AI in B2B Marketing: Disruptor, Accelerator, Or Both?

The conversation around artificial intelligence in marketing has officially shifted. We're no longer debating whether AI will impact the industry. The question now is how B2B marketers can make the most of it, while still preserving the strategic thinking and creative intuition that make campaigns stand out.

At Next Chapter, we're not implementing AI to replace exist channels or strategies. We're using AI to increase our efficiency. Where the technology excels is in the tasks that have traditionally eaten up marketers' time - manual data tasks, content drafting, research projects. By introducing automation to these tasks, our teams can redirect focus towards strategic planning, creative conceptualisation and nuanced decision making that algorithms simply can't replicate.

The Evolution of Search Behaviour

Despite dramatic headlines, AI is not rendering traditional marketing channels obsolete. The notion that "SEO is dead", for instance, remains a persistent, but misguided, narrative. B2B buyers have not stopped using Google to search for suppliers, solutions and information. Their search behaviour has simply evolved, and marketers can evolve alongside it.

AI has emerged as a channel in it's own right, sitting alongside social media and search engines. B2B brands now need to consider not just how they appear in Google results, but also how, and if, AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity recommend them. In B2B contexts, where buyers often conduct extensive research before reaching out to suppliers, this is now crucial. The good news is that this requires thinking about the same foundational elements that have always mattered for SEO - quality backlinks, authoritative signals, relevant, well-structured content.

The data around search behaviour tells an interesting story. Recent research suggests that approximately 60% of searchers now never click through to a website, a phenomenon known as zero-click search behaviour. While this might sound alarming for B2B marketers who rely on website traffic for lead generation, it's worth considering what this really means. Many of these searchers are at the information gathering stage, early in their buying journey. So they may have never converted anyway - or certainly not just yet. So when traffic does reach your site, it's now likely to be users who have already done their research and evaluating solutions - increasingly qualified and conversion-ready leads. The challenge (and opportunity!) lies in ensuring AI platforms have the knowledge they need to recommend your brand to users during those early research stages.

The Automation Paradox in Paid Media

The tension between automation and control is perhaps most obvious in paid advertising. AI-powered platforms are promising optimised campaigns that learn and adapt in real-time, adjusting bids, targeting and creative elements to continually maximise performance. For B2B marketers working with long sales cycles and complex attribution models, it's tempting to let these systems run by themselves. But is it wise?

The answer is more complicated than a simple yes or no. While AI tools can be genuinely valuable for reviewing optimisations and surfacing recommendations, they still require human oversight. It's worth remembering that the companies building these AI features are the same companies selling you the ad space in the first place. When the platform suggest raising your budget, you should be questioning whether that recommendation truly serves your goals, or if it simply increases their revenue. Coupling a healthy dose of skepticism with careful data analysis helps ensure that automation really does enhance your campaigns, rather than quietly inflating your costs.

This principle extends right across every aspect of AI implementation in marketing. Whether organic search, content creation, or creative production, the human element remains essential. AI should be informing decisions, not making them autonomously.

Avoiding the Generic Content Trap

As AI makes content production faster and easier for marketers, it brings a new challenge - overcoming the risk of sounding like everybody else. Thought leadership and distinctive expertise are key differentiators for B2B brands, so marketers must be careful to keep their content different and engaging. With many B2B brands using the same tools, with similar prompts, this is becoming harder than ever to achieve.

The quality of AI-produced content is directly proportional to the input it receives. By providing their AI tools with rich context - tone of voice guidelines, examples of previous work, detailed research and industry-specific insights - B2B marketers can begin creating prompts that will generate higher quality, more original and authentic content.

But even the best crafted prompts won't eliminate the need for human review. Nothing should flow directly from AI to your audience without a human reviewing, refining and injecting nuance that algorithms miss. Technology accelerates content creation processes, but humans ensure the result actually connects with real people, reflecting genuine expertise.

Disruption or Evolution?

So, is AI disrupting B2B marketing, or simply evolving it? Perhaps unsatisfyingly, the answer is both - but in different ways and for different reasons.

Marketing delivery and the economics of agency work have been genuinely disrupted by the advancement of AI in marketing. Speed and efficiency gains are too significant to be ignored, as tasks that once required hours of manual effort are now completed in minutes. When AI compresses timelines so dramatically, a shift can be made from time-based selling, to expertise and value-led selling.

At the same time, AI is evolving marketing channels themselves, making them smarter and more capable. Paid advertising platforms offer sophisticated features that would have seemed like science fiction a decade ago. Organic search now accommodates for AI-powered queries and zero-click behaviour. Social media platforms integrate AI for content recommendations and ad targeting. These aren't new, replacement channels, but enhancements that make existing channels more powerful and efficient.

The Path Forward

To stay at the top of their game, B2B marketers need to find balance between two seemingly contradictory ideas: embracing AI's capabilities, and maintaining skepticism about its limitations. Genuine advantages in speed, scale and processing capabilities are now possible. But without human-led strategy, industry understanding and creative spark, these wont lead to exceptional marketing that delivers results. This holds even more true for B2B contexts, where demonstrating deep expertise and building long-term relationships is paramount.

As AI tools continue to develop and improve, the future will be about understanding where they excel, and where human input is the competitive edge required to win over complex, multi-stakeholder buying committees and their purchasing decisions.

Technology will continue to evolve and disrupt, but the core challenge remains consistent - connecting with real people in meaningful ways. That task will always require human insight, no matter how sophisticated our tools become.