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AI in B2B: Enough Talk, What’s My Next Action?

The Marketing Association’s recent panel discussion on AI in B2B Marketing moderated by Gavin Gilbert brought together three industry leaders, Doug Johnstone from Digital Pivot, Alaina Luxmoore from Rush Digital, and Tanja Seselj from Fonterra, to discuss how AI is can help B2B marketers. The conversation was rich with practical insights, real-world examples, and a clear call to action: AI is not just a tool, it’s a catalyst for transformation.

AI as a Diagnostic and Strategic Tool

Doug opened with a compelling observation: in times of economic pressure, many B2B businesses suffer from poor product-market fit. “The market is defined not by what you sell, but by customer outcomes,” he said. AI tools like Notebook LM have helped his team diagnose why flagship products weren’t resonating. By analysing customer feedback and market signals, they repositioned their offering and quickly turned around a losing streak into four new deals. As Doug highlighted, brand opens doors, fit makes you relevant, differentiation closes deals. And AI can help you and your sales team articulate this well, and refine your proposition as the market changes.

Alaina echoed this, noting that AI can help marketers with one of her favourite tools being Claude for customer insights (or ethical stalking as she calls it), by utilising fullpage.com to screenshot potential influencers or customers in the purchase journeys websites and LinkedIn profiles you can upload those into Claude and use it to create content thought starters.

Content That Connects: Context Over Volume

All three panellists agreed: AI should not be used to churn out content for content’s sake. Instead, it should help marketers create contextual, valuable content that aligns with the customer journey. Tanja shared how Fonterra uses AI to take mapped customer journeys, compare with their content library and identify gaps. By uploading customer personas and journey data into AI tools, her team can pinpoint where content is over- or under-indexed and adjust accordingly.

Doug added that AI can help “architect content” to answer the specific questions customers are asking at each stage of the buying journey. This is especially important in an era of zero-click search, where traditional SEO strategies are becoming less effective.

Tools of the Trade

Find the biggest pain points in your day as a marketer and then find the right tool to help remove them e.g. using AI to transcribe and summarise customer interviews speeds up the insight to action process.

Some of the panels favourite tools include:

  • Notebook LM – For deep research and conversational exploration of topics.
  • Perplexity – A powerful AI search engine that summarises insights across sources.
  • Claude – Ideal for customer research, content generation, and privacy-conscious workflows.
  • Napkin.ai – A favourite for quickly generating branded presentations and prototypes.
  • Vibecoding – Great for building MVPs and proof-of-concept tools.

Change Management: AI is a People Project

A recurring theme was that AI adoption is not a tech project—it’s a people project. Doug stressed that 70% of digital transformation projects fail due to lack of top-down commitment. To succeed, organisations must:

  • Create urgency by showing what competitors are doing.
  • Build a coalition of champions across the business.
  • Form a clear vision that positions AI as an enabler, not a threat.
  • Communicate relentlessly and celebrate quick wins.
  • Anchor AI into the culture, not just the tech stack.

Tanja added that fostering a learning culture is essential. Teams need time and space to experiment, fail, and grow. “Slow down to speed up,” she advised.

The Human Element: Prompt Engineering and Mentorship

While AI can automate the busy work, it’s the human input: wisdom, lived experience, and creativity, that makes it powerful. Prompt engineering was identified as a critical skill. As Doug put it, “Prompt engineering is how you inject your IP into the machine.”

There was also concern about the impact of AI on junior roles. With hiring slowing, panellists urged businesses to design internships and mentorship programmes that ensure graduates still gain exposure and experience. AI should free up senior marketers to coach and develop the next generation.

Final Thoughts

To overcome resistance, the panel encouraged marketers to “show, don’t tell.” Sit with sceptical stakeholders, walk them through the tools, and demonstrate the value. AI is not here to replace people, it’s here to amplify their impact.

As the tools evolve rapidly, the key is to stay agile, experiment often, and keep the customer at the centre of every decision. Embrace AI for the work that is busy work and give yourself time to do the thinking and be strategic.

Source: PJ Morris, 10 Oct 2025