Once in a While, Marketing Changes Forever

One of the reasons I love working in marketing is that no two years ever feel the same.

Technology evolves, buyer behaviour shifts, new channels emerge. Most of the time those changes are incremental — we adapt, optimise and move on. But every so often, something changes the profession itself.

The emergence of Google search was one of those moments. Marketing automation was another. LinkedIn transformed how B2B organisations built authority and influence. Looking back, each of those shifts feels inevitable. At the time, none of them were.

I believe we’re living through another one now. This time, the catalyst is AI and the way it’s fundamentally changing how buyers research, evaluate and choose suppliers.

Forrester research from late last year revealed that 95% of B2B buyers expect to use generative AI in at least one stage of future purchasing decisions.

That isn’t early-adopter behaviour anymore. It’s a new way of buying.

A Once-in-a-Career Opportunity

Most of a marketing career is spent improving what already exists: better campaigns, better websites, better conversion rates, better customer journeys. That’s important work, but it’s evolutionary and incremental.

Every now and then we get something bigger — a chance to rethink the rules altogether. That’s why this moment feels so energising: marketing suddenly feels deeply creative again.

That raises some genuinely interesting questions. How will buyers discover suppliers in five years? What will trust look like in an AI-assisted world? How do we make sure our organisations stay visible, credible and relevant as buying behaviour keeps evolving?

I don’t have all the answers, but I think one thing is already becoming clear: buyer discovery is shifting from searching for information to asking questions. Instead of working through pages of search results, buyers are increasingly asking AI to understand the market, compare suppliers, and produce a shortlist.

If your organisation isn’t part of the information AI understands and trusts, it becomes much harder to be considered in the first place.

That’s a fundamentally different challenge to simply ranking on page one — and it’s exactly why I find this moment exciting rather than just disruptive.

The Opportunity Isn’t AI. It’s Leadership.

One thing has become clear from almost every conversation I’ve had with Marketing Directors and CMOs over the past year: they don’t need convincing that something significant is happening. Quite the opposite — many have told me they find this moment genuinely inspiring, not because AI is another technology trend, but because opportunities to rethink the rules of marketing don’t come along very often.

What they’re short of isn’t inspiration. It’s confidence: to lead the conversation internally, to build the business case, and to explain why acting today could create advantages that compound for years.

That’s the real challenge. Marketing leaders don’t need convincing that AI search matters. They need help convincing their organisations that acting early matters.

The winners won’t be the organisations that recognised this opportunity first. They’ll be the ones with the conviction to act while everyone else is still building the business case.

History shows that this is where competitive advantage is created.

History Rewards Early, Quiet Investment

One pattern seems to repeat itself whenever buyer behaviour changes. Customers adapt surprisingly quickly. Businesses rarely do. Not because they don’t recognise what’s happening, but because organisational change takes time. Budgets need approving. Priorities compete. Investment cases have to be made.

That’s exactly where competitive advantage is created.

The organisations who invested early in SEO didn’t simply gain better rankings — they accumulated years of authority, expertise and trust that competitors couldn’t easily replicate. The same happened with marketing automation. And again with LinkedIn thought leadership. The same pattern is now beginning to emerge with AI search.

And what’s striking is that buyer behaviour appears to be changing faster than marketing itself.

A recent study from SEMrush found that 45% of marketing leaders cannot accurately measure their brand visibility within AI-generated answers, while only 9% have the tools to track all relevant metrics across platforms.

In other words: most buyers have already moved, and most marketing teams haven’t.

That gap won’t stay open forever — but for now, it’s a rare window where meaningful competitive advantage is still up for grabs, not through shortcuts or gaming algorithms, but through the same principles that have always underpinned exceptional marketing: demonstrating genuine expertise, building authority, helping buyers make better decisions, and earning trust before asking for attention. AI hasn’t changed those fundamentals. It’s amplified their importance.

Why This Matters

I don’t know exactly what AI search will look like in ten years. Nobody does. But some of the most successful marketing strategies of the last twenty years were built by people who recognised change before it became obvious — and I have a feeling we’ll say the same about this moment.

The organisations that benefit most from shifts like this are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets. They’re the ones with the conviction to act while the opportunity is still contestable. That’s the real test this moment presents — not whether we can keep up with AI, but whether we have the conviction to help shape what comes next.

For me, that’s exactly what makes this one of the most exciting moments I’ve experienced in more than twenty years in marketing.

Jennifer Esty, Managing Director, Sharp Ahead

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