers." The goal is to "create meaningful connections."
Groundbreaking stuff.
The problem usually isn't that AI can't do the work. It's that we've given it almost nothing to work with. I've been experimenting with Content IQ, an AI-powered content strategy tool built on Content Science's research and frameworks. It can do everything from developing a content vision to auditing your website, building a messaging architecture, creating a content calendar, and figuring out how your content shows up in AI search.
It's a lot.
And after playing around with it, I've come to two conclusions:
What you put into it makes a huge difference in what you get out.
If you stop after the first deliverable, you're missing the best part.
Here's what I mean.
I Asked AI to Create a Content Vision for Coca-Cola.
Not exactly a small brand. More than a century of history, global recognition, and an entire universe of products, audiences, and campaigns. Developing a content vision for a company like Coca-Cola would normally involve a fair amount of research, stakeholder interviews, brand documents, and probably a few meetings that could have been emails.
So I wanted to see what Content IQ could do with minimal inputs. I gave it some basic information about Coca-Cola and asked it to develop a content vision.
And it got to work.
What I found interesting wasn't just how quickly it could put something together. It was the structure behind the work. Rather than jumping straight into campaign ideas or catchy taglines, Content IQ approached the assignment as a strategy exercise, using a framework to develop a vision, guiding principles, and direction for the brand's content.
Of course, this was an experiment, not an official Coca-Cola strategy. Without access to the company's internal research, business priorities, or actual stakeholder input, there's a limit to how specific any AI-generated recommendation can be.
But as a starting point? Pretty impressive. And it made me curious about how much better the result could be with more context.
[Watch the video: Creating a Content Vision for Coca-Cola With Content IQ]
The Brief Is Still Your Job. Sorry.
Here's the thing about AI: it doesn't know what you know.
It doesn't know your CEO suddenly wants to focus on a different audience. It doesn't know your sales team keeps hearing the same three objections. It doesn't know that your last campaign performed terribly, even though everyone loved the creative. Unless you tell it.
And that's where I think marketers can get a lot more out of tools like Content IQ. Before you ask it to build something, give it the information you'd give a really good strategist joining your team. What does your company actually do? Who are you trying to reach? What are you trying to accomplish? What's working? What's not? What have you already learned?
You don't have to write a novel. But compare these two requests:
The lazy version: "Create a content strategy for a healthcare company."
The useful version: "We're a healthcare technology company selling to hospital CIOs. Our sales cycle is long, our buyers are concerned about security and integration, and our marketing team needs to generate more qualified enterprise leads. We have a lot of product content but very little thought leadership. Help us develop a content strategy."
Same tool. Very different starting point.
And if you have customer research, brand guidelines, existing content, or performance data, bring those along too. AI can help you connect the dots. You still have to give it some dots.
Don't Order the Dessert Before Dinner.
This might be my favorite thing about Content IQ. Most of us approach AI tools transactionally. Need a blog? Ask for a blog. Need a calendar? Ask for a calendar. Need a style guide? Ask for a style guide. There's nothing wrong with that. Content IQ can handle individual tasks, and sometimes that's exactly what you need. But there's a much more interesting way to use it.
Content IQ is designed around a connected content strategy process. And when you work through that process, each step helps inform the next. Think about it.
First, figure out where you're going. Start with a content vision. What role should content play in your business? What should it accomplish? What principles should guide it? Then develop your messaging architecture so everyone is working from the same playbook.
Next, figure out where you actually are. This is where things can get uncomfortable. Content IQ can help analyze your existing content, identify gaps, evaluate competitors, and assess how your pages perform in AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity. You can also assess your organization's content maturity across strategy, governance, technology, operations, and measurement. In other words, you get a better understanding of what you're working with before deciding what to do next.
Then, build the actual strategy. Now you have a vision and a clearer picture of the current situation. Content IQ can help turn that into priorities, recommendations, and a roadmap. Not just a list of content ideas. An actual plan.
And finally, make it work in the real world. This is where content strategies often go to die. The strategy looks great. Everyone agrees with it. It gets saved in a shared folder. And six months later, someone asks, "Wait, do we have a content strategy?"
Content IQ can also help with the less glamorous but very necessary stuff: taxonomy, measurement plans, style guides, content calendars, and even evaluating content management systems. Because a strategy that nobody can execute isn't much of a strategy. The whole process moves from vision to analysis to strategy to the systems and plans that support execution. You can jump into any step. But if you're building something from scratch, I'd recommend going through the whole thing.
You Are Allowed to Disagree With the Robot.
Actually, please do. One of the easiest mistakes to make with AI is assuming that because something sounds polished, it must be right. Content IQ might give you a perfectly reasonable recommendation that doesn't make sense for your business.
Tell it.
Ask why it made that recommendation. Push back on an assumption. Give it more context. Ask for a different approach.
For example: "That sounds good, but we only have a two-person marketing team. What would you prioritize?" Or: "Our biggest problem isn't awareness. It's getting people to understand why we're different." Or even: "This sounds like every other company in our industry. Try again."
That's not breaking the process. That's part of the process.
Content IQ brings the methodology and structure. You bring the judgment, institutional knowledge, and occasional reality check. The goal isn't to outsource your brain. It's to spend less time staring at a blank document and more time making decisions.
You Probably Don't Need Another Content Calendar.
Okay, you might.
But you probably don't need another content calendar filled with random ideas that have no connection to your business goals. You need to know why you're creating those pieces in the first place.
And that's what I find interesting about Content IQ. It doesn't just help with the fun creative stuff. It also tackles the questions that tend to get pushed aside when everyone's busy producing content. Are we talking to the right audience? Is our messaging consistent? Can people actually find our content? Are we measuring the right things? How visible are we in AI-generated answers? Do we have the systems to manage all of this as we grow?
These aren't necessarily the questions marketers wake up excited to answer. But they're usually the ones that make everything else work better.
So, Where Should You Start?
My suggestion? Don't try to do everything on day one. Start with a content vision, especially if your team has never formally defined one or hasn't revisited it in a while. Give Content IQ some context about your business and see what it comes back with. Then challenge it. Refine it. Add the details it couldn't possibly know. Once you're happy with the direction, keep going.
Analyze your existing content. Build your strategy. Work through your messaging. Create the systems and measurement plan. Then develop your content calendar. The more of the process you complete, the more connected your work becomes. And if you only need help with one specific problem today? That's fine too. Just remember that Content IQ can do a lot more than answer a question.
One Last Thing.
AI isn't going to magically understand your business because you typed your company name into a prompt. It also isn't going to make every strategic decision for you. But it can take a process that traditionally involves a lot of research, workshops, documents, and back-and-forth and make it a whole lot more manageable.
My biggest advice is simple: give it good information, don't accept the first answer blindly, and don't stop halfway through the process.
The Coca-Cola experiment showed me how much Content IQ could do with very little. Now imagine what it could do with everything you already know about your own business.
That's where things get interesting. Check it out at Rival.io/Content-IQ.
About the Author
Adrienne Morgan leads strategic business operations at Rival, where she helps bring AI technology to market. With more than 20 years of experience in marketing, digital strategy, and agency leadership, she's passionate about finding practical ways to use AI to work smarter, solve real problems, and make life a little easier for marketers.