What Factors Are Driving B2B Marketing’s AI Adoption?

By any measure, the hype surrounding AI has reached epic proportions: the valuation of AI-focused stocks is setting records, while search traffic for “AI agents” jumped by over 900% earlier this year. AI is driving endless news headlines and even fueling the punch lines for late-night talk show hosts. It’s everywhere.

The State Of B2B Marketing Adoption

But beneath all the sound and fury, what is driving AI adoption across B2B marketing? How are marketers using AI productively today, and what can early adopters teach us about using AI technologies successfully? To help answer these questions, we surveyed over 1,000 B2B marketing leaders, asking them a range of questions about their approach and progress with adopting AI. Our findings indicate that most organizations have advanced significantly beyond the initial stages of education and exploration, and are now actively experimenting or implementing AI-powered technologies in production across various use cases.

Meet The ‘Leading Adopters’

The marketing organizations leading in AI adoption – those in the top decile based on their progress across fifteen marketing use cases we track – showcase the behaviors that facilitate adoption as well as the gains and the challenges they grapple with. Our analysis reveals that these leaders share several key characteristics:

Align marketing and IT. A distinctive characteristic of leading AI adopters in marketing is a close partnership between marketing and IT. Leading adopters are almost twice as likely to say that the CMO and CIO are strategic partners, compared to lagging adopters (those in the bottom decile judged by the level of use case progress). And they are more likely to have strong processes and ongoing communications between the two departments.
Focus on data-driven operations. A defining characteristic of leading adopters is their focus on data-driven operations and decision-making. For example, 94% of leading adopters report that marketing data is relied upon for significant business decisions as compared to 78% for lagging adopters. Leading adopters also report that data is more trusted and is more readily available to support decision-making.
Invest in foundational AI readiness. Leading adopters have built the necessary foundation to accelerate adoption and a well-governed process to ensure success. They are more likely to guide adoption with AI policies compared to laggards and ensure marketing teams have the necessary training and required skills.

AI Hype Is Real, But So Is The Promise

Our analysis also found that two-thirds of B2B marketing decision-makers believe that genAI is overhyped. Even a majority of the leading adopters share this view. Like so many new technologies, AI’s expectations have been over-inflated by vendors. But that doesn’t mean AI isn’t showing tangible promise. B2B decision makers see the primary driver for AI adoption as efficiency gains, and leading adopters are twice as likely to report working in organizations growing through improved productivity compared to lagging adopters. Their organizations also report higher revenue growth compared to laggards’ organizations.

Marketing stands out as a natural beachhead for AI adoption, and AI is showing clear potential to transform core marketing processes and disrupt traditional ways of working. Forrester clients can read more of our analysis in the full report and schedule a guidance session to explore the findings in further detail.