Today we release our latest research: The 2026 State of AI and B2B Marketing Report - A Sense of Hesitancy Emerges.
Across every area of business, we are seeing the huge impact that AI is having. The narrative around AI is that companies must adopt it or risk being left behind. While there is undoubtedly a certain truth to this narrative in areas where automation and efficiency are key, there are some outstanding questions about the role of AI in B2B marketing - specifically around adoption, limitations, and more strategic use cases.
To try and get some answers to these questions, we conducted a survey of 277 B2B marketing leaders in the UK and Ireland. At a time when there is something of an AI arms race developing, our goal was to get a clearer picture of the role that AI is playing in B2B marketing today. The 3 key themes which we sought clarification around were:
- How AI is being adopted by B2B marketing teams
- The role of AI in B2B marketing strategy
- B2B marketing AI challenges
The survey data confirmed many of our assumptions around increasing AI budget and widespread adoption but also uncovered some surprising results on AI limitations as well as a certain hesitancy around the use of AI for strategic tasks. All in all, we hope you find something of value in our research and it gives you some insight into the latest trends at a time of rapid transformation.
The State of AI and B2B Marketing - Key Findings
Our first port of call was to try and learn more about the ways AI is currently being used by B2B marketing teams. This part of our research put some quantifiable data on many existing trends.
- Marketing Evolution: B2B marketing is an evolving landscape with 63% of B2B marketing leaders believing that AI has significantly impacted marketing and 71% citing an increase in investment in AI for marketing over the next year.
- AI Content Fears: 71% of companies are using AI in their content creation efforts giving rise to fears of sameness and AI slop.
- AI Benefits: Efficiency is the most-cited AI benefit by marketing leaders at 68% followed by personalization at 63%, faster execution at 55%, and cost reduction at 47%. ChatGPT is the most popular AI tool among B2B marketing leaders leading the way with 34%.
Secondly, we wanted to learn more about AI’s role in B2B marketing strategy. Here a sense of hesitancy emerged around the more strategic use cases.
- AI for Execution: 56% of B2B marketing leaders see the most value in AI in terms of tactical execution.
- AI for Productivity: 78% of B2B marketing leaders describe the role of AI in their marketing organization as either a productivity assistant or tactical execution engine.
- Lack of Trust: There are certain areas of B2B marketing strategy that are still considered out of bounds for AI with only 6% of respondents trusting AI to contribute to positioning.
- AI and Strategy: Doubts remain about the role of AI in B2B marketing strategy with only 44% of respondents expressing confidence in AI for supporting strategic decisions.
Finally, we delved into the AI challenges B2B marketing teams are facing today with questionable AI output and strategic limitations emerging as recurring themes.
- AI Errors: In a surprise to absolutely nobody, 88% of respondents stated that AI output still requires significant human correction.
- Strategic Limitations: The most-cited AI limitation by B2B marketing leaders is strategic thinking at 57% followed by creativity at 44% and accuracy at 39%.
If you would like to read the report in full you can access it here. If you have a marketing challenge you are looking for support with, feel free to reach out today - we’d love to talk with you about what you’re trying to achieve with your B2B marketing and how we might be able to help.