Exclusive: Why AI is putting content governance at the core of brand authority

As AI rapidly reshapes how businesses interact with customers, many of the world's biggest brands are waking up to a sobering truth: their content just isn't ready.

According to Debra Taylor, Partner at Deloitte Digital, the era of fragmented, inconsistent content is over - and companies that fail to adapt face a looming existential brand risk.

TechDay sat down with Taylor for an exclusive interview at the Adobe Summit in Sydney to explore how AI is forcing organisations to confront their content chaos and redefine what it means to be discoverable, authoritative, and trusted in a machine-mediated world.

For decades, sprawling organisations have allowed their content ecosystems to grow unchecked, driven by siloed teams, incompatible tools, and the flawed belief that more content equates to better outcomes. "There's this myth that you can fix bad content with more content. All you end up with is a mountain of bad content," Taylor said.

That mountain now has a name: content debt. And with AI acting as the new interface between people and information, that debt is coming due.

"AI is going to find your content," Taylor said. "The question is - will it be you that shows up as the answer?"

In an AI-first world, organisations no longer compete purely on reach or messaging. They compete on structure, governance, and discoverability. If your content isn't unified, vetted and visible, it won't just be missed - it will be replaced by someone else's.

"You want to be the snippet. You want to be the answer," she said. "But if your content isn't governed, structured, and connected - you're out of the conversation."

This isn't just a marketing problem. Deloitte's work with clients focuses on content governance - building the frameworks, standards and accountability layers that determine what gets published, where, and by whom. It's not glamorous, but it's foundational.

"It's the plumbing of digital transformation," Taylor said. "And in the AI era, it's the difference between coherence and chaos."

The real danger isn't just inefficiency - it's strategic vulnerability. "You've got so many teams using different tools. Nothing is streamlined. You can't find the content. It's duplicative, fragmented, and inconsistent. That's not just a workflow issue - it's dangerous. Especially when AI is your new front door."

Taylor is blunt about the biggest obstacle: culture. "One of the things that kills everything is silos. Content, efficiency, tooling, governance - silos ruin it all," she said. "AI forces us to confront this. You can't govern one part of the organisation and leave the rest exposed. The risk is enterprise-wide."

Taylor sees the industry shifting from an experience economy to an intention economy, where AI agents mediate between people and brands, interpreting user intent and delivering answers instantly.

"In the future, marketing success will be: are you the answer?" she said. "It's not about flooding channels anymore. It's about being structured, authoritative and discoverable when it counts."

Despite its power, AI is still prone to error. "It still hallucinates," Taylor warned. "It sounds convincing - but it can be wrong. And if it's quoting your brand, that's your problem." The reputational risks are enormous."

"A single hallucinated answer could misrepresent your organisation - or worse, mislead the public.

Still, there's no putting the brakes on.

"No one can say, 'We're not going to use it.' If you're not in the answer, you're not in the game. The genie's out of the box."

The takeaway? This isn't a content boom. It's a reckoning. The organisations that survive won't be those producing the most - but those whose content is accurate, accountable, and ready to be found.

"Governance is the job now," Taylor said. "The winners won't be the ones with the most content. They'll be the ones who make theirs matter."