Generative AI has captured the attention of B2B marketers like nothing else in recent memory. But don’t expect anything about AI to remain the same for long. Major disruptions and challenges are coming that will reshape how marketers use AI and create content, says Tamara Prewitt, a marketing leadership consultant and the latest guest on Tendo’s podcast, The B2B Content Experience.
In this episode, “AI’s Influence on Marketers and Content Creators,” Prewitt lays out her top AI predictions for how this technology will disrupt B2B marketing in the next several years, as well as the challenges that need to be solved.
AI Predictions for B2B Marketers
- AI access to content will change. Large language models scrape the web to generate their training data sets. But content creators are beginning to raise objections. It’s their content being used. Prewitt says this copyright issue needs to be resolved. But what that resolution looks like—and if or how content creators will be compensated—remains to be seen.
- AI will continue to assist, but not replace, humans. Generative AI is still just a helpful copywriting aid to produce a rough first draft or to perform research, assembling facts and quotes. “It can speed up content creation, especially for junior marketers,” says Prewitt. But it can’t replace humans, who are still needed to polish copy and add relevance. How much AI copywriting improves in the coming years remains to be seen. Using AI to generate copy gets most of the attention right now. But for Prewitt, “the image creation use case is really fascinating,” and perhaps too overlooked. Marketing teams should explore further how to leverage AI to create custom image and graphics that would normally require extensive work from a graphic designer.
- AI won’t reduce marketing team headcount. Finance departments might expect (and hope) that AI will create enough efficiencies to replace marketing team members and reduce overall marketing budgets. They’re going to be disappointed because it’s not going to happen, says Prewitt, at least anytime soon. AI can certainly increase team productivity, but won’t be taking content creator jobs.
- Get ready to pay more. While generative AI is typically free or low cost at the moment, it won’t stay that way for long. Expect subscription prices to increase, as AI becomes another marketing budget line item.
- AI will completely change search engines and search marketing. Current SEO practices will become obsolete, says Prewitt. “Marketers will have to change what they do to train search engines. It’s going to be a big mental shift in how and why we produce content, and how our websites are designed and developed.” Marketers might not see the same amount of web traffic to their owned properties anymore. And that will make attribution and tracking much more difficult, she adds.
The Tendo Take on AI Predictions
At Tendo we’ve maintained a focused and continuous team dialogue on generative AI over the past year—discussing new uses cases and sharing our own prognostications on how it will reshape B2B marketing. But it’s still early days, and the situation is incredibly fluid. That’s what’s so exciting. And that’s why our mantra for ourselves and all B2B marketers is this: Keep exploring AI and stay open to what’s possible.
More AI Insights and Guidelines
