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Key to success for B2B brands in the age of AI? Authentic creativity

Key to success for B2B brands in the age of AI? Authentic creativity
Opinion

In the wake of AI-generated content, buyers are hankering for authenticity and B2B brands need to lean in to this if they want to stay ahead.


B2B brands have had to adapt to AI’s potential faster than most.

A 2023 Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study found that 90% of B2B leaders in sales, marketing and services considered generative AI crucial to their processes.

AI-driven efficiencies have since reduced costs, boosted productivity and generated revenue, making machine learning an essential differentiator in competitive markets.

While AI has streamlined operations, some brands have experimented with AI-generated marketing content.

BCG reported that 66% of brands outsourced content creation to AI — but the results have been mixed.

Although AI facilitates large-scale content production, the question remains: should brands rely on AI-generated content if it lacks brand distinction or genuine value?

Time to evolve

Overwhelming customers with repetitive, generic messaging causes confusion and diminishes differentiation. When competitors use the same AI tools, how does a brand stand out?

The result is purchase paralysis, with B2B customers struggling to make confident decisions.

And to add to the complexity, business decision-making has evolved. A Forrester report in April 2025 revealed that top-down decision-making is increasingly obsolete.

Today, business purchases are shaped by “buying networks” — a diverse group of internal stakeholders and external sources, including providers, customers, influencers, partners and even AI agents.

Instead of relying solely on sales brochures and vendor discussions, buyers consult WhatsApp groups, Slack channels, industry newsletters, search engines, social media, subreddits and AI chatbots.

Brand loyalty in B2B remains fragile, often dictated by tools that deliver the right results at the right price. Traditionally a lower-funnel, performance-driven lead-generation channel, B2B marketing has seen a shift.

A December 2024 Dentsu study found that “raising brand awareness/top-of-funnel performance” had become the top strategic priority — up from sixth place in 2021.

For B2B marketers, this shift disrupts traditional strategies. It’s not that conventional methods no longer work — they are now just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

To influence today’s multi-layered buying networks, brands must build confidence among informed customers who seek expertise and validation. In a world inundated with AI-generated ads and content, buyers crave authenticity and depth.

They don’t want generic, auto-generated materials; they need insightful, expert-driven content that proves its value and strengthens their decision-making within their networks.

As far back as 2013, marketers knew that they operated in a fragmented media and social landscape, with Harvard Business Review highlighting that “people are the new channel“, encouraging brands to treat everyone as an extension of their marketing teams: employees, partners and even customers.

B2B brands operating in an age of automation and AI-generated content need to remember that it is always about people.

How do you provide them with an experience that is valuable to them? How do you answer their pressing concerns, pain points and build trust among your customers and their wider network of authority, which influences their buying decisions?

Authentic creativity is the differentiator

To meet these expectations, brands must embrace authentic creativity — an approach that prioritises original, well-researched and insightful content tailored to industry challenges.

Good content marketers have always sought to address customer pain points, but AI’s ability to churn out semi-decent content means that traditional methods (eg. ebooks for lead generation) no longer suffice on their own.

For ambitious brands aiming to influence entire B2B networks, the bar is higher.

AI automation demands a shift towards content that is both analytically sound and deeply human.

To succeed, brands must integrate human-centric storytelling into AI-powered strategies. Think of brand content as a knowledgeable contributor within decision-making networks, offering support rather than aggressively pushing sales messages.

How can a brand increase its perceived authenticity?

With the bar so high, penetration and cut-through are harder to achieve than ever before. Relying solely on your in-house content team, trusty SEO copywriter or even publisher partner is unlikely to deliver the unique, all-encompassing results your customers are looking for.

Brands need more.

More content ideas, more marketing initiatives, more human-centric, creative ideas that feel real and authentic to your customer base.

And to achieve those ideas and opportunities, you need more people — but not just anyone. Real creatives and real journalists, who are subject-matter experts.

By leveraging independent subject matter experts — journalists, researchers, academics and industry influencers — to craft unique, authoritative content that resonates, brands are empowered.

And because the content is created by engaged experts, the ability to create real human connections on the back of this content grows; webinars, live events, conferences, meet-ups and roundtables that have real opinions and real debates, and do not come across as self-serving corporate dirge.

What would you rather attend?

A meet-up hosted by a leading independent journalist and thought leader, who naturally has a sense of story and knows how to answer customer pain points? Or a corporate bore-fest that is a thinly veiled sales pitch?

As Ear to the Ground chief innovation officer Owen Laverty succinctly put it: “Your customers want stories, journeys and values they can believe in.

“The brands that will win in the next cycle are the ones brave enough to play the long game — to invest in relationships and let talent grow into ambassadors, not assets.”


 Jack Gillespie is founder and managing director of Loomify

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