There’s no doubt that AI is going to be a game changer in marketing. Wharton* suggests that marketing roles rank within the top 20% of occupations that will be most affected by generative AI, while McKinsey** predicts that it could increase marketing productivity by between 5–15%.
In ABM, AI could give us the ability to scale the previously unscalable elements of Strategic ABM across more accounts, while potentially evolving the other types of ABM that have emerged to date. It will be another driver for ABM to continue to reshape the way we do B2B marketing.
Use cases for AI in ABM
Our benchmarking study this year revealed that the most common use cases for AI are around text-based content creation and insight development. These are the top two areas both for current experimentation and plans to adopt in the near future, followed by generative AI for design and creative content creation plus email marketing, and AI for analytics and reporting, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Attitudes to adopting AI tools are mixed
Concerned, curious or confident?
Our research has shown that some ABM-ers are cautious about adopting AI, some are curious and already experimenting, and others are confidently using tools to improve their productivity.
Here are some examples of how each camp is approaching AI.
The concerned:
“We are wary of Deepfakes and being inauthentic.”
“Our company is taking a very legal adverse approach to AI — I’m worried we’ll get left behind as our competitors move ahead.”
The curious:
“There is lots of experimentation in the company with AI and we’re building tools for our own use and for customers. We are automating some of our most common motions (e.g., event registrations and follow-up).”
“We have a group of people figuring it out. We are experimenting with content generation and testing tweaks to campaigns with AI to see if we can save time and get better engagement. Process efficiencies are a focus.”
The confident:
“We are using our own version of ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot plus JasperAI and Descript to make us more efficient.”
“We have tested, piloted and democratised GenAI and are now looking at the whole process from strategy to execution to alleviate specific pain points and improve productivity and workflows.”
Map your way ahead
The ability to collaborate with AI tools will be a core skill for ABM teams to build. As AI agents become more sophisticated, they will effectively become team members, also leveraging other AI tools.
Inflexion Group has partnered with AI&Beyond to develop a series of insights and guides that help ABM-ers use AI ethically and responsibly. This includes a guide to adopting generative AI specifically, setting out an illustrative three-year roadmap, which you might like to use as a starting point for your own thinking as shown in Figure 2 and in this guide.
Figure 2. Illustrative adoption roadmap for generative AI in ABM
Throughout the roadmap, there’s an emphasis on putting ethics first and remaining compliant, and we’ve written more about this in our paper on how to adopt AI ethically and in compliance with the EU AI Act. This includes an AI readiness checklist for you to work through with your teams.
Become AI literate
As our friend @Jaspreet Bindra says, AI won’t replace you, but someone using it will. The key for all ABM-ers is to become AI literate. If you’d like help with this, we’re offering ABM teams bootcamp sessions on AI in ABM with AI&Beyond. Contact us for more information.
Notes
*Felten, E W, Raj, M and Seamans, R (19 April 2023) ‘Occupational Heterogeneity in Exposure to Generative AI’ Wharton Working Paper, Wharton, Pennsylvania.
**Chui, M et al (14 June 2023) ‘The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier,’ McKinsey & Company, New York.
