#27: My Predictions for the Role AI Will Play in B2B Marketing
A deep dive into how AI is reshaping B2B marketing, what it means for the future of work, and how both companies and contributors can win by focusing on fundamentals.
To understand the role of AI in marketing, I want to start with Geoffrey A. Moore’s technology adoption curve.
This framework helped me clarify why some people embrace AI easily, while others remain skeptical and hesitant to use even the most basic AI tools in their daily work.
Personally, I fall under the ‘pragmatist’ category—I need to see something working consistently before I fully commit.
And while AI in the marketing space is clearly emerging, I’ve found myself acting more conservatively—and at times even skeptically—when it comes to deploying AI in Belkins’ own marketing.
Why?
Because of the hype.
Because of the bad actors who are using the AI wave to increase their own net worth, rather than build actual value.
It reminds me of the same feeling I get with crypto, blockchain, and other quick-win, hype-driven movements. I simply don’t trust trends that promise shortcuts without fixing the fundamentals.
Today, I want to explain why I’m skeptical about the current state of AI in marketing—and maybe open a few eyes to follow my lead.
Here’s what the rise of AI in B2B marketing is really showing us:
1. The industry is chasing quick wins.
Instead of solving real problems, companies are looking for fast hacks and surface-level automation.
2. Marketing fundamentals are being ignored.
Many teams using AI aren’t doing so with strong marketing acumen-they’re relying on AI to fix broken strategies instead of building from sound principles.
So What’s Happening?
When you combine these two—the rush for early AI adoption and the lack of strong fundamentals—you get this pattern:
Marketing teams rushing into AI, thinking they’re early adopters.
But in reality, they’re chasing shortcuts and hype.
And often, they ignore the deep-rooted issues in their marketing foundations.
This is what leads to wasted time, wasted budgets, and a growing number of frustrated businesses.
Meanwhile, the companies that are actually solving real marketing problems get overlooked.
And those who promise the dreamland?
They’re the ones getting richer.
AI in B2B Marketing — Now
The biggest impact of AI in marketing today is that it's widening the gap between experienced marketers and junior beginners.
With AI, senior SDRs and marketers can now do five times more work, more efficiently. Meanwhile, junior talent falls behind—not because they lack tools, but because they lack taste, experience, and context.
As Dave Gerhardt from Exit Five said in one of his recent interviews, marketing is about feel and taste—things you develop over time. You can't always explain why something works and something else doesn’t. Sometimes, you just know.
And this is exactly where AI fits in.
It amplifies people like Dave. It helps them create faster, post more, and still deliver great content—because they already know what good looks like.
But Here's the Reality Check
AI is a sandbox—a powerful one—but it only works if you know what you’re doing.
If you give AI to someone without deep expertise, what you get back is usually bland, generic output.
Don’t believe me? Go scroll through your LinkedIn feed.
You’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.
The AI Echo Chamber
Most of the “AI gurus” trending on social media right now are just hyping the tools. They’ll say:
“This is how you use AI to write your content, your emails, your everything.”
But if you scratch beneath the surface—if you dig into the subject matter—you’ll see the truth:
AI doesn’t help much if you don’t know your field in depth.
My personal example—I review Belkins blog articles regularly and too often, I find myself sending feedback like:
“Not good enough. No original thought. Too generic. We need to add more proprietary insights.”
Because AI won’t replace deep thinking, insight, or real experience. It just scales what you already have and this is where my skepticism about the true impact of AI begins.
Someone like Dave, who can now produce five times more content—and potentially of even higher quality—is naturally going to grab more attention and take more market share.
We’ll tune out 90% of what’s being pushed our way and instead gravitate toward a few strong voices—people like Dave—who deliver consistent value.
And because we're already getting enough value from them, the space becomes tighter, and it’s harder for anyone new to break in.
You can’t prompt creativity.
This is why any single marketing channel, when used without:
A complex strategy
Well-rounded messaging
A clearly defined brand
…will ultimately lose.
And it’s why anyone relying on cheap labor + AI to optimize one channel is already on the wrong path.
What Can Be Done?
Hire people who focus on fundamentals—not those promising funnels that generate leads while you sleep.
Don’t chase AI just to scale your generic marketing.
Instead, focus on building around your unique IP, your original data, and the insights only you can share.
If you’re an agency sending cold emails, start tracking and reporting real benchmarks.
If you’ve done 5,000+ sales calls this year, what have you learned?
What trends are you seeing?
What do prospects keep asking for?
Where are campaigns falling flat?
Every business, service, or transaction contains valuable insight—and when you package and share that insight, it puts you ahead of everyone recycling content.
This ties directly back to the earlier point:
Most companies are skipping the fundamentals.
But if you build your marketing engine as a machine for insight and value creation, the gap between you and someone like Dave shrinks.
Meanwhile, too many companies are still asking:
“How can I hack LinkedIn with more AI posts, AI decks, AI cold emails, or AI calls?”
This mindset will only do one thing:
❌ Widen the gap.
❌ Dilute your message.
❌ Cause you to lose.
Your marketing should be an insight-generation machine. One you know how to package, promote, and scale—with or without AI.
A World Divided Into Two Camps
The reality is, not every company can afford to hire top-tier senior professionals. I get it.
As a result, we’re seeing a growing number of businesses that intentionally use AI to optimize their P&L—cutting costs by replacing certain marketing functions, boosting margins, and often competing primarily on price.
But here’s the long-term effect:
Brand degradation.
Over time, the market will naturally split into two distinct camps:
“This was done by humans.”
“This was done by AI.”
And here’s the twist—even AI is starting to favor the human camp.
A Real Example From Our Own Experience
Our top-performing organic content that is written by senior content writer, in collaboration with SMEs, that is packed with real quotes, proprietary frameworks, and live interview insights, is consistently ranking in the top 3 on search, generating intent-based leads within a week of publication.
Meanwhile, anything written with AI?
❌ It doesn’t even rank.
❌ It generates no meaningful traffic or leads.
And that’s just one channel.
Soon, every type of marketing initiative, such as social posts, ads, articles, PDFs, and webinar scripts, will be classified as either human-made or AI-generated.
Even more ironically, AI itself will end up ranking the human content higher, putting those marketers right in front of the audience with buying intent.
Organic vs. Forced Integration of AI
AI is one of the most powerful inventions of this decade, but it’s also quietly creating a divide.
You now have two camps of professionals:
Those who are curious, focused on growth and self-education.
Those who stick to the comfortable routine—designer being a designer, copywriter being a copywriter, dev being a dev—doing the work the same way they’ve always done it, with no AI involved.
But we’re shifting into the era of Agentic AI—where senior professionals who’ve gone beyond the early adoption phase (like Dave) are learning how to use AI to double their output.
And then there’s the other camp—still completing project tasks at the same speed they did a year ago.
The Core Problem
Most people don’t look at their profession through the lens of opportunity.
Instead of expecting organizations to integrate AI—spending money on tools, pilots, and testing—the responsibility should shift to individual contributors.
Why? Because relevance and performance in 2025 will be your job to own.
A Simple Example
If you’re an SDR booking 10 meetings per month without AI, your target shouldn’t be to wait until your manager brings you a new tool. Your mindset should be:
“How can I book 20 meetings using AI?”
And it shouldn’t be your manager who comes in with a shiny new tool.
It should be you who finds it, tests it, and integrates it to improve your own performance.
Two Versions of the Same Scenario
Version 1 (The Forced Way):
An exec like me reads a cool post on LinkedIn → finds a promising AI tool → sends it to the team → the team is skeptical, doesn’t engage, and sees no value.
😩 No one’s happy.
Version 2 (The Organic Way):
A team member is struggling in a specific area → they search for a solution → test it → outperform last month’s results → share it with the team/manager.
🤩 Everyone’s happy.
Era of Honest Marketing
AI is quickly becoming the default search tool for many of us.
Ask yourself: how often do you search on Google or Bing vs. ChatGPT today?
Twelve months ago, my ratio was 70–30 in favor of Google. Now? It’s 95% ChatGPT or another AI tool—and the remaining 5% is mostly shopping. (Though even there, friends now tell me, “Why not just go straight to Shopify?”)
With this shift, we’re entering the era of open information—and honest marketing.
Hiding your pricing?
⚠️ Doesn’t work anymore.
Locking your API or proprietary tech behind a wall?
⚠️ Won’t put you at an advantage.
Today’s consumer doesn’t want to spend hours digging through blog posts.
They want the exact answer—and AI gives it to them instantly.
Before AI:
If I wanted to know appointment setting costs, I’d Google it. I’d land on a page that spends half the time explaining what appointment setting is, and if I scroll all the way to the bottom, I might find my answer.
With AI:
I get a clear, concise answer in the first sentence. No fluff. No SEO filler. Just the truth.
Use Case: Before AI vs. Now
Before AI:
We’d interview the client, search Google, and sometimes talk to prospects to understand the pain points of the ideal buyer and the value our client offers.
The result?
The data was often inconsistent or generic
Deeper insights required external experts
Messaging took longer to validate
Campaigns were often based on “what’s worked before” instead of what was tailored
Even effective tactics would hit quickly, then fizzle out as we cycled through ideas hoping to find a match
With AI:
We can now:
✅ Break down client case studies
✅ Match sub-industries with specific solutions
✅ Combine that with market growth trends
✅ Analyze buyer pain points and the exact language they use
✅ Personalize messaging for the entire buying committee (4–5 personas)
All of this happens using just a couple of AI tools and a solid framework.
The result?
A level of relevancy and personalization that was nearly impossible before.
But let’s be clear:
It still takes us about a month to build a robust strategy—and yes, it still involves multiple people.
AI doesn’t mean using tools like DeepSeek to click → “Generate Marketing Plan PDF.”
Instead, it means sourcing the right information through proprietary frameworks, and having the right experts to put it together.
See the difference?
You still need experienced humans to guide the process.
What’s the Future of AI Then?
It all comes down to how cycles in nature work.
“Well, that’s unexpected, Michael,” you might think.
But here’s the thing—over the last 30 years, builders were riding the bus.
It was extremely hard to build a product. But relatively easier to sell one.
With AI, that cycle is flipping.
We’ll soon live in a world where products are easier to build than ever before, but the challenge shifts—marketing and selling will become the hardest part.
My co-founder Vlad recently built a full product—60,000 lines of code—in just 2 days. And he has no coding background.
Here’s a Short Summary to Support My Hypothesis:
The gap between experienced marketers like “Dave” and beginners will continue to grow.
Experienced Daves will work more efficiently and take more market share, while others will struggle to differentiate.
Global brands will dominate:
Localized presence won’t matter as much.
People will choose to live and work wherever they want—lower taxes or greener trees will decide, not corporate HQs.
Goodbye New York.
In the era of honest marketing, whoever tells the better story wins:
Pricing is open and transparent.
You won’t gain higher margins from a clever salesperson negotiating a better deal.
Your offer will have to stand on its own.
Companies that know how to source and package their unique IP and client insights will be:
Seen as authority sources
Promoted by AI algorithms
Chosen by buyers who value signal over noise
How to Win in a Future Where AI Shapes Consumer Behavior
Invest in a senior, curious team.
Especially in marketing—hire experienced copywriters, paid ads specialists, SDRs, sellers, marketers, and more. Don’t focus on “optimizing” with shortcuts—build a team that’s built to learn and adapt.
Do the hard work now to develop your taste.
Taste in marketing isn’t built overnight. It comes from doing the reps—learning what works, what doesn’t, and why. Double down on marketing fundamentals.
Learn to source and package your proprietary data.
Your business generates unique insights from every client, deal, and campaign. Learn how to turn those into content, positioning, and thought leadership that others can’t replicate.
Your value proposition is not at risk—your offer is.
It’s no longer about hiding pricing or negotiating margins. Build a stronger offer at a better cost, and be confident enough to show your pricing. Now is the time to invest in delivery, not just acquisition.
Since even the top AI companies like Writer.com reinvent themselves every six months, as CEO May Habib says, I’m keeping the right to change my opinion on AI in six months too 😂
But for now, here’s what I know for sure:
You can win or lose with AI.
If you follow what I’ve written here—you’ll win.
Because these are the fundamentals—and fundamentals always win.
Thanks for reading this edition!