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AI Business Strategy
Why Europeans lead Americans in AI for thought leadership
By Tony Hallett, Managing Director, Collective Content
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You likely know the benefits of your organisation producing thought leadership. You also consume it, in your business life, from all kinds of companies, as part of a broad content mix.
Touted as a trending job in the corporate world, well-known names are scrambling to hire ‘Chief Storytellers’ – albeit not a new role – tasked with leading on the company’s narrative and how their values are brought to life through thought leadership and the wider content ecosystem. Or to put it bluntly, to help them steer clear of an ‘AI slop’ era.
Slop aside, AI is also having a positive effect on the discipline – whether that’s speeding up workflows, machine learning for research, or dozens of other use cases.
Perhaps less well known is that, of the two biggest markets for thought leadership, Europe leads North America in how it applies AI to the discipline by quite some distance – it’s not even a close call.
This month, The State of AI in Thought Leadership report, which surveyed 150 senior executives in Western Europe and North America who are responsible for medium-sized and large companies’ thought leadership, revealed how AI is being used in the discipline.
The first finding: nearly everyone is using GenAI (‘AI’, for the purposes of the rest of this piece) in some way for thought leadership. Fewer than 5% of respondents said they aren’t using AI at all, and they did not answer further questions.
Secondly — and this is no small finding in itself — speed came out as the number one benefit of using AI. It was cited by 60.7% of respondents, whereas benefits such as improving content quality (46%) or lowering costs (22.7%) were behind – by quite some way.
What’s more, speed was equally important to both the Americans and Europeans surveyed. But that’s where many similarities stopped.
Previous studies have shown that Americans, for all their leadership with frontier model LLMs, are not among the most common users of AI at work.
A H2 2025 study by Microsoft mapped UAE (64% AI adoption by people of working age) and Singapore (61%) as the nations at the top for AI usage. Western European countries such as Ireland (45%), France (44%), Spain (42%) and the UK (39%) largely made up the second tier, while Canada (35%) and the US (28%) followed behind.
The State of AI in Thought Leadership report also asked global content leaders about use of public LLMs, enterprise versions, AI features within popular software, and proprietary or company-built AI tools. Respondents could select any or all of those four options, and North American participants selected more of them.
Does this mean Americans are greater users of AI for thought leadership? In short, no.
For one thing, American respondents were more likely to use public LLMs (82.7% versus 73.3% of Europeans). Conversely, only 32.0% of Americans use proprietary or company-built AI, compared with 38.7% of Europeans.
These results suggest Europeans are more locked down — and potentially more mature — in their use of AI in this field.
The survey also explored overall organisational adoption for content-related work.
Europeans were more likely to say, ‘We use it extensively across many content workflows’ (36.0% compared with 20.0% for Americans). Meanwhile, Americans were more likely to say, ‘We are experimenting with limited pilots’ (24.0% versus 10.7% of Europeans).
This points to a more embedded use of AI in European organisations.
Further questions focused on AI use in publicly facing content output. Americans were more common in the 1–25% bracket (50.7% versus 24.0% of Europeans). Europeans were much more common in the middle ranges (26–75%), at 74.7% compared with 46.7% of Americans.
In the highest quartile, where 76–100% of content might be AI-generated, Americans were twice as common, although the absolute numbers were very low.
Is there a case for an advanced segment of American organisations doing the most with AI for thought leadership? Possibly.
Across questions such as the types of content created partially or entirely with AI, both regions gave similar results. However, when rating the quality of AI-generated thought leadership, responses across ‘Poor’, ‘Adequate’ and ‘Good’ were broadly similar.
The key difference appeared at the top end. The response ‘Excellent’ was selected by twice as many Americans as Europeans (10.7% versus 5.3%).
One area where Europeans appeared more cautious was in attitudes to ethical and compliance issues.
European respondents skewed more towards ‘Weak’ and ‘Very weak’ when describing the risks AI brings. This may help explain the greater use of enterprise licences and proprietary tools.
There is also a case that European companies face more regulation, particularly when operating within the EU.
At the same time, the findings suggest a more nuanced picture. While AI introduces compliance risks, it can also support compliance processes and fact-checking.
Producing thought leadership is only half of the equation; consumption matters just as much.
Research published in February 2026 by the Global Thought Leadership Institute explored how the C-suite engages with thought leadership.
The findings were broadly positive. Almost all business executives (97%) said they make better decisions as a result of reading thought leadership. Consumption is also expected to grow, with 85% of CXOs saying they will consume as much or more within two years.
However, there is a notable tension when it comes to AI.
Consumers prioritise depth of insight and analysis, but take a dimmer view of AI-generated content. Producers, on the other hand, place greater emphasis on the credibility of the author or source.
This disconnect is becoming more pronounced.
Interviews with senior content leaders suggest that many executives are now using AI to summarise, curate and synthesise thought leadership from multiple sources. This allows them to save time while still accessing key insights.
This behaviour has been described as ‘AI for me, not for thee’.
The leading producers of thought leadership — particularly in professional services and technology — face a growing challenge.
On one hand, they are at the forefront of AI adoption, helping organisations implement new technologies for growth and efficiency. It is no surprise that they are also early adopters of AI in their own content.
On the other hand, they are expected to produce content to the highest standards, comparable to leading global publications and underpinned by rigorous research.
Standing out in this environment is already difficult. The added pressure of scepticism towards AI-generated content makes it even more complex.
The findings suggest that the European approach — combining caution with confidence — may offer a way forward.
