5 Content Trends to Watch in 2025

In reading through the most recent “state of marketing” reports from HubSpot (January 2025) and SalesForce (spring 2024), the biggest theme I uncovered is an interesting juxtaposition, almost an oxymoron. The yin-and-yang of wedding the technical with the emotional, the push-and-pull of literally the artificial with the authenticity of being human. AI is the enabler across the spectrum, integrated with oceans of data and complex machinery of marketing technology. It’s what will fuel a step change toward something more authentic, more human-centered.

With that contrast in mind, here are the top content trends to lean into this year—and beyond.

1. More AI. Nearly every day I encounter some new mind-blowing AI capability. Next up for me – I’m going to use Google’s Notebook LLM to turn Pink Pineapple Post content and my resume into a podcast. Stay tuned.

2. More Brand Storytelling. Cold selling is out, and a brand with a real personality is in. People are buying way more than products and programs, they want to buy into feel-good vibes and cultural trendlines. To successfully do this, you need to know your brand persona inside and out.

Marketing Insight: AI summaries are interrupting SEO—and making it more complicated to understand how people are seeing your brand. One emerging concept is to use AI to look at your “brand reflection.”

Here’s how HubSpot breaks it down. Plus they have a free tool called AI Search Grader you can use to get a snapshot. 

3. More Authenticity. All this data ingestion and AI machine-ing makes us all a bit weary. We crave realness and want to know we can trust the entities wielding these new and mysterious powers. This is where it pays to bring forward actual people into your content marketing, add an IRL POV that’s unique and unexpected.

4. More Channel Re-Mixing. Just as with education, people prefer to engage with content marketing in different ways. We’ve all been saying “meet your customers where they are” for years, and now AI is here to supercharge that lofty philosophy. You can instantly remix your blog content for Insta – or even transform it into a short-form video or a podcast.

Marketing Insight: HubSpot showcased one of their content creators, Modern Millie, who shares an incredible hack on combining the power of ChatGPT and Canva to supercharge this concept.

Talk about work smarter, not harder. This is a game-changer in thinking through what personalization actually is (and can be).

5. More Personalization. With greater data comes greater responsibility—and an outsize expectation for super relevant marketing. Again, this is fed by data and transformative AI capabilities. Imagine variable homepages, customized in-app experiences, versioned email creative, and so much more.

Marketing Insight: SalesForce highlights a lifecycle approach to personalization, combining aspects of multi-modal content creation and variable content.

This is smart framework for thinking about customers in two ways simultaneously: Where are they in their journey with your brand, and where are they in terms of channels where they like to meet your brand?