Leading Sales and Marketing in the AI Era
A New Go-to-Market Playbook for B2B Growth
B2B sales and marketing are entering their most significant transformation since the rise of digital. AI is no longer an efficiency layer or an experimental add-on; it’s becoming the primary interface between buyers and brands.
What’s changing isn’t just how teams execute, but where demand is created, how decisions are influenced, and who controls discovery.
Leading analysts are already clear on this direction. In its recent work on AI agents in B2B sales, Boston Consulting Group outlines a future where AI doesn’t just support sales teams – it actively runs workflows, orchestrates engagement, and connects signals across the revenue engine. The implication is clear: B2B leaders must rethink their entire go-to-market model, not just adopt new tools.
At DemandGen, we see this shift every day. The brands winning in this new environment are those redesigning their strategies around AI-mediated buyer behaviour, not legacy funnels.
The Buyer Has Moved Beyond Google
For years, B2B demand generation was built on a simple assumption: buyers search, click, compare, and convert. That assumption no longer holds.
Today, buyers increasingly start their journey inside AI systems – asking tools like ChatGPT to summarise vendors, recommend solutions, or explain complex categories. These systems don’t present ten links; they present one synthesised answer.
This creates a fundamental shift:
- Discovery is no longer driven by rankings, but by AI references
- Traffic is no longer the primary signal of influence
- Brand perception is shaped before a buyer ever reaches your website
In this world, traditional SEO alone is not enough
How leading teams are responding
Forward-looking B2B organisations are actively optimising for AI visibility, not just search visibility. At DemandGen, we support this shift using GeoScore – a platform that measures how often and how prominently brands appear in AI-generated answers across commercially relevant prompts.
Instead of asking “Are we ranking?”, the better question becomes:
“When buyers ask AI about our category, are we part of the answer?”
This is the new front line of demand generation.
AI Agents Are Becoming the Revenue Workforce
One of the most important ideas emerging from analyst research is the rise of AI agents – systems that don’t just automate tasks, but take ownership of outcomes.
BCG describes a future in which AI agents qualify leads, personalise outreach, recommend next actions, and continuously optimise performance throughout the sales cycle. In practice, this is already happening.
But the highest-performing organisations aren’t handing control to AI – they’re designing workflows where AI augments human judgement.
From tools to systems
At DemandGen, we architect AI-enabled revenue workflows that connect:
- Intent and behaviour signals
- Automated prospecting and outreach
- Human-led sales engagement
Platforms like Lemlist, CRM systems, and purpose-built AI agents are combined to accelerate speed and relevance – while keeping humans responsible for context, nuance, and relationships.
The goal isn’t automation for its own sake.
The goal is shorter time-to-revenue with higher signal quality.
Metrics Must Evolve with Buyer Behaviour
As discovery shifts into AI systems, measurement must evolve with it.
Clicks, sessions, and even MQLs still matter – but they no longer tell the full story. Many buying decisions are now influenced by off-site, inside AI interfaces you don’t control.
That’s why leading B2B teams are expanding their metrics to include:
- AI brand references
- Share of voice across AI-generated answers
- Visibility on high-intent commercial prompts
Using GeoScore, DemandGen tracks these signals alongside traditional performance metrics to give a more accurate view of brand influence in an AI-driven market.
If your brand isn’t visible where AI is shaping decisions, you’re invisible earlier than you think.
Automation Without Empathy Is a Dead End
As AI accelerates execution, one truth remains unchanged:
B2B buying is still built on trust.
AI can generate content, optimise targeting, and surface insights – but it can’t replace empathy, credibility, or long-term relationships. The organisations succeeding with AI are those investing just as heavily in people, training, and best practices as they are in technology.
At DemandGen, we actively train our teams to use AI tools to:
- Increase speed and efficiency
- Improve relevance and personalisation
- Maintain human tone and judgement
AI becomes a force multiplier – not a substitute for experience.
From Experimentation to Measurable Impact
The difference between AI hype and AI leadership is results.
For one B2B client, DemandGen augmented existing demand generation and paid media strategies with advanced AI-driven audience modelling – including deeper, more strategic use of Meta and LinkedIn’s AI audience capabilities.
By combining:
- AI-powered targeting and optimisation
- Human-led messaging and positioning
- Proven demand generation fundamentals
The campaign delivered a 100% increase in sign-ups, demonstrating what happens when AI is applied strategically – not superficially.
What B2B Leaders Should Do Now
The AI era doesn’t require incremental change – it requires structural rethinking.
For sales and marketing leaders, the priorities are clear:
- Redesign discovery strategies for AI-driven search and recommendations
- Architect AI workflows that connect signals to revenue
- Adopt new metrics that reflect AI-mediated influence
- Upskill teams to use AI responsibly and effectively
- Protect the human layer that builds trust and differentiation
Final Thought
AI isn’t just changing how B2B teams operate – it’s redefining how buyers decide.
The organisations that win won’t be the ones using the most tools, but the ones with the clearest strategy for combining AI, data, and human insight into a single revenue system.
For demand generation leaders, this shift isn’t coming.
It’s already here.
And those who act now will define the next decade of B2B growth.