Ahead of an upcoming talk at ACS 2025 Marketing Elements in Washington, DC, I sat down with Atlas, Strivenn’s new AI marketing assistant, for a candid conversation and a sneak peek at what I'm going to be discussing in my talk.
The topic: how personal brand is evolving in the AI era, and how AI assistants like Atlas can help marketers build credibility, scale content, and stay compliant in regulated industries.
A: Personal branding often gets misunderstood. It's not about being famous. It's about being known in your niche for having a specific expertise. Think of it like being a biomarker in diagnostics. Everyone in the lab may be doing important work, but the biomarker is the signal that points the way forward. Your personal brand should be that kind of signal in your professional community.
A: In the AI era, your personal brand is your key differentiator. As Mark Schaefer puts it, being known is what differentiates you when content is everywhere.
It's not about broadcasting brilliance. It's about showing how you're adapting, learning, and helping others make sense of change. Most importantly, it's about connecting with people who may be struggling through precisely what you are working through.
For me, sitting at the nexus of science, strategy, and digital tech, I aim to help others on that journey, bringing insights I glean from one domain into another.
A: When you're building a personal brand, it's a different game than building a business brand. You're not waiting on approval chains. You're showing up in the places where you're already learning, thinking, and participating.
The trick is to find communities where your contribution can help people navigate the same shifts you're experiencing. There's no one-size-fits-all playbook. The right space is the one where you can genuinely offer something of value.
A: Building credibility doesn't happen overnight. It takes consistency and clarity over time. So you need to choose a topic that excites you, something you're skilled at, and ideally something that lets you bring a unique perspective.
For me, with a background in science, science journalism, marketing strategy, and tech, I'm excited to sit at the intersection of those things. Someone else might have a deep understanding of SEO and explore how shifts in search and AI are impacting content discovery in academic spaces.
The key is to find your angle, your way of connecting dots that others miss.
A: I'm a writer by nature. Over a year ago, I committed to writing a blog and newsletter every week and have kept that going. I also post regularly on LinkedIn, three to five times a week. Beyond that, I repurpose content on Substack, Medium, and my LinkedIn newsletter.
Public speaking has been another outlet for me. This year I've given talks across Europe and the US, which feeds the content flywheel.
Podcasting is a newer venture, and while it's outside my comfort zone, I've started experimenting there too - my friend Jasmine Gruia-Gray and I just launched the "Splice of Life Science Marketing podcast" we're learning and experimenting in real time - so please be kind!
The real trick is capturing ideas when they come, often on a walk with the dog. I use voice notes or tools like Otter, then shape those rough thoughts into something shareable. AI tools help with packaging, but the core insight always starts with me.
A: It's less about a universal answer and more about where you can be most useful. If you have expertise in customer experience and you know life science companies struggle there, lean into that.
For me, my audience is marketers dealing with the grind of content creation and approval who haven't yet really explored what generative AI can do. They spend weeks creating and approving content, then scramble to build all the follow-on assets. That’s where I saw an opportunity to serve.
With AI tools like Atlas, we can generate complete content packs so the whole set goes through one approval loop. It's like giving them an intelligent assistant that remembers the core claims and messaging and can target them at your key persona.
A: In regulated industries, the bottleneck is rarely creativity; it’s the approval loop. What we’ve learned is that if you can tag content back to approved claims and personas at the start, you cut weeks off the review process. That’s the kind of efficiency AI can enable.
It saves time, simplifies approvals, and reduces errors. And if a reviewer flags something, you don’t rewrite the world; you revise the element, resubmit, and move forward. The principle is universal: clarity and traceability build trust.
A: The trick to scaling any AI tool isn’t automation, it’s iteration. You start by identifying repeatable work units, those recurring tasks that eat up hours. Prove the value in one workflow, then expand. Marketing often leads the way, but sales, medical, and compliance can benefit once they see that it doesn’t add risk; it reduces it.
In my own work, I’ve experimented with tools that package content for review more efficiently. But the bigger point is this: your personal brand, and your team’s brand inside the organisation, isn’t about which tool you use. It’s about showing up consistently in a way that reduces friction, builds trust, and helps your colleagues succeed.
The tools make it easier to repeat what works.
A: Writing every week keeps me learning. If I commit to sharing something, I have to understand it well enough to write about it. That alone keeps me curious. Honestly, I love the work. I love thinking through ideas, experimenting, and talking about them in public. That gives me momentum.
When people tell you they look forward to what you share, it becomes harder to stop. The micro-habit that started it all? Just committing to one blog a week. That turned into a rhythm. Then a presence. Then a flywheel.
The important part is that curiosity leads. AI can help package and amplify, but it can’t replace the human drive to explore and share. That’s the real energy source of any personal brand.