From the rise of the ‘chief storyteller’ at large organisations to corporate panic about how to avoid ‘AI slop,’ thought leadership is having a moment. While the discipline – including its awful name (sorry, but it’s true) – has been around for more than 20 years, recent studies have shown impressive effectiveness in comparison to many types of marketing. Add in AI and it all means the industry is morphing, on both supply and demand sides. And in a twist, as we will detail here, it looks like Europe has an unlikely lead over the US.
AI’s primary benefit for thought leadership
Recent research commissioned by Collective Content shows one clear winner in applying AI to thought leadership: speed. Speed was cited by 60.7 percent of respondents whereas benefits such as improving content quality (46 percent) or lowering costs (22.7 percent) are behind, by quite some way. Let’s assume we agree that speed is a good thing. As one editorial director at a large management consultancy recently told us in an interview: “Everybody is using AI to see where they can accelerate movement through the chain. The faster we can get good ideas to market, obviously, the better.”
The choice we are left with is what to do with the time that the speed frees up. More of the same thought leadership output? Reducing in-house teams, agencies and budgets? Creating better quality thought leadership that moves the needle? (My favourite). Whatever we choose to do, AI won’t show up the same way across any two companies’ thought leadership workflows. And world regions definitely don’t see it the same way.
Americas vs Europe
Our research polled an equal number of users of AI from North America and Western Europe, the two most advanced markets for thought leadership. Despite the US and China being considered the global leaders in AI infrastructure and frontier model development, European users of AI in this context came out as more sophisticated. But what does ’sophistication’ mean in this context?
Everybody is using AI to see where they can accelerate movement through the chain
Take types of AI in use. We asked about use of public LLMs (Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and so on), enterprise versions of those, AI features within popular software (Microsoft Copilot, Adobe Firefly to name but two) and proprietary, company-built AI tools. Respondents could pick any combination of those choices.
While Americans came out using more AI overall, Europeans were more likely to use enterprise licences (57.3 percent vs 50.7 percent) and proprietary AI (38.7 percent vs 32.0 percent). Meanwhile, Americans still relied more on the public LLMs (82.7 percent vs 73.3 percent for Europeans), with the greater risks they pose.
When asked specifically about the quality of AI-produced output – maybe the highest profile use case in thought leadership, although not the most transformational – Europeans were more likely to choose ‘Good’ (44.0 percent vs 37.3 percent) and more than twice as likely to say ‘Excellent’ (10.7 percent vs 5.3 percent). In spite of all that, we should say, the biggest barrier to adoption across both regions was ‘Generic or lowest-common-denominator content,’ cited by 22.7 percent on average, and slightly higher for Americans than Western Europeans (25.3 percent vs 20.0 percent).
Compliant Europe?
Should we be surprised by Europe’s maturity with AI? We have already seen evidence, through a Microsoft study for H2 of 2025, that usage of AI by working age populations around the world is led by the UAE (64 percent) and Singapore (61 percent), but then comes a pack of countries mainly in Western Europe. The US ranks 24th.
The Collective Content research also picked up on ‘Ethical and compliance issues,’ where respondents in Europe were more likely to say AI was ‘Weak’ or ‘Very weak’.
The most senior consumers of thought leadership might penalise you if your thought leadership doesn’t feel like it has that human touch
With that in mind, are Europeans more careful due to the strong compliance needed at company, industry, country or EU levels? It’s tempting to assume so but we don’t know for sure. And at the size of company we studied, many large North American entities would also be trading in Europe, adhering to regional regulation.
C-suite consumption
So much for producing thought leadership. Recent research released in February by the Global Thought Leadership Institute had lots to say about those who consume it. Large numbers of C-suite decision-makers, 95 percent across 19 countries, said they made a purchase in the previous quarter based on the thought leadership they consumed, but they have a generally negative view of those who use AI for creation. Almost seven in 10 (69 percent) said suppliers using AI would negatively impact on them engaging with the producing entity, and almost three quarters (74 percent) said it would negatively impact a purchase decision. In other words, we better all be careful getting AI right in thought leadership workflows.
Lessons (being) learned
There are some clear lessons as this field evolves.
1. Thought leadership is effective but hard, so study the elite group of companies leading the way – mainly the big guns of professional services and tech, such as BCG, IBM, McKinsey and the Big Four (Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC). To point out the obvious, these firms’ clients are usually buying brain power. AI can help but it can’t replace all that cumulative human experience and context, so they aren’t employing AI carelessly.2. While AI can speed up thought leadership workflows, use saved time not just to surface findings and points of view quicker, but to improve overall quality and stand out. Your target audiences will respond to better content rather than more content.
3. Consider how your thought leadership is produced. In-house, with agencies or a combination thereof? And the part AI plays in that. Fewer than five percent of the leaders approached for the Collective Content research said they don’t use AI at all, but think about whether it’s better used for ideation, research, production, distribution/repurposing or something else.
4. And remember: the most senior consumers of thought leadership might penalise you if your thought leadership doesn’t feel like it has that human touch.
Getting AI right for thought leadership is full of nuance. But there are companies and experts leading the way, many of them based in Europe. Seek them out, to learn. And consider the ways you’re consuming thought leadership. Your ideal customers are probably doing the same things.