Designing an AI Editor-In-Chief to Support Marketing Content Engines

At the core of every Content Engine is a digital space where human creativity meets AI inference power. This collaboration layer is powered by an AI Research Assistant called the Editor in Chief, which helps teams interrogate the Knowledge Base, develop creative ideas, generate structured prompts, and analyze performance data for continuous improvement.

This post is part of “Guide to Building AI-Enabled Content Engines”, a new series by Chris McLellan, Principal AI Marketer at Friends Electric.

AI Research Assistants support the collaboration layer of Content Engine systems. Click to enlarge

Overview

The Collaboration Module of the Content Engine uses an AI Research Assistant, called the Editor in Chief, to manage collaboration between people and AI. It connects to the Marketing Knowledge Base to help generate content ideas, structured prompts, and performance insights.

Tools like NotebookLM and ChatGPT Projects make it easy to build an AI Research Assistant that supports the entire content lifecycle when properly configured.

Best Practices for Building AI Research Assistants for AI-Enabled Content Engines

Content Engines are not about handing over creative control to soulless robots. They are about collaborating with AI to make content marketing faster, smarter, and more consistent.

The following best practices show how AI Research Assistants can be used to combine human creativity with AI to move to a structured, dynamic process that drives results.

Write Custom Instructions

Write clear instructions so the assistant knows its purpose and function. This is where using a clear approach like the ROSES Prompt Framework can help to improve outcomes.

Here are the key tasks performed by the AI Editor In Chief:

• Collaborate on content ideas

• Advise on Content Schedule timing and sequence

• Generate detailed prompts for AI content tools

• Suggest updates for Marketing Knowledge Base

• Suggest improvements to Content Engine operations

Sync Blocks as Docs, Not Tables

Most Generative AI tools interpret plain text far more reliably than CSV files. The best practice to connect your Knowledge Base to your Research Assistant is:

1. Sync the master list of content blocks to a Google Doc (as a .txt file)

2. THEN connect that doc to your AI research Assistant

Create Operating Manual

Once your Editor in Chief is connected, it needs clear guidance to perform well. That’s the purpose of the Operating Manual.

The Operating Manual defines how the Content Engine works. It serves as a transparent reference document that describes the rules, settings, and best practices that guide how content is planned, created, and published. The manual includes the follow guides:

• Format Guide - provides guidance on content structure and composition

• Media Guide - sets parameters and best practices for publishing to specific channels

• Prompt Guide - improves AI output quality and reduces the need for iterations

• Tool Guide - maximizes performance and consistency of generative tools

These can be maintained in a single doc with table of content and clear header structure to improve AI readability. Examples, diagrams, and images can be included if they are clear and simple.

Invite Content Stakeholders

Be sure to invite people from the wider content team who will benefit from having access to this vital resource. It's also a way to actively involve people whose first language is different than your own.

The goal isn’t to automate creativity, it’s to design systems that help it happen more often and with better results.

Explore Other Posts In Content Engine Series

1. Introduction To Content Engine

2. Marketing Knowledge Base

3. Content Collaboration (this post)

4. Content Planning

5. Content Production

6. Content Publishing

7. Content Tracking

Let's Collaborate?

I created this series to share what I’ve learned from building AI-supported marketing systems with real teams, in real workflows. Now, I want to expand it.

If you’re interested in contributing, I’m looking for:

• AI-forward marketers who want to contribute posts, illustrations, diagrams, or videos

• Training pros to help turn this series into a hands-on course or workshop

• Vendors who’d like to record demos showing how their platforms support the Content Engine model.

If that sounds like you, or you simply have ideas or feedback, I’d love to hear from you.

Email: chris@friendselectric.ca

Best,

Chris McLellan, Principal AI Marketer, Friends Electric