At this year’s B2B Summit, one thing was clear: The ground has shifted for go-to-market teams.
Leaders know they need to move beyond decades-old practices. AI-enabled buyers are changing how decisions get made. Still, many outdated approaches persist, like impersonal mass emails, MQL obsession, gated content, and siloed teams. These are no longer tenable.
I had the chance to speak with many of my fellow go-to-market (GTM) leaders at Summit about what it will take to move forward. These conversations tended to converge on the force that’s accelerating all of the change: AI.
As Forrester’s CMO, I spend a lot of time thinking about how AI changes marketing and, more importantly, how it should improve the value we deliver to our clients. I took the opportunity at Summit to compare notes with other leaders. Where are they leaning in? Where are they getting stuck?
What I’m Hearing From GTM Leaders
The leaders I spoke with recognize that AI is no longer a side experiment. It’s reshaping how buyers discover, evaluate, and engage. It will also determine how companies differentiate and grow.
To get a quick pulse on AI sentiment and priorities, my colleague Nick Buck surveyed 30 senior GTM leaders at Summit. Nearly nine in 10 (88%) agree or strongly agree that AI’s benefits will outweigh its risks. When asked to rank their most pressing AI‑related initiatives, three clear areas emerged, mirroring what I heard in one‑on‑one conversations.
1. Applying AI to existing workflows
Most teams have started by embedding AI into existing tools and processes, reducing friction, speeding execution, and building confidence, but efficiency alone will not drive transformation.
Purchase and retention decisions hinge on perception. That makes building preference early and across the full buying group critical. It also requires breaking down the divide between brand and demand and ensuring consistent, clear messaging.
The real opportunity is in redesigning work to enable that seamlessness and clarity, and AI makes it possible to rearchitect or eliminate processes entirely. As one leader it simply, “Do not automate what already exists. Remove steps.”
2. Rethinking roles and skills
As workflows change, new roles will follow. But most are still being defined. Leaders are beginning to plan for new capabilities, including:
Marketing engineers who turn intent into execution
AI leaders who manage systems and scale
Governance owners who ensure quality, safety, and reuse
They also recognize that AI will make human skills — curiosity, judgment, systems thinking, and the ability to connect signals and act — more important. Forward-thinking leaders are also considering how AI agents can augment their teams and operate as roles, not tools. This requires focusing on outcomes and not just automation.
3. Experimenting with market-facing AI
For most organizations, AI has not yet changed how they show up in the market. Many organizations are investing in personalization, moving beyond static segments to real-time signals. A few are simplifying messaging so that it performs consistently in AI-driven discovery.
But the most advanced organizations are starting to plan for three audiences at once: humans, buyer agents, and answer engines. That requires more personalized, ungated information, delivered at scale and driven by sharper segmentation and more precise personas.
The Real AI Opportunity
It was clear from my discussions at Summit that most companies are improving internal efficiency. Few are improving customer outcomes — yet. Productivity gains matter, but customer outcomes matter more.
The path forward is clear: Start with the customer, focus on what they are trying to achieve, and make sure that GTM goals are aligned.
This requires shifting from engagement-based metrics like MQLs and marketing-based pipeline, which are weak signals in an AI-driven buying environment. Instead, embrace a return-on-objectives model that ties success directly to business and customer goals.
Breaking Silos To Deliver Value
This work cannot happen in silos. Marketing, sales, product, and customer success must operate as one system that’s aligned around the customer and focused on outcomes. Buyers expect relevant, timely insight wherever they are in their journey. They experience one company, not separate functions.
One simple, initial step stood out at Summit: Build a cross-functional AI council. Create shared ownership, common standards, and clear direction to guide your AI initiatives.
Meeting The AI Moment
GTM leaders are well positioned to drive this change. We own the buyer and customer experience across the lifecycle. We are accountable for growth.
Changing the GTM motion is demanding work. It forces leaders to rethink how they market, sell, and deliver value. For many, this is an entirely new challenge. Forrester can help, from defining your AI strategy to preparing for how roles will change.
The winners will not be the ones that use AI the most. They will be the ones that use it to build trust and create measurable customer value.
