“For the first time, it’s faster to create content than to consume it—and that’s dangerous.”
In the first part of my conversation with Ben Worthen, chief product officer at Orchestra, we dug into his journalism roots and the deceptively simple question at the heart of great storytelling: “Why does anybody care?” From there, the conversation turned to AI—how Orchestra is embracing it, the opportunities ahead, and why Ben believes quality will always rise above the noise.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length. You can watch the full interview here.
Ed Harrison: You’re now leading AI adoption at Orchestra. How do you see that challenge?
Ben Worthen: AI isn’t a tech problem, it’s a culture problem. The only way we succeed is if people actually care enough to use it. We’ve run company-wide competitions, and it was incredible to see the ingenious ways teams were already applying AI. The goal is to build a culture where innovation happens everywhere, not just at the top.
It’s not just about tools—it’s about encouraging people to experiment, rewarding their creativity, and sharing those insights across the organization. If we can make AI part of everyone’s mindset, not just the specialists, that’s when it will become transformative.
Ed: You’ve talked about “100x opportunities” with AI. What do you mean by that?
Ben: A 100x opportunity is where AI lets us reduce costs by a factor of ten while also delivering ten times more value. Media monitoring and reporting are great examples. Right now, it takes a ton of human effort to track articles and assemble reports. What if AI could take the cost of collecting and formatting coverage down to zero, freeing up the people who were doing it to deliver sharper, more insightful analysis? That’s transformational.
Instead of handing clients a binder of clippings, we could provide real-time intelligence on their competitive landscape. That’s not just more efficient—it’s more valuable. And those are the opportunities that excite me: areas where AI doesn’t just make work faster, but changes the deliverables altogether.
Ed: Beyond efficiency, how else can AI be useful?
Ben: I see AI as a collaborator. It can help brainstorm ideas, sharpen proposals, and improve everyday writing. For example, we’ve used it to compare RFPs against proposals, highlighting gaps we might have missed. That kind of feedback makes us sharper before we ever go into a client meeting.
It’s important to emphasize that AI won’t replace you, but people who use AI might replace those who don’t. Clients don’t hire algorithms; they hire judgment. Our responsibility is still to know what “good” looks like. The technology can help us get there faster and better, but it doesn’t absolve us of that responsibility.
Ed: Looking ahead, what do you see happening in the next five years?
Ben: I think we’ll go through a wave of low-quality, AI-generated content flooding the world. For the first time, it’s faster to create content than to consume it—and that’s dangerous. If we don’t create with care, we’re just adding noise.
That’s why attention will become the scarcest commodity. You can always make another blog post, but you can’t make more hours in someone’s day. The organizations that win will be the ones that respect that reality and create things that are genuinely worthy of an audience’s time.
Ed: So what’s the role of AI in storytelling?
Ben: AI will absolutely make us more efficient, but it can also make us better. It can help us test ideas, sharpen angles, and scale insights. But it won’t change the essence of what makes a story resonate; that still comes down to people, care, and connection. If anything, AI raises the stakes: the easier it is to flood the world with content, the more important it becomes to create work that is thoughtful and human.
Ben’s take is both pragmatic and hopeful. AI isn’t a replacement for human storytellers—it’s an accelerant. When used wisely, it can strip away drudgery and open up space for creativity, insight, and strategy. But the challenge remains the same as it’s always been: to make people care. And in a future defined by abundance of content and scarcity of attention, that skill will matter more than ever.
