How AI Can Make Your Content Searchable, Shareable, and Useful

Coby: Hey, Ben. You wanna go get a drink?

Ben: Let’s go do it.

Coby: Let’s do it.

Nicole: Hi, I’m producer Nicole Denson, and today we’re talking with Ben Ard, Co-founder and CEO of Masset and host of the Content Amplified Podcast. Ben has helped build and scale companies all the way to an IPO. He’s also deeply rooted in the world of tech, AI, and startups as a Utah Business Editorial Advisory Board member. Ben is a marketing award winner who’s known for turning complex ideas into clear, actionable growth. And a husband and father of four boys, which might explain his talent for managing chaos with vision. Back to the show.

Coby: So, what’s the latest at Masset?

Ben: It’s a good question. We’re having a lot of fun. We’re kind of a cool startup where the groups we work with know we’re not trying to raise capital at all costs and stack excessive headcount. We like working closely with our customers. Our whole goal is solving content chaos for businesses and having a ton of fun doing it.

Ben: The way we do it is by working closely with people and sometimes even building custom solutions if they need integrations or specific functionality. That’s the cool part for me. I’ve been in so many businesses where you don’t get that kind of relationship with the customer, and we’ve built this business so we can. It’s a lot of fun. I love getting messages in shared Slack channels with customers who have ideas and being able to say, “That’s a great idea. We just built it. Go play with it and tell us what you think.”

Coby: How long does it take to get a great concept—whether it comes from your team or a customer—into your stack as a beta feature and then as a fully tested feature?

Ben: Great question. The terrible answer is: it depends. If someone’s asking for UI/UX changes, sometimes those go live after a weekend. But if it’s major functionality—like our feature called Boards where you can create content, embed assets, talk about it, link to it, and build a microsite experience—that’s bigger.

Coby: Where people can review it, annotate it, whatever.

Ben: Exactly. You can publish a microsite and say, “Here’s our new product launch. Here’s what it does. Here’s the one-pager. Here’s the overview video. Here’s how to pitch it.” You can use it for internal training. Then customers said, “This would be cool if we could share it with partners, outside vendors, associations.” So we built public sharing. That was all customer feedback. That one took several months and had to be part of the roadmap.

Coby: That’s fascinating. Years ago, a business partner and I came up with something similar—asset delivery for creative professionals, with annotations, revisions, and even a shopping cart to sell final assets. And I just realized—you’ve already built that. That’s awesome.

Ben: For us, the big pain point was content chaos. I’ve worked at B2B businesses that scaled from under 100 employees to over a thousand. There’s a real disconnect internally—people don’t know where the right assets are, what version is correct, how to track things. It’s shocking how much confusion there is. So we said, let’s fix it our way and make it fun. Make it a team sport. Everyone has access. Use AI to make it easy to find content, integrate tools, track usage. We just nerd out about it and have fun.

Coby: That sounds like so much fun. How are you using AI in the product now?

Ben: We built a full AI agent called Myca—My Content Assistant. The point is to put Myca where you’re already working. You can message Myca and say, “I just got off a call. They had questions about this product feature. What can I share?” Myca does the heavy lifting, finds the right content, and with a couple clicks you’ve shared it and can track the results.

Coby: I love that.

Ben: We want Myca to make it easier to use content than not. The goal is for it to be so robust that excluding content is harder than using it.

Coby: I’d love to use that. We use Masset—we love you guys.

Ben: We need to get you on Myca.

Coby: I’d love to. I’m six months in at a fully remote organization—about 80 people. Everyone’s generating tons of documentation and assets daily. It gets unhygienic quickly. I’ve found myself having to remember the conversation where a document was referenced, then search Slack to find it. My filing system has become autobiographical, which is not scalable.

Ben: AI loves to learn and will soak up everything. There are tools that connect to all your documents and let you search universally. But then you get inaccurate results because companies have 12-year-old documents no one’s touched. AI treats it as gospel. For us, we maintain a clean library only for content you actually want to use. When something’s outdated, you upload a new version and it replaces the old one everywhere. AI learns off the new document. All the outdated information disappears.

Coby: Versioning is a huge headache. I love that.

Ben: We focus on making it easy. I love stories and content. You’re giving employees tools to tell their company’s story better—to prospects, customers, partners. Everyone’s on the same page.

Coby: AI clearly enhances the platform. Where do you see its usage being problematic?

Ben: Here’s my soapbox. A lot of people think AI instantly solves all their problems, even without background or expertise. I’m not a lawyer. If I tried to replace lawyers by using ChatGPT or Gemini to write contracts, I’d get subpar results—not because the AI isn’t good, but because I’m not good enough. The better you are at your craft, the more AI can benefit you.

Coby: So it’s an amplifier, not a replacer.

Ben: Exactly. It’s not going to replace specialists. It can help you learn and grow, but it only gets you as far as your capability. If you don’t know what “good” looks like, it’s hard to get great output.

Coby: It’s like outsourcing to an agency. If you don’t know marketing, you won’t know if you’re getting a good investment. Same with AI.

Ben: Exactly. If you go to an SEO agency and just say, “Do SEO,” you’ll get generic output. But if you bring strategy and clarity, that’s when you get value. Same with AI.

Coby: What’s on the roadmap?

Ben: Myca is central. One of AI’s biggest problems is it’s reactive—you have to prompt it. We’re building proactive AI. Imagine I get off a call and Myca already knows the context from CRM data and says, “Here are three files that answer their questions. I’ve created the share links. Copy and paste this into your email.”

Coby: That’s amazing.

Ben: Same with cleaning your library. “This document hasn’t been touched in five years and contradicts newer content. Should we delete it or create a new version?” It helps keep things clean.

Coby: Is there a hierarchy of dependability if documents offer nuanced differences but are both valid?

Ben: Yes. We have internal ranking based on performance, usage, and contextual relevance. For nuanced differences—like by industry or product—we use permission levels to manage access.

Coby: So where are we going today?

Ben: We’re going to Fiiz. It’s my favorite spot. I’m a big diet soda fan. They’re close to my house. I’m a frequent visitor.

Coby: What do you usually get?

Ben: Dr Pepper Zero as the base with cream and purée. The one I get is called “Rasbear.” My wife gets something like “Captain Jack.”

Coby: I might get a Captain Jack. Do you get anything else?

Ben: Usually just the drink.

Coby: It’s on us today—we’re getting a treat. When was your first time at Fiiz?

Ben: Their first location in Highland, a few years ago.

Coby: Early adopter. You build products for early adopters too.

Ben: I do.

Coby: What’s been your favorite part of starting a successful business? And your least favorite?

Ben: Least favorite: you don’t know what you don’t know. Every day there’s something you wish you’d done yesterday. Favorite: I get to learn at a rapid pace. No day’s the same. There’s always a challenge, and no one’s telling me how to accomplish the goal. I get to figure it out.

Coby: That sounds like heaven.

Ben: It’s awesome—unless you’re not okay with failure. But I love it.

Coby: Most of us think people are waiting to see us fail, but they’re not.

Ben: Especially here in Utah, the ecosystem is incredible. Businesses want you to succeed. They root for you. They share advice. There’s something special about building here.

Coby: How long have you been building Masset?

Ben: Three and a half years. We started in July 2022.

Coby: That’s great traction for three and a half years.

Ben: We work with some big clients and have a lot of fun. But if you compare yourself on LinkedIn, half the time you feel like a huge win and half the time like a failure.

Coby: I recommend nobody does that.

Ben: Exactly. Everything’s unique.

Coby: What are your five-year goals?

Ben: I’m not big on five-year goals. We use Asana with three core projects: make customers raving fans, grow the business, and manage operations. If something doesn’t fit under those, we don’t do it. We operate profitably, work closely with customers, and focus on making them raving fans.

Coby: Word of mouth is post-purchase. Scale comes from customers selling you.

Ben: Exactly. You can spend on SEO and ads, but when customers say why they chose you, it’s often word of mouth. Great experiences drive growth. That’s our plan.

Coby: I love that.

Ben: I don’t want to be limited by arbitrary five-year targets. I’m excited to see what happens if we stay focused.

Coby: If you weren’t doing this for money, would you still do it?

Ben: Yes. I love building. Authenticity matters. It helps you find your tribe. When businesses highlight their people and stay authentic, they attract the right customers and repel the wrong ones. That’s good. If someone wants a 1,000-person company with a 20-year track record, that’s not us—and that’s fine.

Coby: Go be free.

Ben: Exactly. The more authentic you are, the sooner you find product-market fit with your tribe.

Coby: That’s beautifully said.

Ben: Thank you. This has been awesome.

Coby: I really enjoyed it. Let’s go inside and report on how it tastes.

Ben: Deal.

Coby: How many of these do you have a week?

Ben: I’m not answering that.

Coby: Fair enough.

Ben: We’re fully remote. If I need to get out, I go to Fiiz. One day I want them to name this drink after me—Dr Pepper Zero, Rasbear, extra cream. Just order “The Ben.”

Coby: That’ll help. I got the orange cream and it’s amazing.

Ben: I’m a big fan. This might not be my only trip to Fiiz today.

Coby: I felt everything shake when I first drank it, but apparently there was an earthquake.

Ben: It’s a good sign you were moved.

Coby: The whole valley was moved. Thanks for doing this.

Ben: Thanks for having me.

Coby: We had a good time.

Ben: Absolutely.

Coby: Alright, take it easy, man.