How Natalie Marshall (aka Corporate Natalie) lives her best life every day with AI Assistant

Every so often, a content creator comes along with a voice that’s so authentic, it prompts a frenzy of shares, DMs, and “You have to follow this person!” messages. In the remote work shift spurred by the pandemic, Natalie Marshall (better known as Corporate Natalie) became that person.

Seemingly overnight, Marshall captured what many were feeling about the nuances of Zoom etiquette, the personas of different coworkers, juggling work and life from the exact same spot (read: your home), and best of all, the inner monologue many were having about just how bizarre much of this new work culture could be. And she delivered it flawlessly with dry wit and humor.

Evolving inspiration

“I made my first video on TikTok as a complete joke,” Marshall remembers. Her first videos had nothing to do with the corporate world, but once she realized that many people were sharing the same feelings about working from home, she tapped into it. “I think now, corporate content is a very well-known content pillar, but when I started, it was kind of new and exciting and risky. That's how I became Corporate Natalie.”

If you scroll through the comments on her most popular videos, many of Marshall’s followers are shocked at just how spot-on her humor feels. “My first inspiration came from consulting, actually,” she says. “I still feel almost trauma bonded to that experience of working in that culture. I can recall these very distinct memories from that first job that I had.”

The oversharing coworker, the boss who’s never at their desk, the awkwardness of a bad WiFi connection — the magic behind Marshall’s humor is not only that the scenarios are so relatable, but that they seem to evolve in real time. As people started to return to the office, so did her character (to hilarious end), and it’s this ability to pivot her content to the changing times that seems to give Marshall the longevity that many content creators struggle with.

From corporate to content creator

Today, you’ll notice something different about Corporate Natalie’s content: it’s a lot more about just Natalie, sans the “corporate”. In her “Day in My Silly Little Life” videos, she manages to inject the same playful humor into a vlog format. Her followers also love her posts about her workouts, travels, and even more vulnerable videos about her personal goals.

While her life has changed quite a bit since those early pandemic days, Marshall remains hands-on with things like brand partnerships and meetings, which has, ironically, allowed her to stay just a bit in the corporate world — and continues to fuel the Corporate Natalie character. “I don't use a traditional agency or management agency to handle all the logistics for me,” she says. “[My brand manager] Annie and I handle all the front and backend business of everything that goes on with the Corporate Natalie brand, so I'm able to be on Zooms and meet with brands, which gives me inspiration for the corporate content.”

6 ways Natalie Marshall built her best life as a content creator

1. She makes her own schedule.

One of the biggest positive shifts Marshall has noticed since moving away from a traditional 9-to-5 job is the ability to create a schedule that works for her. “We've built this start early, end early culture,” she says of her team. “It's exciting when you have such a small team that you can just talk and plan those things out in a way that works best for both of you and the external teams that we’re meeting with on a daily basis.”

2. She outsources the administrative tasks.

As soon as she started running her own business, Marshall was quick to outsource certain administrative tasks in order to free up creative time. “I remember my intro to accounting class in business school and being like, “I never want to have to do that”, so the first thing I outsourced when I was able to was my accountant.”

3. She uses a networking tracker.

In her current work, Marshall often meets other creators, brands, and agencies, so she prioritizes having one central place to log them. “I never anticipated being in a space where I would meet all these incredible individuals from different industries and walks of life,” she says. “Tracking everyone’s contact info and keeping up those relationships is super important.”

4. She relies on AI to help review contracts and briefs.

“We review contracts and oftentimes dense long creative briefs that can consume a ton of time,” Marshall says. “When you're given a 45-page document to read and review and redline, there is a possibility to miss things, which we obviously want to avoid. I use Adobe’s AI Assistant to go in, ask questions, make sure we're hitting all those sections that we would normally redline or ask clarifying questions about, and it has been an absolute time saver.” In addition, the generative summary capability provides a quick understanding of the content inside these contracts and briefs through short overviews and easy to read formats.

5. She uses AI to find inspiration for new videos.

Marshall may be tapped into corporate culture, but Gen Z culture? That’s a little trickier. “We sometimes use AI to find Gen Z lingo and to inform the Gen Z series,” she says. “I'll have a lot of instances throughout the day where we ask AI to help with filling the blanks on a script that we're working on, or if we're doing [a video about] a certain type of person. I was doing a conspiracy theorist uncle as a character in one of my holiday videos, and I would ask, “What are conspiracy theories?” or other things to help those scripts out. While AI doesn’t fully understand my humor (yet), it’s often able to provide us a jumping off point.”

6. She keeps a strict calendar — but tries to allow for the occasional do-nothing day.

“If I didn’t have my calendar, I would crumble into a million pieces,” Marshall says. “I am absolutely wedded to how I schedule my time. My time is my most valuable asset, so just understanding every day is crucial to how we keep the ship afloat.” But if she were met with a day with no commitments at all? “I would binge watch Love is Blind the entire day,” Marshall laughs. “I'm obsessed with happy reality TV, but I don't have enough time to watch all of it. I really would spend an entire day just numbing my mind and watching TV,” she says laughing.

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