The Content Operators Playbook · 5. How I work
Principle 19 of 27
AI in the content workflow
The tools Tom built sit on the team's own stack, Asana, Slack and Shade, and take the shortcuts out of the pipeline.
Updated 2026-10-25
With Sam Stoffel and Ben Heath we built really great systems that used AI to find the shortcuts. Then the tools join it up. Ideas from Slack become tickets, filmed shoots move to editing in one click, published posts match back to their tickets.
How do I use it?
- Write the brief before any code, then build the tool as the implementation of that brief.
- Turn the ideas channel into tickets automatically, once each, with the author credited.
- Give editors one working surface over the editing board so review and verdicts happen in one place.
- Match published posts back to their tickets so the numbers land where the work was planned.
- Put a gate wherever a model’s output ships, so nothing embellished goes out.
- Hand the system over with an SOP and a walkthrough video so the team runs it without you.
Questions
What does "AI in the content workflow" mean?
Tom builds AI into the places a content team already works.
How do I put "AI in the content workflow" into practice?
Write the brief before any code, then build the tool as the implementation of that brief. Turn the ideas channel into tickets automatically, once each, with the author credited. Give editors one working surface over the editing board so review and verdicts happen in one place.
Why does "AI in the content workflow" matter?
With Sam Stoffel and Ben Heath we built really great systems that used AI to find the shortcuts. Then the tools join it up.
