The AI-Driven Present of B2B Marketing

Two years ago, if someone told me they used AI to write adtech marketing content, I would’ve been skeptical.

Back then, AI outputs were mediocre at best. The best marketers weren’t using it. Why would they? They could do better from scratch.

Now, if a marketer told me they weren’t using AI at all, I’d consider them out of touch.

This isn’t a hypothetical future anymore. It’s the present.

AI doesn’t generate decent content. I’ve graded papers, written a doctoral thesis, edited many journalists, and ghostwritten for the smartest people in adtech. I’d bet AI is better than 90% of writers.

So the question isn’t “Will AI change marketing?” The question is “What do we do now that it already has?” How should your expectations change? How should you change your team?

Here’s how I’m thinking about it.

1. Ask your top performers what you, AI, and they can achieve together.

Viant co-founder Chris Vanderhook said something to me last week that stuck (paraphrasing):

“There was a utopian take that AI would level the playing field. But it’s the top performers who are using it most, so the productivity gap is just widening.”

Of course they are. People obsessed with output and quality aren’t threatened by AI — they’re leveraging it to produce even more (and more quickly at that).

So don’t cut your best marketers. Ask them how they’re using AI — they should have an answer. And ask them how they can use it to your mutual benefit. For example, can we produce more content? Can we produce different kinds of content? Can we ramp up the speed of production?

For example, there’s now no excuse for the inability to respond to a breaking news item. A great marketer can now craft a strong post in response to breaking news in minutes.

Top marketers aren’t shying away from AI. They’re using it to increase their impact. The people who employ marketers should be thinking about it the same way.

2. Judge marketers on output, not time spent on tasks.

Time was always a bad proxy for value in marketing. Some people can create something great in one hour. Others take five and still miss the mark. Why would you pay the second person 5x?

AI just made that dynamic impossible to ignore.

I can now write a great article in well under an hour. Not because I’m sacrificing quality — I’m producing better content faster than ever before. Other people who were always slow and are slow to adopt AI may still take five hours to produce a mediocre article. 

Judge marketers on output, not time spent. Is the blog excellent? Great — doesn’t matter how they produced it. They did it in 20 minutes using AI? Even better. 

I employ marketers. I now expect them to do everything faster. I encourage you to ask the same — and if you want to make cuts, cut people who can’t use AI to meet this rising bar.

3. Focus on what transcends AI: strategy, relationships, taste.

If AI can automate content production — and it can — how do you spot the marketers still delivering outsize value?

Three things:

Strategy: Not just what to say, but how to say it and where. That includes knowing when to throw out the 2005 marketing playbook and build a new distribution model (wink, wink).

Relationships: With CEOs, influencers, and journalists, which leads to press coverage, partnerships, and real-time intelligence about what matters and how to stand out.

Taste: AI can churn out endless content. But only great marketers can tell what’s good, tweak it fast, and transform a riff into a resonant argument.

Here’s how that plays out:

Last week I met with two C-level execs. I helped them choose the right issues to comment on and shaped their ideas. One of them said (sorry, this era calls for shamelessness):

“Wow, Joe, you’re so good at turning my ramblings into an argument.”

That’s the value.

Not just writing, which now takes minutes. But knowing what to say, why it matters, and how to make it land.

Now that the legwork is automated, you don’t need more marketers, just better ones. The ones who bring strategy, relationships, and taste — and use AI to move faster without losing the plot.

The Bar Has Risen. Great Marketers Will Rise With It.

AI didn’t make great marketers obsolete. It made average marketers impossible to justify. And it will make outstanding marketers a whole lot better.

Don’t stick your head in the sand on AI whether you’re a marketer or someone who employs marketers. Ask whether your marketers know how to use it — and what they can build with it once they do.