Podcast Summary: The B2B Buying Experience With AI: What Changes?

The Dave Gerhardt Show
Host: Dave Gerhardt
Date: November 17, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features a vibrant, tactical, and philosophical discussion about how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the B2B buying and marketing experience. Dave welcomes three marketing leaders—Lindsey O'Brien (Predictive), Tom Wentworth (Incident IO), and Aditya Kothadiya (MoEngage)—to share how they’re adapting their strategies, the rise of “unscalable” marketing, content measurement, buying behaviors in the AI era, and why “taste” and authenticity matter more than ever.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Major Shifts in B2B Marketing Strategy Due to AI

• Visibility & Messaging in an AI-Driven World (08:12):

  • Lindsey O'Brien: “We really need to be focused on our clear messaging. It needs to be who we are, what we do, who are for and who we compete against... so that those AI summaries, that AI research is picking up on who we are and what we do.”
  • Marketers need to orchestrate information, not just push promotions, since buyers now do independent AI-driven research before engaging.

• The Importance of Taste (08:59):

  • Tom Wentworth: “Marketing success is dictated by AI adoption times taste squared.”
  • Everyone will eventually access similar AI tools, but unique, hard-to-replicate brand “taste” becomes the differentiator.

• Obsession with Distribution (09:53):

  • Aditya Kothadiya: “AI literally only gives a shit about where it shows up and how many places it shows up and who's talking about it. Your authority has gone out the window. So like distribution, distribution, distribution... That is all we are obsessed and care about.”
  • Marketers must maximize content distribution and collaborations because authority alone isn’t enough.

2. Tactics That Cut Through the Noise

• Unmeasurable, Unscalable Initiatives (12:35, 13:21):

  • Tom: Ran an $80,000 billboard campaign in San Francisco with unclear immediate ROI, “and I don’t care, because I know my audience lives in San Francisco. They’re commuting into their office every day. They’re gonna see it. I’m 100% convinced of that.”
  • Aditya: Launched a $90K physical book project (“The Customer Engagement Book, Adapt or Die”), sent 800 copies, and eventually attributed nearly $5M in pipeline. “...we had to get the buy in to do the unmeasurable thing so we could actually measure later.” (14:20)

• Team Morale as a KPI (14:39):

  • Lindsey: “One that people don’t measure enough... is team morale. Does that new workflow or tool make your team happier? Are they doing more of the things that excite them?”
  • AI might bring efficiency, but human factors like passion and retention can't be overlooked.

3. Gaining Buy-In for “Brave” Marketing Bets

• Customer Validation Before Internal Buy-In (16:47):

  • Aditya: “Before we do any campaign... Be obsessed with your customer and their problems. I ask them, ‘Have you talked to any prospects or customers?’ and we started building a base of 15 people I can text... ‘Would this get you to take a meeting, or tell someone else to attend?’”

• AI for Future-Proofing (18:45):

  • Lindsey: “Use AI as a strategic counterpart... pressure testing the things you're giving it. And... doing AI impact assessments: What does your customer’s role look like in the next 12 to 18 months?”

• Strategic Company Alignment (20:01):

  • Tom: “The company needs to be AI at the core or they’re going to be irrelevant in the next five years. And the CEO has to be willing to do the kinds of things that break through the noise.”

4. The Funnel: Dead or Alive?

• From Funnels to Journeys (22:56):

  • Aditya: “I think there is a funnel, but there isn’t. People have to start thinking about how you would buy products... It’s not a funnel, but just the journey.”
  • Focus shifts to meeting buyers wherever they are, not funneling through rigid stages.

• Internal Usefulness as a Planning Tool (24:54):

  • Lindsey: “Those stages are helpful when communicating internally... but more of the engagement... We use AI to figure out what the scoring model looks like.”

5. Marketer’s Playbook: Outdated vs. Modern Tactics

• Website Optimization & Gating Content (25:56):

  • Tom: “I used to work in a company that pioneered website optimization... But now? I haven’t thought about it in 10 years. The lift is never the percent gains that you get.”
  • Lindsey: “Gating everything is... out. Now we’re in a very much give information as freely as possible so we can educate the buyer as much as possible in our favor...”

• Lead Quality vs. Quantity (33:49):

  • Dave: “These are not leads. These are called ‘contacts.’”
  • Aditya: “Sales doesn’t get any leads... until they literally have hit ‘demo request’.”

6. AI’s Impact on Team Structure & Tools

• Smaller, More Generalist Teams (35:05):

  • Lindsey: “One person using AI performed as well as human-only teams, but two people using AI outperformed everyone... people are going to be more generalist and can be empowered to do more.”

• Selective AI Adoption (38:06):

  • Aditya: “Honestly, I have bought one AI product in the last 12 months... everything comes out to my favorite AI chat buddy, Gemini or ChatGPT.”
  • Tom: Uses Clay and Zapier for process automation and Gong call transcript insights, with little need for bespoke AI products.

• Agentic Automation (39:00):

  • Tom: “Every time a Gong call happens, about 10 agents fire... sales reps have to use Medpic... All the Medpic stuff, we have an agent that just reads that call transcript, pulls out all the pieces, and dumps it into Salesforce.”

7. Authenticity vs. AI-Generated Content

• AI for Efficiency, Not Creativity (50:52, 51:46):

  • Tom: “The most AI proof job is a great designer who’s creative... We put care into everything we do. Our billboard—we obsessed over it, every pixel, every word.”
  • Panel: Universal rejection of fully AI-generated avatars or videos in favor of real actors, authentic voice, and design.

• Trust and Authenticity (53:22):

  • Aditya: “To have trust, it’s got to look authentic, it’s got to look like I can relate to you... Sora is fun to post on LinkedIn, but would they really take me seriously if I put a Sora of myself promoting this brand?”

8. Measuring Content in a Post-Attribution World

• Ranking Over Traffic, Distribution Over Authority (57:47):
  • Aditya: “In this new day and age, rankings matter more than traffic because 60% of searches don’t end up in a click. The rankings matter more because that’s what the reference ability for the AI comes from...”
  • Lindsey: “Distribution, what does it look like in many different forms, and what is the engagement across all of those forms?”

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On AI and Team Structure:
  “People are going to be more generalist and can be empowered to do more, despite their job title.” (Lindsey, 35:05)

• On Unmeasurable Marketing:
  “Can I go to my CFO and say, for this $80,000 billboard, we got $1.3 million in pipeline out of it? No. And I don't care.” (Tom, 12:54)

• On Content Distribution:
  “Distribution, distribution, distribution—everything you do comes down to that.” (Aditya, 09:53)

• On Defining Taste:
  “Taste is when people passionate about the thing look at what you’ve built and say, ‘yeah, this thing is special.’” (Tom, 54:54)

• On the Value of Designers:
  “The most AI proof job is a great designer who's creative. We're so far away from Sora and Nano Banana and all the image generation models being able to do work that stands out.” (Tom, 50:52)

Selected Timestamps for Important Segments

• Episode Theme and Setup — 02:26–06:00
• Panelist Introductions — 06:05–07:35
• AI’s Strategic Impact on Marketing — 08:12–11:06
• Unmeasurable Marketing & Real Campaigns — 12:35–14:39
• Gaining Buy-in for Unorthodox Tactics — 16:47–20:01
• The Funnel: Still Useful? — 22:56–24:54
• Outdated Tactics: Website & Content Gating — 25:56–29:00
• AI & Team Efficiencies — 35:05–38:06
• Which AI Tools Work? — 38:59–40:06
• Authenticity & Creative Resistance to Full AI — 50:11–53:56
• Content Attribution/Measurement Today — 57:47–59:45

Summary & Takeaways

This energetic and candid episode lays bare how today’s best B2B marketers are embracing AI for operational efficiency—freeing up time, enabling leaner teams, and automating grunt work—while doubling down on human taste, creativity, and authentic touchpoints that truly stand out. Success now hinges on:

• Originality and strategic risk-taking (“taste”)
• Obsessive focus on distribution, not just authority
• Letting real customer voices shape campaigns
• Relentlessly aligning internal measurement and buy-in with how buyers actually buy in an AI-enabled world

AI might drive the research, but it’s human creativity and trust that win deals. As Dave puts it, “How to do good marketing in 2026: Be AI to the core, and have the courage to break through the noise.”

For more insights or to connect with the speakers, check them out on LinkedIn or visit exitfive.com.