• Conductor’s AgentStack enables brands to scale AI-driven search visibility with turnkey agents and custom workflows.
• The platform supports Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) to ensure brands are present in AI-generated answers.

Conductor is now offering a new enterprise suite of native Large Language Models (LLM) apps, developer infrastructure, and turnkey agents, designed to help brands build, manage, and scale their visibility across AI-driven search experiences.

What used to require multiple searches, pages, and touchpoints now increasingly happens in a single interaction on LLM platforms like ChatGPT and Claude. The shift to artificial intelligence (AI) search has created a new discipline for brands: Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), the practice of ensuring your company is present, cited, and trusted in AI-generated answers. Brands are rapidly reallocating budget and resources toward AEO to secure visibility. Those who fail to invest risk becoming invisible.

Conductor’s AgentStack allows B2B marketers to deploy agentic workflows for AEO, at enterprise scale. Through Conductor’s APIs, MCP server, and LLM apps in ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot, enterprises and partners can power agents and applications.

Why AgentStack Is Needed

Conductor’s new suite is being offered as AI is reinventing how marketing technology is built and delivered. A new model is emerging: AI-powered agents that can be customized and deployed on demand. Instead of adapting workflows to pre-built software, teams and partners can build agentic systems and custom applications tailored to their exact needs.

“Once you connect Conductor’s MCP to your AI platform or deploy our native connectors, you can build a custom version of our application in a day,” said Seth Besmertnik, Co-Founder and CEO of Conductor, in a statement. “[This reduces] reporting time by 90% while improving output, 100x your ability to produce AI search-optimized content across emails, blog posts, and product pages. You’re only limited by your imagination. And even there, we help with use case libraries and skills guides.”

What B2B Marketing Teams Can Accomplish

Conductor has spent the last four years building the foundation for this new reality. Its unified data engine brings together the intent, content, and technical signals that determine discoverability across both AI systems and traditional search, all fully connected within a single software stack.

“Agents are only as powerful as the intelligence behind them,” said Wei Zheng, Chief Product Officer at Conductor. “Conductor brings together the signals that determine discoverability across AI systems and search engines. That intelligence is what enables agents to automate meaningful marketing work.”

B2B marketing teams now have the ability to generate automated board-ready presentations grounded in real AI visibility data, track brand sentiment across AI platforms in real time, and identify which topics competitors are winning in AI-driven answers. From there, they can optimize content to close those gaps in minutes. Technical teams can monitor whether AI crawlers can access key pages to ensure discoverability and resolve issues before performance is impacted.

Who is Using AgentStack

In addition to enterprise brands, leading agencies and technology providers, including Optimizely, Razorfish, Havas, and IBM, are already building on AgentStack for their clients.

“As AI agents become central to how enterprise marketing gets done, access to reliable, unified intelligence becomes essential,” said Alexis Zamkow, Global Offering Lead, Marketing Transformation at IBM. “Conductor’s agent infrastructure provides the data foundation needed to build systems that adapt in real time across AI-driven experiences.”

Additionally, AgentStack introduces Conductor’s first turnkey agents that combine proprietary AI search and content intelligence with a zero-configuration workflow, taking content teams from insight to published, optimized content in under three minutes, no prompt engineering or technical expertise required. Unlike other agent tools that force teams into complex interfaces, Conductors’ agents are the only turnkey solution built exclusively for AEO and content teams, delivered through a guided, point-and-click experience that makes enterprise AEO automation accessible from day one.

“We’re moving from a world where marketers optimize pages to one where systems optimize presence across AI experiences,” said Besmertnik. “Companies need an intelligence layer to power those systems. That’s the role Conductor is stepping into.”

The post Conductor Introduces AgentStack to Scale AI Search Visibility appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

• AI allows marketers to repurpose single live events into extensive libraries of targeted content, significantly extending the lifespan and reach of event messaging.
• By connecting event engagement data with multi-channel ABM campaigns, B2B marketers can turn trade shows into measurable drivers of pipeline creation and revenue.

Personalized and Efficient. That is the needle B2B marketers look to thread in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). AI has become a strategic initiative for those hosting both in-person and digital event as interactive event technologies are drivers to marketers who attend and participate as trade shows are a $15 billion market where 52% of business leaders say is their highest-ROI marketing channel.

This is happening as our 2026 B2B Trends Research Report found 89% of marketers report that evolving buyer behaviors and preferences are a top challenge, forcing a departure from traditional engagement models. Buyers now expect highly personalized, seamless, and digitally-native experiences. This shift requires marketers to invest in deeper data analysis and more sophisticated personalization tools to meet customers where they are. The days of one-size-fits-all campaigns are definitively over, replaced by a need for nuanced, account-specific strategies.

The value of face-to-face meetings compared with other business initiatives is remarkably strong— more than 70 percent say that events are either somewhat or significantly more valuable than other such initiatives, according to according to Northstar Meetings Group. Interactive event technologies is seen as a key to capitalizing on these meetings.

How AI Is Impacting Interactive Events

AI transforms conferences from passive learning experiences into personalized, highly efficient events for B2B marketers by utilizing predictive analytics for attendee targeting, generative AI for content creation, and AI concierges for real-time logistics.

“Events are shifting from one-time, isolated moments to integrated, always-on experiences within a broader go-to-market strategy,” said Keith Turco, Madison Logic CEO. “Marketers are under increased pressure to prove impact beyond attendance, which is driving a shift toward measurable pipeline contribution and buying group engagement.

“At the same time, there’s a growing recognition that a single attendee doesn’t represent a deal. The most successful event strategies are focused on engaging multiple stakeholders across the buying group before, during, and after the event.”

Detailing AI Use

Events a pivotal role in B2B growth strategies, with in-person and virtual gatherings, like hybrid roundtables and small-group meetings, gaining popularity. The events are being utilized to collect valuable first-party data, which is essential in today’s privacy-first marketing environment. American Express Global Business Travel’s 2026 Global Meetings and Events Forecast found AI is being used for event planning, attendee communications, during events, and for post-event evaluation. Top uses of AI include:

• Delivering AI-powered event apps (40%)
• Sponsor and attendee matchmaking (35%)
• Generating creative concepts and themes (34%)
• Content creation with tools like AI writing assistants (31%)
• Tracking attendee engagement (31%).

“AI will soon power much of what happens behind the curtain, acting as a critical assistant that helps event organizers reduce planning friction and enable more personalized face-to-face moments at scale,” said McNeel Keenan, vice president of product development at Cvent, told AMEX. “But even as technology advances, events will continue to be decidedly human. In fact, in an AI and tech-driven world, authentic connections will likely stand out even more.”

Current AI Uses at Conferences

The human touch was amplified by a Hilton survey that found 84 percent of attendees prefer in-person work events. While attendees seek authentic human connection, technology serves as a vital support system that enhances the overall experience. Today’s events deploy AI-driven tools that streamline logistics— from frictionless check-ins and personalized schedules to real-time communication via an events app.

Notably, 67 percent found AI helps personalize their experience by delivering tailored content recommendations, connecting them with like-minded professionals, and suggesting optimized networking opportunities. Two in three attendees report that AI-powered networking tools help them make meaningful connections more easily, while 65 percent express interest in AI assistants to help them prepare for meetings and navigate complex event agendas.

But beyond the content and personalization it provides, interactive event technologies impact the bottom line. Research from the Center for Exhibition Industry Research showed that interactive exhibits are 52% more likely attract attendees compared to traditional static displays. Booths incorporating gamified elements see 40% higher foot traffic with a three-minute interactive experience converts to lead capture at roughly 85%, compared to approximately 10% for a brief booth conversation.

How Does B2B Marketers Connect Event Engagement to Revenue?  

While event success previously was measured by surface-level metrics like registrations or attendance, AI enables a much deeper understanding of who engaged, how they engaged, and what that activity signals in terms of pipeline progression and deal readiness.

“With AI-powered insights, marketers can identify which accounts and buying group members are most likely to attend and convert, while also delivering more personalized engagement before and after the event,” said Turco.

Additionally, AI allows for automation to enable coordinated, behavior-driven outreach across channels without relying on manual follow-up— orchestrating a multi-channel ABM campaigns around events for example.

“Rather than relying on manual follow-up, marketers can trigger coordinated engagement across display, social, email, and content based on attendee behavior,” added Turco. “The result is a more connected view of ROI where events aren’t just a lead source, but a measurable driver of pipeline creation, acceleration, and revenue impact.”

Detailing Content Opportunities

AI integration is enhancing event experiences by automating insights from keynote speeches and repurposing them into content such as blogs and videos. At the same time, conversational AI and chatbots are revolutionizing customer engagement by addressing complex B2B queries.

The subject of his session at B2BMX 2026 and in their The 2026 Digital Engagement Benchmarks Report, On24’s Mark Bornstein VP, Marketing and Chief Evangelist detailed how marketing professionals consume content in shifting in a large way. Audiences are showing up in record numbers, but they demand personalization, interactivity, and always-on access. AI, automation, and content hubs are focused on buyers and delivering measurable ROI.

In 2025, the average webinar attracted 239 attendees, marking an 11% increase from the previous year with attendees stayed engaged for an average of 49 minutes. Total engagement per webinar jumped by 18%, generating over 400 unique interactions per session.

Repurposing Event Content

“You can capture this level of attention by integrating live polls, Q&A features, and downloadable resources directly into your event console,” said Bornstein. For example, the average webinar now sees 150 poll responses and 14 questions per session. These interactions provide valuable first-party data. as sales team can use these precise buying signals to tailor their follow-up and close deals faster.

Marketers are heavily adopting AI to repurpose their event content, having the ability to turn a single live event into a vast library of targeted assets, instantly transcribing webinars, summarizing key takeaways, and generating promotional clips.

The creation of all derivative content grew by 37% year over year— production of key moment video clips skyrocketed by 2.5X, while AI-generated blog posts and e-books increased by 2.4X, said Bornstein.

“AI and automation allow you to scale your output without sacrificing quality,” he said. “This automated workflow ensures your best ideas reach buyers across paid, earned, and owned media channels long after the live broadcast ends.”

How to Overcome the Challenges of Virtual Events

What started as a temporary workaround during the pandemic, hybrid and virtual event formats have evolved into a strategic advantage. These events give marketers the ability to scale reach, engage broader buying groups, and extend the lifespan of event content well beyond a single moment in time.

But, as Turco notes, the introduce new challenges— fragmented attention and the difficulty of sustaining meaningful engagement in digital environments. The event itself can no longer carry the full weight of engagement.

“That’s where a multi-channel ABM approach becomes essential,” he said. “Marketers can build awareness and drive registration through targeted pre-event campaigns, reinforce key messages during the event through complementary channels, and continue the conversation afterward by re-engaging both attendees and non-attendees with personalized follow-up.”

Another advantage is hybrid formats can unlock new opportunities to engage buying groups more holistically. Different stakeholders can interact in different ways with some attending in person, others virtually, and others through post-event content. “When orchestrated effectively, this expands internal alignment within target accounts and increases the likelihood of moving deals forward,” said Turco.

Why Personalization is a Priority

B2B marketers are consistently on the search to make their content more personalized. According to On24 officials, webinars featuring personalized offers saw a 118% increase in clicks and organizations using personalization generated four times as many meeting bookings per webinar.

To maximize ROI, Bornstein urged organization to implement interactive tools that capture first-party data during every live session. That data then can be fed into their MarTech to deliver hyper-relevant content hubs.

“Stop treating your webinars as isolated activities,” said Bornstein. “Start viewing them as the foundation of an intelligent, always-on campaign.”

The Data-ABM Connection That Conferences Provide

To achieve results, data needs to be treated as the foundation of modern event strategy. The most effective marketers are using data not just to report on events, but to design them by shaping everything from who gets invited to how each interaction is experienced.

“By leveraging account-level and buying group insights, marketers can prioritize the right accounts, tailor messaging to specific roles within the buying group, and personalize event experiences based on known interests and past engagement,” said Turco. “This ensures that every touchpoint feels relevant and intentional, rather than one-size-fits-all.”

Data becomes even more powerful when paired with a multi-channel ABM approach. For example, if only one stakeholder from a target account attends an event, that engagement doesn’t have to exist in isolation. Data can inform how to extend personalized follow-up to the rest of the buying group, effectively amplifying the impact of that single interaction across the account.

“Ultimately, data-driven decision-making enables marketers to move beyond generic event experiences and toward highly relevant, account-centric engagement strategies that drive stronger pipeline outcomes,” said Madison Logic’s CEO.

What is Working on Conference Floors

Walk on any trade show floor and you will see booths incorporating virtual reality games, motion simulators, and branded interactive installations that can be deployed at scale. Interactive booth games are the primary mechanism through which exhibitors capture prospect data. The average cost per lead at a trade show is $112, compared to $259 for a traditional field sales call.

This matters because 81% of trade show attendees arrive with buying authority. Two-thirds are entirely new prospects that exhibitors have not previously reached. When trade show booth games convert those attendees into registered leads at rates approaching 95% for the most engaging formats like racing simulators, the channel starts to look less like marketing and more like a sales pipeline with better conversion rates than most digital campaigns.

The results have encouraged a wider market to follow— 61% of exhibitors now prioritize personalization in their booth experiences, and 57% use digital business cards or QR codes to streamline contact exchange-both indicators that the trade show floor has moved decisively toward technology-driven engagement.

Driving Stronger Pipeline Outcomes

Turco stressed that first-party event data is one of the most valuable assets marketers have, but its true impact depends on how effectively it’s activated after the event. The most successful marketers treat event data not as a static output, but as a catalyst for ongoing engagement. Importantly, even limited engagement can be expanded into broader influence across the buying group.

“By mapping attendee behavior back to accounts and buying groups, marketers gain a more complete view of deal context and can tailor follow-up based on engagement levels, interests, and stage in the buyer journey,” said Turco. “This allows for more relevant, personalized outreach that continues the conversation rather than restarting it.”

Using those signals to guide outreach to additional decision-makers helps amplify the event’s impact within the account. Over time, these insights inform future strategies—. understanding which accounts engaged, what content resonated, and how buying groups interacted enables marketers to continuously refine their approach. Interactive event technologies tuns events into an ongoing source of intelligence that drives stronger pipeline outcomes.

The post Why AI is the Ultimate Tool for B2B Event Marketers appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

Within this guide on how the modern fan engages, you can make sure your brand:

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Gartner research shows the shift is impossible to ignore. Roughly half of B2B buyers already use independent generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude to gather information about potential suppliers early in the buying journey. If your brand does not show up in those answers, you are not just ranking lower. You are being removed from consideration altogether.

This is why answer engine optimization, or AEO, has moved from an experimental tactic to a core CMO mandate.

AI Answer Engines Are the New Front Door

B2B buyers ask AI answer engines questions that are broader and more complex than traditional search queries. They want to understand capabilities, pricing ranges, deployment requirements and industry fit in a conversational interface. Answer engines respond by synthesizing information from brand content, social platforms, forums and third-party sites. The result is an answer box that effectively prequalifies vendors before sales ever hears from the account.

The opportunity is obvious. AI-powered answer engines can become a powerful new channel for brand visibility and demand generation. The risk is equally stark. When brands do not provide clear, structured and current information, AI systems fill in the gaps. That often means hallucinated pricing, outdated capabilities or incomplete explanations that misalign buying groups before the first sales call.

In this environment, traditional SEO alone is insufficient. CMOs must retool content strategies around how AI systems discover, interpret and present information.

AEO Requires a Different Content Mindset

One of the most important implications of answer engines is that AEO is not just SEO with a new label. These systems favor content that is explicit, well structured and directly responsive to buyer questions. They also place heavy weight on authoritative brand sources.

This changes how content teams should operate. Instead of optimizing pages around keywords, marketers must optimize around questions. What are buyers asking at the earliest stages of their journey? What language do they use when they talk to sales, website chatbots or peers in online communities? Those questions should become the backbone of FAQs, product pages and thought leadership.

Equally important is how those answers are delivered. Structured data, particularly JSON-LD markup, plays a critical role in making content understandable to AI systems. Without proper tagging, even the best answers may never surface in an AI response.

Productive Calls to Action are Risk Mitigation Tools

A common fear among B2B marketers is that AI answers will reduce direct engagement with brands. The reality is more nuanced.

Most B2B buyers still want to validate AI generated information with a human sales representative. Buyers whose first interaction with a supplier is to learn more about offerings or capabilities are more likely to report a high quality deal. The implication is clear. AI visibility can drive better leads if marketers guide buyers toward follow up.

That is where productive calls to action come in. Embedding reminders and recommended next steps directly into content can make a measurable difference. Examples include encouraging buyers to confirm specifications with a sales representative or to use a pricing calculator for a tailored estimate. These calls to action reduce the risk of an AI answer engine surfacing misinformation while nudging buyers into a direct relationship with the brand.

Pricing Transparency is No Longer Optional

Few shifts will make CMOs more uncomfortable than the push for greater pricing transparency. Many B2B organizations have historically avoided publishing pricing, relying instead on sales conversations to manage complexity.

Answer engines do not respect that boundary. When pricing information is absent, AI systems attempt to infer it from other sources. The result is often inaccurate ranges that set unrealistic expectations and derail deals. Publishing ranges for common configurations or offering visible price calculators gives AI systems something accurate to reference. It also ensures that buying groups approach sales with more realistic assumptions.

For CMOs, this requires close collaboration with sales, finance and product leaders. It is a business change driven by external buyer behavior, not a marketing preference.

Marketing Cannot win AEO Alone

Building answer engine friendly content requires deep insight into buyer personas, product capabilities and real world use cases.

Creating a centralized AEO focused team led by marketing but supported by sales, service and product can help address this gap. This group should audit existing content, remove outdated material, identify gaps and ensure consistent structured markup across the site. It should also monitor how answer engines represent the brand and flag inaccuracies quickly.

New success metrics are required as well. Beyond traffic and rankings, CMOs should track answer engine citation rates, brand mentions, sales reported lead quality and engagement with configuration or pricing tools. These signals provide early feedback on whether AEO investments are improving buyer conversion.

The CMO Mandate for 2026

AI powered answer engines are already shaping how B2B buyers learn, compare and decide. Nearly half of buyers are relying on these tools across multiple stages of the journey. That makes AEO a board level risk, not a niche optimization tactic.

CMOs who act now can turn that risk into an advantage. By rebuilding content around buyer questions, embracing structured data, improving pricing transparency and aligning tightly with sales and product, marketing leaders can win AI answer engines  and the buyer’s business.

Those who wait will discover that in the age of AI answers, invisibility is the most expensive outcome of all.

Nicholas Mortensen and Martin DeWitt are experts in the Gartner Marketing Practice, specializing in B2B marketing and digital marketing performance.  Learn more about AEO strategies at the Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo, June 8-10, 2026 in Denver, Colo.

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• Content marketing roles are polarizing between hands-on creators and senior growth leaders.
• Data literacy and storytelling are now top-tier requirements for content professionals.

A recent Semrush job listings study shows content roles polarizing between hands on creators and senior growth owners.

The authors of the report offered that an analysis of 8,000 U.S. content marketing job listings shows a profession in the middle of a structural shift as companies are no longer hiring content marketers just to produce assets. They want them to own visibility across search and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven discovery, control the narrative, and, most importantly, prove business impact.

The report found that execution heavy roles now make up 34% of listings. At the same time, traditional mid-level generalist titles have dropped sharply— “Content Marketing Manager” postings dropped by 73% compared to three years earlier, and “Content Marketing Specialist” down 74%.

Meanwhile, senior ownership roles are surging. “Head of Content Marketing” postings grew by 376%, and “VP of Content” increased by 308%. Overall, senior leadership titles expanded between 300% and 375%.

Analytics, Storytelling A Primary Requirement

Data literacy and narrative skills are now the top-tier requirements for content professionals. Analytics appears in 40% of leadership listings and 36% of other positions. This indicates that companies prioritize content marketers who can make data-driven decisions, according to Semrush officials.

Storytelling has surged to become a top-three requirement for senior content roles. Narrative expertise now appears in 29% of senior postings—up from just 8% in 2023— signaling a growing expectation that content leaders own messaging, positioning, and narrative direction.

When comparing the data to their 2023 findings, the requirement for “Writing” fell by 28% in execution-level roles, while “Content Creation” rose by 209%. This suggests that employers are looking for multimedia creators who can produce content across various formats.

AI Literacy Required

The distribution of responsibilities in content marketing job listings is aligned with the key marketing skills, focusing on performance analysis, PR, and storytelling. Data collection and analysis is the most frequent responsibility for senior content roles as the responsibility appears in 42% of senior listings, representing a 369% increase since 2023. For non-senior positions, it grew by 818%— appearing in 37% of job listings.

Workflow automation has emerged as a codified requirement. “Automate workflows” is now explicitly listed as a responsibility in 13-17% of all content roles. Based on the comparison with 2023 data, this task grew by 766% for execution roles.

AI proficiency is quickly becoming a core expectation for content professionals, with 34% of senior job listings and nearly 20% of execution-level roles mentioning “AI.” Mentions of “LLM” and “general AI familiarity” appear in 7% of senior roles and 5% of non-senior roles. The data reveals other emerging specialized categories:

• AI Search & SEO 2.0: Listings mentioning SGE, AEO, or AI Search account for 2% of senior roles and 1.5% of others. This reflects the push to adapt content for AI search.
• AI content creation: While currently a smaller percentage (0.8% and 0.6% respectively), the inclusion of this skill shows that AI-assisted content production is becoming part of content marketing work.
• Prompt engineering: Though often discussed as a “job of the future,” it currently appears in less than 0.5% of listings. This may indicate prompt engineering hasn’t been formalized as a standalone requirement yet.

Remote Work Options Grow

Content marketing salaries rose sharply across both senior and non-senior roles as as median pay has increased by 54% for senior positions and 29% for other roles since 2023, reflecting higher baseline compensation as content work takes on more strategic responsibility. Executive compensation is reaching record highs. While the maximum reached $840,000, likely reflecting equity or global scope, the median of $161,500 better represents typical senior compensation.

Remote work options have grown steadily since 2023, while the majority of content marketing roles remain in-house. About 31% of senior and non-senior positions are now advertised as remote, up from roughly 24% in 2023.

In-house roles remain the primary format but show lower growth. While roughly 69% of listings are for in-house positions, these grew by only 3% since 2023. Senior roles are increasingly advertised as remote as the 25% increase shows that high-level management and strategic roles are being offered with flexible location options more frequently.

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• 96% of B2B companies are invisible in AI-driven buyer discovery, appearing only in late-stage queries.
• AI visibility requires structured data, authority signals, and proactive management of AI crawlers and community sentiment.

2X, a subscription-based go-to-market services partner for B2B organizations,  2026 2X AI Visibility Index reveals that most companies are effectively invisible during the earliest stages of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven buyer discovery.

Currently, only 4.3% of companies maintain a healthy discovery funnel where their brands appear in early-stage buyer questions, according ot the index. The remaining 95.7% appear primarily in queries where buyers already know the company name— meaning they are largely absent from the AI-generated answers increasingly shaping vendor shortlists.

The research was conducted by the 2X AI Innovation Lab, a research and development initiative focused on operationalizing AI across go-to-market (GTM) functions. The inaugural index analyzed 70 B2B companies to understand how brands appear across generative AI environments used by buyers to research vendors and solutions.

The Necessity of AI Visibility

As generative AI becomes a primary research tool for business buyers, companies that fail to appear in AI-generated answers risk losing influence before a sales conversation ever begins, said Lisa Cole, Chief Marketing, Product & AI Officer at 2X.

“CMOs are waking up to a hard truth: you can’t manage what you don’t show up for,” said Cole in a statement. “AI is increasingly shaping perception, trust, and vendor shortlists. If your brand isn’t present in those conversations, you’re effectively invisible to a growing portion of the market.”

Most Brands Are Invisible in Discovery 

The 2X AI Visibility Index benchmarks how often B2B brands appear in generative AI responses across the buyer journey, from early discovery questions to purchase validation queries. The index measures both a company’s technical readiness for AI discovery and the authority signals that influence whether AI systems recommend a brand in response to buyer prompts.

Data from the 2X AI Visibility Index shows that most organizations now operate with what researchers describe as an “inverted discovery funnel.” Instead of appearing early when buyers are exploring solutions, most companies surface only in later-stage queries where the buyer already knows the brand or category.

This pattern suggests that many organizations are losing influence during the most important stages of the buying journey when needs are being defined, categories are being explored, and vendor shortlists are being formed.

Structural Blind Spots Undermining AI Visibility

“Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping how B2B buyers discover solutions,” said Will Waugh, Executive Director of the 2X AI Innovation Lab. “General brand awareness is no longer enough. If AI systems don’t recognize your brand as an authoritative answer to buyer questions, you risk losing opportunities before sales teams even know the deal exists.”

The research identified technical and authority gaps that suppress AI visibility, including missing or incomplete structured data, blocked or unmanaged AI crawlers, weak third-party review ecosystems, limited independent citations across the open web, and unmanaged community sentiment on platforms such as Reddit.

The 2X AI Visibility Index segments companies into four stages of AI visibility maturity based on readiness, authority, and discoverability:

• Authority Leaders — companies with strong technical readiness and deep authority signals that consistently appear in AI-generated answers.
• Strong Contenders — organizations with strong visibility and readiness but less comprehensive authority signals.
• Paradoxical & Niche Players — companies with fragmented brand authority or strong visibility within narrow domains.
• Emerging & Lagging — organizations with significant gaps in both readiness and discoverability.

Study Conclusion

Together, the findings point to a new strategic reality for B2B marketing leaders: the buyer journey is increasingly shaped by AI-generated answers long before a human interaction occurs.

“AI models don’t care about org charts or market caps,” Waugh added. “They respond to clarity, consistency, and corroboration across the open web. Companies that don’t adapt their digital presence for AI risk handing narrative control to competitors and sometimes to their critics.”

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Buyers are not just researching differently; they are evaluating and shortlisting differently and increasingly deciding before sales reps ever enter the conversation. Sales teams are losing early-stage influence. Pricing power is shifting. Vendor differentiation is happening algorithmically, and the top of the funnel is tightening rapidly.

The implications for Chief Revenue Officers (CRO) and Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) are profound. A recent multi-industry survey confirms what many commercial leaders have sensed anecdotally: traditional sales motions are being displaced by an AI-accelerated, increasingly self-service buying process.

The Rise of AI Usage

In fact, 60% of buyers use AI moderately or extensively when researching potential solutions and 43% of buyers say AI has saved 30% or more of their time in discovery and qualification.

CROs and CMOs that adapt quickly will shape buying journeys in their favor; those that do not risk being excluded before conversations ever begin. Following are the four commercial imperatives that demand immediate action and what CMOs and CROs need to do to meet them.

Engineer Your Digital Footprint for AI Discovery

 If AI can’t interpret you clearly, it won’t recommend you. The test executives can use to determine how they are faring with this is to look at when AI summarizes your category, does your perspective shape the answer?

 Here’s what CMOs and CROs need to do:

• Restructure websites, case studies, pricing pages, and technical documentation so AI systems can easily ingest, analyze, and synthesize them – including proprietary research, named frameworks, and proof points.
• Make positioning explicit and declarative. Remove ambiguity in how you describe your category, differentiation, and ideal customer profile.
• Strengthen authority signals through consistent thought leadership, backlinks, and AEO driven formatting to increase AI citation likelihood.
• Conduct quarterly AI mystery shopping to assess how generative engines describe you versus competitors and close narrative gaps immediately.

Win the First Five Minutes

In an AI-accelerated buying cycle, speed and substance determine inclusion. The new standard means that the first touch must advance the buyer’s thinking.

 Here’s what CMOs and CROs need to do:

• Redesign lead management to achieve best-in-class response times (five minutes or less) – with real-time measurement and accountability.
• Ensure the first human interaction adds insight, not friction. AI-sourced leads expect expertise, not qualification scripts.
• Equip SDRs with AI tools to instantly contextualize the buyer, personalize outreach, pre-qualify intelligently, and route precisely.
• Elevate frontline technical fluency through training and revised coverage models; introduce SMEs earlier where it materially accelerates trust and deal velocity.

Remove Friction from the Buying Experience

 If buyers can research faster, they expect to purchase faster. The commercial reality is that speed and simplicity are increasingly competitive advantages.

 Here’s what CMOs and CROs need to do:

• Compress internal decision cycles – streamline pricing approvals, legal review, and contract negotiation.
• Simplify packaging, terms, and onboarding to reduce perceived risk and time-to-value.
• Deploy interactive ROI models, configurators, and AI-driven demo walkthroughs – now table stakes in competitive categories.
• Audit every stage of the buying journey for latency, redundancy, and unnecessary internal complexity.

Make Pricing AI-Resilient and Strategically Defensible

AI is increasingly interpreting and comparing your pricing model before a rep ever engages.  The question executives should ask themselves to determine how they are faring with this is if AI is reinforcing your premium (or undermining it) when it explains your pricing to a buyer.

 Here’s what CMOs and CROs need to do:

• Clarify competitive advantage and differentiation in ways that are explicit, structured, and machine interpretable.
• Simplify pricing architecture to ensure it is benchmark-aligned, value-backed, and easy to explain – both by sellers and by AI systems.
•  Evaluate outcome-based or hybrid pricing structures where they reinforce strategic positioning.
• Align pricing tightly to your core value drivers; ambiguity will be exposed and commoditized.

AI has abruptly and fundamentally reshaped the B2B buying journey. Buyers research more, shortlist differently, evaluate faster, expect transparency, and require higher-value interactions from reps. Sales organizations that respond proactively, redesigning content, tools, pricing, and capabilities, will thrive. Those that do not will increasingly lose deals before conversations ever begin.

Michael Smith is the Senior Managing Director – Technology, Media & Telecom Practice Leader at Blue Ridge Partners. Michael has over 35 years of experience helping companies accelerate revenue growth and develop winning sales strategies. Previously, Michael worked at McKinsey & Company and in multiple corporate executive operating roles running businesses and sales teams. Michael received his MBA from Stanford University and lives in the Boston, Massachusetts area.

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• 5W PR’s program integrates PR, SEO, and content strategies to enhance B2B lead generation and brand influence.
• Tailored solutions focus on bridging PR narratives with digital performance for measurable success.

5W PR recently introduced a new digital growth program specifically designed for B2B companies seeking scalable, integrated digital, and PR strategies.

This program aims to help businesses in the technology, enterprise solutions, and professional services sectors accelerate lead generation, boost competitive positioning, and enhance brand influence in an increasingly noisy marketplace.

The digital growth program combines 5W’s established capabilities in B2B digital marketing, generative engine optimization (GEO), SEO, content creation, thought leadership, and public relations into a cohesive growth engine.

Why 5W PR is Expanding

Matthew Caiola, CEO of 5W, said key components of the program include strategic planning for product launches, content optimized for search engines, LLMs, and decision-maker needs, storytelling frameworks that elevate brand narratives, performance analytics to measure lead conversion, and continuous feedback loops to refine messaging.

“B2B companies need more than visibility; they need credibility and precision,” said Caiola, in a statement. “With our digital growth program, we’re giving clients smarter ways to communicate, engage, and grow with measurable success.”

B2B Tech Space Leadership

The program will emphasize bridging the gap between narrative-driven PR and digital performance. By integrating PR efforts, especially for product launches, industry thought leadership, and reputation building, with content, GEO, and SEO strategies optimized for B2B tech, 5W is focused on delivering a solution that helps clients move from awareness to consideration to conversion.

The digital growth program leverages data and trend insights to ensure content resonates with current B2B buying behavior, which includes a preference for informative educational content, authoritative voices, and proof points. Whether a startup seeking to establish credibility or a mature tech firm aiming to expand reach and influence, clients will receive bespoke programs tailored to their goals, audience, and market position, said 5W officials.

The launch reinforces 5W’s commitment to evolving alongside the B2B tech space, adapting to new digital norms, and helping clients not just keep up, but lead, said Caiola.

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• Target specific decision-makers and hidden stakeholders instead of relying on broad account-level outreach. 
• Eliminate sales latency by synchronizing marketing and sales efforts to deliver personalized educational content at the precise moment of need. 

Account-based marketing (ABM) requires precision, intelligence, and a deep understanding of human behavior. At B2B Marketing Exchange (B2BMX) 2026, powered by Advertising Week, LiveRamp’s Ed Vander Bush and Influ2’s Doug Madey discussed the importance of focusing  marketing efforts on the right individuals. By treating key buyers as the main characters of your outreach, B2B marketers can drive unparalleled revenue growth and foster meaningful business connections.

Understanding the buyer’s journey forms the foundation of any successful account-based marketing strategy, the two stated.. As buyers move from initial awareness into deep consideration, their needs and expectations shift dramatically. Marketers must map these stages meticulously to ensure they provide relevant information exactly when the prospect requires it.

Buyer Journey and Personas

Personas play an equally critical role in this progression. Targeting an entire account often dilutes the message, whereas focusing on specific individuals allows you to tailor your communication to the distinct pain points of the decision-makers. This contact-level approach transforms generic outreach into valuable, consultative engagement.

Reflecting on this need for precise targeting, Vander Bush noted, “It really comes down to understanding not only the account, but the person on the other side of the process.”

Challenges in the Buying Process

Modern B2B purchasing decisions rarely happen in a vacuum, presenting significant challenges for sales and marketing teams. Buyers conduct extensive independent research, meaning that by the time they finally reach out for a meeting, they have often already finalized their decision. This dynamic forces revenue teams to engage prospects much earlier in the evaluation phase.

Another major hurdle is the presence of hidden stakeholders who influence the final decision but remain invisible within your CRM. When sales representatives execute unexpected outreach without understanding the full buying group, they risk alienating these unseen decision-makers. Navigating this complexity requires gathering deeper contact-level insights.

“Having been recently on the buying side, I was surprised by hidden stakeholders within my own company ” noted Vander Bush. “Colleagues who brought real, important perspectives to the table that become completely invisible if we were to try to reduce the buying journey to the account level.”

Latency and Orchestration in Sales

Latency in the sales process occurs when representatives react to outdated signals and reach out too late. Relying solely on account-level intent data often creates a lag, causing sellers to miss the critical window of opportunity when the prospect is actively seeking solutions. Eliminating this delay is essential for maintaining momentum in the deal cycle.

Vander Bush emphasized the importance of this alignment, stating, “Too often, we align around the real problem too late, waiting for a sufficient ‘score’ rather than orchestrating marketing and sales together around the signals that reveal what real people are trying to achieve as they move through the customer journey.”

To address the latency problem, revenue teams must master the orchestration of relevant materials. Serving the right content at the precise moment requires marketing and sales to operate in total alignment, moving beyond siloed activities. This synchronized effort ensures that the buyer receives continuous value without aggressive, premature sales pitches.

Personalization and Content Strategy

A robust content strategy relies heavily on personalization to drive internal consensus within target accounts. Vander Bush highlighted a case study involving a global brand where an internal champion recognized the immense value of a data clean room. However, this champion struggled to secure the necessary buy-in from skeptical colleagues across different departments.

Instead of aggressively pushing for more sales meetings, the team deployed a highly personalized content strategy. They distributed targeted educational videos designed specifically to provide thought leadership of those hesitant internal stakeholders. This strategic distribution of content naturally multi-threaded the account, elevating the conversation and ultimately leading to increased attendance at pivotal sales meetings.

“This wasn’t a time for a traditional multithreading strategy,” stated Vander Bush. “This was the time to put really well-timed, relevant educational content in front of those contacts our champion was trying to sell internally. That effort led to those contacts leaning in and asking to join the next call, because as their knowledge grew, so did their understanding of the potential business value of a clean room.”

Attribution and Campaign Impact

Proving the impact of targeted campaigns remains a persistent attribution problem for B2B marketers. Standard dashboards often fail to capture how specific marketing touches influence individual buyers over time. Accurately measuring this engagement is vital for demonstrating how ABM moves prospects further down the sales funnel. This is where taking a contact-level approach to your ABM program helps, because you can’t tailor the next message if you don’t know who engaged with what. There’s no context on which topic landed—or whether anything changed.

Such engagement can be measured at various points of the customer journey, even while performing different functions. For example, personalized messaging can serve as a powerful tool to overcome stubborn gatekeepers who block access to decision makers. By deploying the right level of personalization, you can bypass these barriers and deliver compelling arguments directly to the people holding the budget. This level of precision transforms stalled opportunities into active deals. Engagement that speaks directly to the attribution and impact of the campaign.

Vander Bush illustrated this impact with a real-world example: “I worked with a seller trying to close an end-of-quarter deal who was being blocked from everyone who needed to sign. Coming into that conversation, we were able to show how those stakeholders were already engaging, which opened the door to collaborating. We spent 20 minutes over Slack and hammered out a plan to deliver that personalized messaging to the right people.”

Collaboration Provides Results

The synergy between marketing and sales dictates the overall success of any account-based strategy, noted Vander Bush. Delivering personalized, relevant content requires both teams to share insights seamlessly and understand the buyer’s point of view.

When revenue teams collaborate effectively, they empower internal champions to advocate for their solutions with confidence.

“Understanding the buyer’s perspective fundamentally changes how you approach content creation and sales outreach,” he said. “Showing true value and relevance to stakeholders transforms your brand from a vendor into a trusted strategic partner. Delivering with empathy and specialized knowledge drive these engagements forward.”

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What used to be considered the final stage of the funnel— advocacy— has quietly become one of the primary drivers of discovery, trust, and pipeline growth.

Why Advocacy Matters Now

Two structural shifts are making advocacy central in B2B marketing:

Hidden buyers wield decisive influence. Buying committees increasingly include various stakeholders, including finance, legal, procurement, and operations, who rarely meet sales reps but influence vendor selection.

Many stakeholders say thought leadership is more persuasive than product sheets, and over 79% are more likely to champion a vendor with consistent, high-quality ideas. What’s more, over 40% of deals stall due to internal misalignment, which is often driven by these silent influencers.

Discovery is shifting toward AI + third-party proof. AI-driven search is changing how B2B buyers research and shortlist vendors. According to G2’s 2025 Buyer Behavior Report, leads that originate through AI-powered search convert approximately 40% better than those from traditional search engines, primarily because buyers encounter credible, third-party content earlier in the journey.

This evolution highlights a larger truth: advocacy must exist where research actually happens. The most persuasive proof points are increasingly discovered on neutral ground. Buyers are looking at review platforms, community discussions, and practitioner-authored content long before they reach a brand’s website.

Three Advocacy Engines B2B Organizations Can Scale

1. Customer Communities That Deliver Value (and Reduce Cost)

Communities should not be treated as engagement tools alone. When structured effectively, they generate long-term ROI across support, adoption, upsell, and advocacy.

Cisco’s partnership with Khoros is a good example: over their first year, engineers published 47% more content internally, community interactions drove over 1 million annual views, and the program delivered approximately $54.2 million in case deflection savings. Mature community programs are shifting focus from vanity metrics (posts, users) to business outcomes (deflection, retention, engagement).

Tactical moves:

• Stimulate “how-we-fixed-it” threads contributed by customers and internal experts
• Surface accepted answers, highlight best practices, and integrate these into onboarding, product documentation, and training
• Track deflection rates, time-to-first-answer, usage lift, and expansion signals

2. Peer Proof on Platforms Buyers Trust

Trust increasingly forms outside of brand-owned channels. Decision-makers rely on independent, experience-based sources. Review platforms, practitioner communities, and peer content often guide vendor selection.

Demand Gen Report’s 2024 B2B Buyer’s Survey highlights that discerning buyers increasingly rely on peer reviews and in-depth research as trusted guidance in purchase decisions. These findings point to a consistent pattern: credibility is earned on neutral ground. Buyers place greater weight on what peers and practitioners say about a solution than on what the vendor claims about itself.

Tactical moves:

• Treat reviews as a structured, ongoing program rather than one-time requests.
• Keep third-party profiles current with recent customer quotes, screenshots, and implementation details.
• Reuse authentic peer feedback in enablement content—always linking back to its verified, external source.

3. Employee & SME Advocacy That Reaches Hidden Buyers

Thought leadership remains one of the few credible routes into parts of an organization where sales lacks access. Even small adjustments to employee-shared content can boost reach dramatically.

Tactical moves:

• Issue a monthly advocacy brief with three credible themes (customer story, data, contrarian insight)
• Provide lightweight framing rather than scripts, and encourage personalization
• Track reach, engagement, and account-level influence

Building an Advocacy System, Not Just Tactics

• Design mutual value exchange.
  • For customers: offer visibility, early access, roadmap influence, expert forums
  • For employees: offer recognition, guardrails, support, and training
• Make advocacy easy. Toolkit components might include business-case one-pagers, compliance/security FAQs, comparison visuals, and internal champion scripts.
• Break down silos. Let best community content feed into knowledge bases, reviews, case studies, and SME insights. Enable CSMs and product leaders to nominate strong customer stories.
• Measure what matters. Go beyond engagement metrics. Tie advocacy to account coverage (which ICP accounts have an engaged advocate?), toolkits downloaded, review velocity, and SME reach by role. Emphasize outcomes over activity counts.

What to Report (and Benchmark)

Case deflection & cost savings (modeled or actual)

Engaged-account coverage: percent of target accounts with at least one advocate touchpoint

Champion enablement metrics: downloads/shares of toolkits, internal referrals

Review velocity & depth: number of reviews per quarter, recency, qualitative depth

SME influence on hidden buyers: impressions, engagements, internal advocacy contributions

A 60-Day Advocacy Launch Plan

Final Thought

As buying journeys become more distributed and AI surfaces more third-party insight, the companies that grow fastest will be those that build credible ecosystems of proof. Advocacy is no longer simply about retention or customer satisfaction. It is a scalable demand engine that influences discovery, accelerates consensus inside buying groups, and reinforces trust at every stage of the decision process.

Cynthia Ortiz is a Marketing Program Coordinator for Televerde, a global revenue creation partner supporting marketing, sales, and customer success for B2B businesses around the world. A purpose-built company, Televerde believes in second-chance employment and strives to help disempowered people find their voice and reach their human potential.

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