B2B leaders have spent much of the past year scrambling to take advantage of genAI technology and find new ways to differentiate themselves. In 2025, the true power of genAI as a growth driver will be tested. Marketing, sales, and product executives’ accountability will intensify as companies turn to these functions to steer their organization’s most impactful genAI initiatives.
Forrester’s 2025 predictions for B2B marketing, sales, and product teams prepare organizations for the good, bad, and even ugly outcomes of trying to generate value from this emerging technology. Here’s what you need to know heading into the new year:
The good: AI coworkers will emerge as valued team members in two out of five organizations.
As AI assistants get smarter, B2B organizations should continue to leverage their growing automation capabilities to help employees do their jobs better. Forrester’s Marketing Survey, 2024, shows that investment in B2B conversation automation solutions will continue to grow, with 64% of global B2B marketing leaders planning to increase spending on the technology in the next year. It’s time for employees to lose the narrative — and the fear — that AI assistants will replace their job, at least for now. Enhanced predictive, conversational, and generative capabilities will evolve AI coworkers into autonomous and adaptable agents. Embrace the good and start leaning on AI to boost productivity.
The bad: Active selling time will decrease by 10% as genAI productivity initiatives backfire.
Organizations will continue to increase their investments in AI in the pursuit of positive ROI. The investments will not all be financial: Adopting genAI technology and adapting to new methods that drive value will initially create more internal work. Sales leaders have pushed sellers to log interactions, a requirement for genAI value, yet pipeline analysis from our activity studies shows that this effort has often failed. The expectation of in-year productivity will lead organizations to restrict hiring, forcing sales teams to work harder. Be prepared to take one step back and focus on getting your data organized. This will enable you to take two steps forward with genAI.
The ugly: CMOs and CSOs will aim to reorganize, but half will fail to fix what ails them.
Organizations are compelled to use transformation projects, change management demands, and AI-driven disruptions to drive growth. With only 12% of marketing leaders in Forrester’s Q4 2023 Demand Marketing Organizational Design And Process Survey believing that their teams’ current organizational design will help them effectively meet revenue targets over the next year, many will attempt a restructure to try to address this lack of competency. But simply moving roles under different titles is a superficial change that does more harm than good. Focus instead on long-overdue shifts: Reset strategy and planning to orient around the customer, fix broken revenue processes, improve operational effectiveness, build stakeholder trust, and enhance talent to blend human and machine skills. Successful companies will shift the skills and competencies required of a role, not just the title.
In 2025, B2B organizations will finally harness the AI advantage. Successful companies will tackle infrastructure challenges and realign resources while also resisting the urge to lay off headcount to satisfy the pressure for financial returns.
Download our complimentary B2B Predictions guide, which covers more of our top predictions for 2025. Find additional complimentary resources, including webinars, on the Predictions 2025 hub.
This post was written by Principal Analyst Seth Marrs and it originally appeared here.
