How Asana scales one idea into a full content engine with AI

Stephanie Bui, content marketing strategy lead at Asana, used to think about her role in straightforward terms: managing content calendars, overseeing assets, and running a team. That framing worked when each idea lived in one or two places, like a gated asset or a blog post. The work started with one strong idea and ended when it shipped.

AI changed all of that. A single idea ending at one asset was no longer enough.

"AI raised expectations," says Steph. "Once people saw what was possible, the appetite for content just grew. Now the job is getting one story in front of your audience across every channel, every format, and at the same time."

As demand grew, so did the coordination required to move a single story across formats and channels. Without a system to support it, that pressure fell on the people doing the work.

We didn't have a system to absorb that pressure. It just landed on the team.”

What it takes to scale content across channels

For Steph, scaling content meant rethinking how she thought about her role. "My job isn't really about content," she says. "It's about building the engine that makes content work."

In practice, that meant rethinking how ideas move from pitch through publication, and building a system that keeps work moving across teams at the same time.

"The goal is to create a strong content engine meant to be visible and used by all of our cross-functional teams," says Steph.

How the content engine works in practice

The system runs across four stages, with AI woven throughout.

Step 1: Intake

Every idea and request comes into one place. A standardized intake process captures the essential information up front, including who the story features, what the focus is, and the target audience or function. 

From there, the team decides what's worth developing into a full story and, most importantly, how it can scale across formats and channels.

AI supports the triage. It reviews incoming ideas, helps prioritize based on business goals and audience signals, sets due dates, and fills in key fields. The admin work that used to slow down the start of each project now happens automatically.

Step 2: Story planning

Every story that moves forward has a single owner. Based on the intake information, the system assigns accountability upfront.

Planning happens early, before execution begins, so teams align on a direction before anything is created. The single owner defines the core message and ensures it stays consistent as the work expands. 

Step 3: Parallel execution across formats

Once a story is approved, AI multi-homes the work into each relevant team’s project. Product marketing, comms, digital, and engineering teams all play a role in the content process, and within the content team, there are dedicated leads for social, video, and written content. Everyone works from the same source, in their own space. From there, outputs like social posts, videos, and written content are developed in parallel, with different teams owning different formats.

AI supports execution as well. It helps identify the right formats, speeds up first drafts, and shortens review cycles.

Step 4: Distribution and performance tracking

Once content goes live, performance data flows back into the same system. 

The team doesn’t evaluate pieces in isolation. AI helps surface what’s working across channels and uses this information to guide what the team will create next.

Steph’s team is also developing an AI teammate that scans the content pipeline, identifies gaps, and flags where additional content could extend a story further.

By having this content engine approach, we've tripled our output and really expanded our reach.”

With this system in place, the team can scale output without adding strain. Where one idea once produced one or two assets, it now becomes a full story across video, written content, and social.

3 lessons for building a content engine that scales

For for teams looking to build their own content engine, Steph recommends:

• Start by asking how far an idea can travel. Before creating anything, consider whether it can extend across formats, channels, and stages of the funnel.

• Assign one clear owner per story. A single point of accountability keeps messaging consistent as work expands.

• Treat content scale as an operational problem, not just a creative one. Strong ideas matter, but systems determine whether teams can keep up.

From individual outputs to a connected story

Building a content engine has changed how Steph’s team approaches every idea. Work moves faster, reaches more channels, and stays connected from planning through performance. The system handles the coordination that used to slow things down, so the team can focus on shaping the work itself.