Find the Right Subject Matter Experts 96% Faster with AI
Identify, vet, and match internal or external experts to your content in minutes. AI scores relevance and credibility, predicts collaboration fit, and recommends outreach strategies.
Executive Summary
AI compresses an 11-step, 8–16 hour SME discovery and vetting process into a 3-step, 25–50 minute workflow. By aggregating signals (publications, talks, patents, social authority), modeling topic fit, and recommending outreach, teams boost content credibility and ship faster.
How Does AI Improve SME Discovery & Collaboration?
Authority is multi-signal. AI fuses expertise depth (corpus quality), recency, network trust, and brand/ICP alignment—then predicts collaboration likelihood to prioritize the best experts for your brief.
Expert-recommendation agents map topics to concept graphs, scan internal directories and external sources, and output a ranked shortlist with credibility notes, conflicts-of-interest flags, and suggested collaboration formats (quote, interview, co-author, webinar).
What Changes with AI-Powered SME Recommendations?
🔴 Manual Process (11 steps, 8–16 hours)
- Define topic & expertise areas (1h)
- Research internal SMEs (2–3h)
- Identify external experts (2–3h)
- Evaluate credibility & audience fit (1–2h)
- Assess availability & willingness (1h)
- Score & rank experts (30m)
- Outreach to top candidates (1h)
- Coordinate contributions (1h)
- Manage relationships (30m)
- Track content performance (30m)
- Build SME database & mapping (30–60m)
🟢 AI-Enhanced Process (3 steps, 25–50 minutes)
- Automated discovery with credibility & relevance scoring (20–40m)
- AI expert–content matching with collaboration assessment (≈10m)
- Outreach strategy & relationship recommendations (≈5m)
TPG standard practice: Enforce E-E-A-T checks, store verifiable citations, and route high-impact claims for legal/SME approval before publish.
What Will You Measure?
↑ Relevance Score
Topic & audience fit
↑ Credibility
Publications & citations
↓ 96% Time
From 8–16h to 25–50m
↑ Collab Rate
Accepted outreach %
Which AI Tools Power SME Recommendations?
Runway ML
Multimodal analysis for talk clips and presentations to assess topical depth and clarity.
Expert Insights AI
Aggregates publications, social signals, and citations to score authority and recency.
TopicSift
Builds topic graphs, clusters subtopics, and matches experts to specific content briefs.
These tools plug into an AI agent workflow that standardizes vetting, approvals, and relationship tracking.
Before vs. After: SME Recommendation
| Category | Subcategory | Process | Metrics | AI Tools | Value Proposition | Current Process | Process with AI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Content Marketing | Content Creation Support | Recommending subject matter experts | Expert relevance scoring; credibility assessment; content authority building; collaboration effectiveness | Runway ML, Expert Insights AI, TopicSift | AI identifies and recommends SMEs to enhance content credibility and thought leadership | 11 steps, 8–16 hours: define topic & expertise → research internal SMEs → identify external experts → evaluate credibility & audience fit → assess availability → score experts → outreach → coordinate contributions → manage relationships → track performance → build SME database | 3 steps, 25–50 minutes: automated discovery with credibility & relevance scoring (20–40m) → AI expert–content matching & collaboration assessment (10m) → outreach strategy with relationship recommendations (5m). ≈96% time reduction. |
Implementation Timeline
| Phase | Duration | Key Activities | Deliverables |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Week 1 | Audit internal SME lists, brand risk guidelines, and priority topics | Requirements & scoring rubric |
| Integration | Week 2–3 | Connect data sources (LinkedIn, publications, talks), set topic graphs | SME recommender v1 |
| Calibration | Week 4 | Tune weights for credibility, recency, influence, and ICP fit | On-brand ranking model |
| Pilot | Week 5 | Run 10–15 briefs; compare outreach acceptance & time saved | Pilot results & playbook |
| Scale | Week 6–7 | Automate intake forms, add CRM notes, and relationship tags | Productionized workflow |
| Optimize | Ongoing | Feedback loop from performance; expand categories & regions | Continuous improvement |
Frequently Asked Questions
How does AI assess an expert’s credibility?
It weights peer-reviewed work, reputable publications, speaking history, citations, and network trust—then adjusts by topic recency and conflict-of-interest checks.
Will recommendations favor only external experts?
No. Internal SMEs are indexed first. The system compares internal vs. external options and highlights opportunities to elevate internal voices where appropriate.
What outreach guidance do we get?
For each expert, you receive a tailored value proposition, preferred collaboration format, sample message, and availability likelihood based on public activity patterns.
How are compliance and claims handled?
High-impact claims and regulated topics route to legal and designated SMEs. All expert inputs are cited with source links and archived for auditability.
How quickly will we see results?
Teams typically reduce discovery time in the first sprint and increase collaboration acceptance rates as outreach templates are refined.
Related Resources
AI Agent Guide
Patterns and prompts for expert discovery, vetting, and outreach.
Explore Agentic AI
Orchestrate multi-step SME workflows with approvals and tracking.
AI Revenue Enablement Guide
Turn expert content into pipeline impact with measurable outcomes.
AI Agents & Automation
From intake to publish—governed expert collaboration at scale.
Get in touch with a revenue marketing expert.
Contact us or schedule time with a consultant to explore partnering with The Pedowitz Group.